Commitment

This isn't actually a Valentine's Day post.  Yes, it's awesome for couples to commit to each other and celebrate their love year after year...hopefully, that love is growing deeper and as each year passes, you're even more of a team than you were in prior years.  Jack and I celebrated our V-Day with mass, filets on the grill, and a quiet, reflective evening in front of the fireplace.  We've discovered a band in the last few years, called "Milk Carton Kids" and make chill, folksy, slow-cadence music that slows even the craziest person's pulse.  

It's been the Milk Carton Kids' Valentine's weekend.  With Paper Kites.  I'm committed to lower blood pressure. 

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Last week, I signed up for my first 8K with a colleague of mine from work and church.  I recently signed up for the Mini-marathon in Indy, a 13.1 mile race that takes you around the Indy 500 track.  We're planning on "walnning" the race, neither of us having enough time to prepare for running 13 miles.  But this race has been on my bucket list for years now.  What's the delay?  What's the hesitance I've had? I think the fear of public embarrassment has a lot to do with it...but I got to thinking, what's the worst possible outcome?  Apart from tripping and breaking my chin or something, it's probably a disqualification, not finishing the race, and having that recorded for perpetuity on the race's timing website.  

So that's the worst possible outcome?  That some random person googling me sees I didn't complete the Mini?  Boo hoo, at least I tried.  

Races are high-stakes for me...I'm not awesome at failure.  I want to make sure, that if I sign up for a race, I'm going to at least finish in the middle of the pack.  This time, I just want to finish.  If I have to crawl across the finish line, I'm doing it.  I'm earning that race t-shirt, dammit.  

Next weekend's 5-miler will be good practice for not tripping and breaking my chin.

Despite my shoulder injury, I have been faithful to my workout schedule.  This thing the kids are talking about, consistency, happens to work.  Who knew?  All it takes is a bit of commitment.

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Something else I've been percolating lately is a quote I recently read on surrender: "Everything will be okay as soon as you decide everything is okay."  Or something like that.  It spoke to me because we have so much power to decide that things really are okay.  That you're exactly where you're supposed to be and your life is progressing exactly how it should.  Not that we're predestined but God does ask that we let the heck go already.  If we won't or can't let go, are we really people of faith?  

I'm not throwing stones here; obviously, it's something with which I struggle.  That if I were doing more, loving better, making even better use of my time, that I would be somewhere else, be someone else.  

Commitment usually entails a dedication or re-dedication of self.  But one can commit to letting go, embracing the idea that we're not really in control of anything and that our lives will unfold as they will.  

Just gotta trust.

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My reflection here reminds me that the biggest obstacle in my achievements is usually me.  I've held myself back from racing for the last few years because I'm not fast enough yet.  I've held myself back from the doctorate because I just didn't feel smart enough or deserving to reach a terminal degree.  I try to check off a bucket list item each year; last year, it was the Assisi pilgrimage in Italy.  This year, it's going to be that mini-marathon and starting of my PhD.  

Everything will be okay as soon as I decide everything's okay.  I can commit to that.