From there to here

The woman who started this blog nearly 10 years ago would not recognize the woman I am today or the lifestyle that I am living. Ten years ago I was about to start graduate school, I was unhappy at work, we were living in New Jersey, I was running fast (I wish I didn’t take that speed for granted!), and I was at the beginning of my coaching career. At present, my life is nothing like this at all. It’s so very far of the course I had set out to take, and I never saw any of it coming. I had big dreams, lots of goals, and I was so stubbornly determined. Things change. I was fighting so hard for so many things that were never meant to be mine. I was fighting so hard for a life I wasn’t destined to live. I learned [the hard way] that sometimes no matter how much you try, no matter what you sacrifice, no matter how committed you are to something, it just isn’t your fate. It’s okay to let go. It’s okay to be burnt out from exerting so much effort and never achieving the desired outcome. I resigned myself to the present and willingly started to follow the wide open path of possibilities in front of me. I accepted that things will be different than I imagined. I accepted that what I wanted isn’t meant for me in the way I wished it were. For years I was making my own path and it was overgrown with thorns and holes and I never got to the other side unscathed. It hurt. I often felt worthless and undeserving of being happy because the world beat me up so much in pursuit of my dreams and my goals. I’d love to tell you that one day I woke up and everything was easier or more peaceful, but that isn’t how it happened. Slowly, things started to change. I didn’t even realize that I was leaving that incarnation of myself behind. It was a painfully slow process of letting go of the things I was holding onto with a death grip.

It got easier to let go each time I had to do it. When I stopped holding onto what I wanted my life to be like so tightly I saw more opportunities and found more peace. What is meant for me started coming to me in uncomplicated, stress-free ways. Though I am far off the course I had mapped out for myself, and my life doesn’t look like I dreamed it would, it is a different variation of what I wanted.

I didn’t set out to be a stay at home parent. My daughter’s health complications profoundly impacted that decision. I couldn’t leave her and there was so much to overcome. We had a really rough time. I didn’t intend to quit a job I loved; I cried for days when I made that choice. I didn’t intend to quit coaching at the college level. I didn’t intend to stop going to the gym. I didn’t intend to stop blogging. I didn’t intend to overtrain and get injured. I had no idea we would build a home gym in our back yard, but now Phil and I can workout together again. I never thought I would have the opportunity to coach closer to home at one of the local high schools. This has been a perfect fit. I didn’t plan to go back to work at the same job I quit [very part time]. This filled a huge void in my life. I never imagined that I’d spend my days at parks, the library, sitting in the creek, drinking coffee while my daughter drinks hot chocolate or chocolate milk, and reading so many books. I love to read. I have more time, and yet I have less time in very different ways than before.

From there to here, so much has happened in between. Time is passing slowly. Time is passing quickly. Everything is a very vivid blur of change. Day to day nothing stays the same. It is happening so slowly that I do not notice until it has transformed into something I no longer recognize. The in between is full of potential thorns and opportunities. The in between got me from there to here.