Seasons of Change: Find What Feels Good to You

In October of 2012, when I was 32 years old and the mother of three children, I ran a half marathon. Now, I totally get that there are people out there who run half (and full) marathons every day. For me, though, this was huge. I do not come from a family of athletes. My dad grew up on a farm and is an Army veteran; my mom grew up in Philly but ended up loving to ride horses. But running? Nah. Sports? Nah. 

When I was a kid, my PE teachers were, umm...shall we say, less than inspiring. Back in my day (circa late 1990s), we were required to wear gym uniforms. We had these terrible red shorts and these bulky reversible cotton shirts (red on one side; gray on the other) so we could easily divide into teams should the need arise. What do I recall from PE class? An endless monotony of volleyball. I'm talking at least 2 marking periods, maybe more, of playing volleyball. This never-ending volleyball tournament would be interrupted twice a year: once by an obstacle course, and once by "running the mile" for some state requirement. 

I remain too traumatized over the obstacle course to speak much about it here. I'm still working the kinks out in the therapy, but the main gist is that there was this torturous maze of various physical feats, including "climbing the rope" (which is exactly as horrible as it sounds) and those jump-through-wire-traps that reportedly help with something called "agility." The PE teachers would no doubt get together on a Friday night over a few beers as they concocted the most humiliating sequence of activities possible, then they probably set it all up on a Sunday afternoon, fancying themselves doing the Lord's work. Then, on Monday morning, they would present their Rube Goldberg from Hell, expecting us to be excited about it. 

We weren't. 

OK, that's not fair. The Gym Class Heroes were always very excited about the Obstacle Course Unit. They would volunteer to go first -- because here's the thing: Each kid had to go through this contraption of humiliation on their own while EVERYONE ELSE WATCHED. 

Again, I'll talk to my therapist about the rest when I'm ready, but I think you get the idea. 

Next up in the line of torture was "Running the Mile." We did no training, no preparing, no actual instruction on running technique. Nope. It would be a random fall day, and the teacher would announce, "We are going outside the run the mile." And we would be informed of the path to take (we had no track at my little school in the middle of a cornfield), and off we'd go. The Gym Class Heroes loved this day as well. They would be haulin' ass and coming in with crazy times like 5 or 7 minutes while the rest of us would be hoofing it. As we got older, some kids didn't even try to run. They immediately started walking and talking and about 20 minutes later, they'd end up at the finish line. 

We'd do this all over again in the spring to see how much we'd improved. 

So aside from a brief stint on the softball team my senior year (I signed up because one of my best friend's played, and I landed on the JV team), I am decidedly not an athlete. 

Fast forward to working at a high school as an English teacher and meeting some track coaches who were like, "No, really, running is actually pretty fun," and before I knew it, I was hitting the treadmill and learning that, wait. Running is actually pretty fun. No one taught me how to split intervals or how to breathe or how to work my stride. It turned out that running was actually something I enjoyed to do, and it was a huge stress reliever for the life I was living at the time, trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship and having to fake happiness to the public at all times. Running became an escape and something I could focus on, something I could make progress at, something I could control -- while the rest of my world was colliding and falling apart. 

So, I signed up for the Hershey Half -- a race that winds through Hershey Park. Hershey is my maiden name, so it seemed fitting that the cubby girl from high school PE would run 13.1 miles through Hershey Park. 

Lots of stuff has happened since 2012, and for many reasons, I no longer run. I have suffered from lower back, hip, and SI joint pain for several years, and despite lots of PT and plenty of trips to the chiropractor, I have not been able to find a way back to running that doesn't cause a flare-up of pain and inflammation for me. It was actually a pretty sad day when I realized that my season of running needed to come to an end. If someone had told 15-year-old Denise that she'd miss running the mile one day, she would have laughed in their face, but it is true. I miss the long distances, the solitude of the long run, the bruised feet, the toenails falling off. 

Now that I am at the ripe ol' age of 44, though, I now practice yoga. I do a lot of walking in my day job, and I'm typically at 10-12K steps by the time I leave work most days. My cortisol spikes all day long, as I respond to calls for help with students in various stages of distress. The last thing my body and my nervous system needs when I'm done work is more stress. I've found that caring for my body, quieting my spirit, and stretching my limits in poses allows me to complete the stress cycle both mentally and physically. 

I follow a yogi on YouTube who was recommended by a friend about a year ago. Yoga with Adriene combines yoga, meditation, and mindfulness in short, accessible videos. Adriene is based out of Austin, TX, and she creates a monthly, themed calendar and playlist of yoga sessions for people to follow. It completely takes the guesswork out of "which video should I do today?". Each month, I print the calendar out and pin it to my wall. I then put honest-to-goodness stickers on the days that I complete the recommended yoga video, like a kindergartener with a behavior chart. Does it work? You bet your ass it does. 

Disclaimer: I am TOTALLY only sharing my best calendar yet with you, because we can't be transparent on the Internet. What would the Algorithm say? 

In all honesty, some months are better than others. I was nailing it in summer, for obvious reasons (i.e. I'm an educator with a 205-day contract), and November-December looked abysmal. But life is about balance, and I don't beat myself up over it (a quality that has been hard-won, over lots of time). 

Adriene's motto is "Find what feels good," and I take that pretty seriously. Too much of my life has been spent beating up my body, trying to squash genetic realities and meet impossible cultural expectations. I refuse to do any of that any more. (You can read more about that in another post I wrote here.) Instead, for this season of life, I honor my body, I thank her for all that she does for me every single day, and I ask her what she needs. 

I miss the days of running, but just like any other season of life, my gentle, nurturing phase is here, and I am glad.