Running Shoes

October 8, 2023

This has been the best week yet! I truly am loving it here!! But sometimes it's hard to be so far away from home. I have had some incredible conversations both with friends from here and friends from home. Because of the deep conversations, I have been thinking lots, so this post is going to be a little different.

The best advice I’ve ever received was from my amazing friend Danielle: A lot of times, you get to choose your hard. Of course, sometimes things are thrown your way, and there’s nothing you can do but lean in, consider it joy when you face various trials, and persevere. But many times you do get to choose your hard: It’s hard to get up and go on a run, but it’s also hard to sit on the couch feeling antsy and anxious, or insecure in your own skin. It’s hard to quit your job, but it’s also hard wondering what would happen if you chased your dreams. It’s hard to do your dishes, but it’s also hard to live in a messy house. You get to choose which hard you lean into.

This week I bought running shoes. I have a love/hate relationship with running. It’s hard on your mind, it’s hard on your joints… but it’s also so freeing and fun, and I always feel so amazed by what my body is capable of when I’m running. I haven’t been on a run since April 16th—the day of my first half marathon. I ran it with two of my besties, and it was simultaneously the most amazing and the most awful 2 hours and 7 minutes of my life. I have wanted to run half marathon forever, it had been a written goal of mine for years, so it felt great to finally check it off the list—except, as I spent the remainder of the day eating my bodyweight in mandarin oranges and laying on the floor, it hit me that I didn’t have a next thing to start working on.

I struggle to make goals for myself because if things become unattainable or unimportant to me, I am bad at giving myself grace and letting the goals go. So, I rarely make goals, but there are a few that I’ve had for a while: open a coffee shop, learn to ski, become a sommelier, do a pull-up, and run a half marathon. I still can’t do a pull-up, but I’ve been given the opportunity to do everything else! I haven’t really even chased any of these goals, if I'm being honest. I was graciously handed the opportunity to work for Real Life Church and open The Well Coffeehouse; my grandparents gave me ski lessons and a season pass at Mt. Bachelor for Christmas last year; my incredible boss paid for and helped me do the Introductory Sommelier Course & Examination; and my friends gave me the motivation to sign up for a half marathon one week before the race.

The only other goal I had left to accomplish (at that point in time) was to move abroad, and that seemed farfetched. I have wanted to live abroad for as long as I can remember, but the timing was never right—the reason was never right. I wanted to move abroad for a gap year before college because I wanted to look cool. I wanted to move abroad after college because I had a broken heart and didn’t want to be an adult. I wanted to move abroad the year after college because I hated my job. I wanted to move abroad when there was turmoil at the church I was working at because I wanted to run away. I still had the desire to move overseas, but for the first time in my adult life, I was truly content. I loved living in Bend. I had a good job, a steady routine, great friends, and mountains and rivers and the world’s last Blockbuster in my own backyard!

On April 16th, I had a quarter life crisis. On April 17th, I was accepted into a Masters in Sustainable Viticulture and Enology program in Italy. God’s timing is the best.

You get to choose your hard.

The past few weeks I have been homesick. It’s hard to miss big family events like engagements and football games and birthdays! And there’s nothing better than fall in the Pacific Northwest—the pumpkin patches in Snohomish and the trees changing color on the mountain passes and the pumpkin spice lattes. I miss it all! But this week I bought running shoes. So instead of wallowing in homesickness (which is hard), I chose to run... and I was smiling the whole time.

Inspo:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

James 1:2-4

Delight yourself in the Lord,

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21