Runs Gone By…

In our old neighborhood, I had gone for about ten thousand runs…maybe more. I had all the different routes tracked. I could anticipate every turn, every house, and in some cases every bit of landscaping. In my years of running around our old neighborhood, I had a “go to” mix I would listen to.

Today I ran in our new neighborhood. Since we moved in the middle of winter, my running experience has been mostly confined to a few family runs sans mix. This time, however, I ran with my mix again. There were songs that played and I could visualize where in my old neighborhood I would be passing during that song. And of course it caused me to reflect…

As the run started, I felt slightly depressed. I had such fond memories of running past our old lake. I remembered running to a particular song and contemplating this very move. It was actually an “aha” moment. After that run I realized that although it was a tremendous risk, we had to move our life forward and that meant taking a leap faith.

As I continued to run, I started to feel invigorated. How many times do you commit yourself to a decision that has reaped such a positive outcome. We are in our great home, we have transformed it from what it once was and I’m still here to talk about it. (For Jewish neurotic freaks like me there is for surely a kehenahora knock on wood that needs to be inserted here!) And suddenly I found these familiar songs playing while taking new foreign twists and turns.

I found myself at a new park, with new people. I passed baseball fields that I could almost envision Drew playing at. I saw soccer fields that I could almost imagine Gabby running through. Low and behold, I remembered that this is now a community that I plan on growing with and that was exhilarating.

For so long in our old community, I knew that it was not the place for us long term. Therefore, there was something so unsettling about being “stuck” there. But there was also something to comforting in the familiarity of it. And when my run started, I was feeling overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity of this area. Once I embraced the excitement of the uncharted territory, I became so energized by the possibilities.

On the heels of our walk through with our tenants, I realized that, per usual, I over thought it. The place looked great and everything seemed fine. Yes, they had made changes but they made changes to a place I used to live. The changes they made had no effect on my memories or on my family.

I’m so happy with where I am. If I learned nothing from this run, it’s that I need to make a new mix 🙂