Collision

I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I think a lot. The fact that I am sitting down with the very intention of writing out my thoughts, proves that point quite nicely.  As a kid you look ahead at your life stretching before you like a wondrous and magical path, slightly overgrown with colors of every shade bursting forth guiding you forward and you, as the sojourner, love every second of it. It’s like dreams and fantasies are the very fuel which motivates you to get up every day, and go to school or clean your room or empty the trash, because you know, someday you will be living out your dream of blasting in to outer space, or gracing the stages of Broadway with your glorious voice, or traveling the globe meeting all kinds of people without a care in the world.  Or perhaps your dreams were relational; marriage, babies, and friendships.  For you, those times of scrubbing the bathroom floor and conjugating verbs were often filled with wedding dress designs and colors, flowers and bridesmaid styles, rings and china patterns, from there your mind wanders to baby names and how they sound with your crush’s last name. No matter what you spent your time thinking about as a young person, you knew just around the corner your dream would be fulfilled, and you would be satisfied with your life. 

Then life happens.

That magical and wistful path you saw stretching far out in front of you, suddenly turns very grey and a little daunting.  You realize your dreams are not coming true, and some of them may never come true. This new thought, which can come very suddenly for some people, threatens to squelch all the other dreams, and even stop you from moving forward down your now less-than-glorious path of life.  For me, I feel as though I’ve stopped altogether. I’m just a blob of a person curled up in the fetal position on the side of the road, not even on the “path” anymore.  Disappointment, discouragement and failure sap my energy and makes the dreams of my childhood seem faint and out of reach.  I was racing full throttle down the proverbial path of life, eyes so focused on my goal that when a giant boulder turned up in the middle of the road, I was completely blindsided and collided with such force it left me so wounded and bloody, gasping for life- all I can do now is focus on healing before I ever get back up again. 

The other day during my run, I went out at twilight and tripped over the lip of a grate that was sticking up out of the sidewalk.  It took me completely by surprise and I went down, my right knee taking most of the force.  Even through my pants (which luckily did not rip) I sustained a good sized scrape and bruise which bled and hurt and took about 2 weeks to heal completely but has still left a scar. A week before, my friend Sarah had been long boarding at night hit a bump and crashed.  On a long board you go much faster than your typical runner, such as myself, and her left knee got torn up pretty badly- and it is still healing.  My point in all this is to say, the faster your velocity the harder you fall.

Well, I was moving at the speed of light.