And then the tide hit this morning. Wave after wave of stressful events poured over me in a matter of hours and I felt like I was drowning. A broken heater, a sick child that I cannot physically comfort right now, a broken car, a lost badge...
Wait.. breath.. but.. breath… no.. breath.. grrr. Breath..shit.. breath… help…
I thought back to the last mile of the race I ran over the weekend. My ankles and knees were burning. My lungs were on fire from the cold air, gasping for air. I reached into my pouch for one last energy chew and a final swig of water. “You can do this Angie. You’ve trained for this. This is the moment you’ve been working so hard for. Don’t push too hard but keep going. Stretch your legs and fly. You’ve birthed two children. You can do anything you set your mind to. Let go of the pain and run with every ounce of energy you have.” And it worked. I made it across the finish line achieving the goals I had set for myself. Run the whole race and finish 15k under 1:35. (finished in 1:33!!) That snickers bar at the end was the best of my life.
Part of my letting go journey is not freaking out when stressful events happen. Once again I had the gift of watching Che live this out over the weekend. Sunday evening we hit a deer as we were driving with two of his boys on a country road near Drumright. It could have been a horrible accident. But Che was calm and collected and swerved in time so that the deer hit the side of the car instead of the front. He got out to check on things just in time to see another one hit just a few moments later. Thank goodness no one was hurt and my car only has a slight dent on one side. He got back in the car and continued on after making sure everyone was ok. My hands were shaking and the whole thing triggered a sense of dread that we were going to die in a horrible car wreck that night. I looked at him and asked how he could be so calm after that. He just shrugged and looked at me with a smile. But what I sense from him is “No need to stress it. It’s over. Everyone’s ok. So why worry about it now. Let’s just enjoy this moment we’re in now”
Living in the moment is such a freeing experience. It is a gift to ourselves and everyone around us. During the stressful times we do what we have to do to get through them. We accept them, stand up and make the hard choices, push through the resistance, get help when we need it and give everything we have. I think it helps to laugh about how crazy they can be too. Humor always helps. But the real lesson for me here is for the moments after the trial. Take a moment and really enjoy that snickers bar. Smile and laugh and pat yourself on the back for getting through it and then let it go.
I think it's also important to be grateful for the energy chews that get us through the stress. While this weekend was full I had the pleasure of connecting with many friends, and as I've talked about so many times before, connection is my energy source for life. I am grateful to my friend Written for allowing me to shoot the Poetry rally Friday night. Watching the inspiration on Airik's face at his first spoken word event was great and it was an honor to capture the raw emotion that evening. Laughing at Dylan in the haunted forest and seeing how much he trusts and loves his dad made me love them all that much more. Seeing (and hearing over and over) the excitement in Timmy as we approach Halloween and he finally gets to be the dark angel he has talked about for months, Che making me bacon before AND after the race on Saturday. Feeling the love that rests in their home and knowing that soon it will be my home as well. Honest and bold conversation over coffee with my dear friend Heather. And being witness to the love of another imperfect family finding their way the best they can and asking me to capture a few hours of their time. Life really is beautiful.
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