I run hills anytime I really have to think.
I run them over and over and over again, churning my challenge around in my mind, the way an oyster turns a messy clot of sand into a shiny white pearl. I usually end up with some sort of resolution or decision, peace with the question or situation, or at least I am worn out enough that the sting in my lungs and legs distracts me from the other sting. Regardless, I head home a better girl.
Today I really had to think, so I found my favorite climb on Mountain Drive and hit it. Hard. My sand blob this week is something akin to disappointment, if there were a word that was several degrees softer. It’s easy to think that disappointment is about someone or something else. It’s easy to find ways to blame or be pissed or sassy. Hence my hills, no easy way out, I really had to think this one through.
When I find a pattern in my life, a rut my tire keeps getting stuck in, my wise brother always reminds me to look for my part. The only traction I can really get is with my own wheels. Disappointment is a sticky one, because no one can steal contentment, joy, gratitude, or peace—we have to give it away. After four hills, I decided to stop doing that. On hill seven I decided that disappointment’s creepy best friend is expectation. And that took the air (what little I had) right out of me.
I decided that I didn’t want to play with them anymore.
If the sand is disappointment, the pearl is somehow learning to better manage expectation. This is my part, my rut, my stuck tire. I think, as most of us do, I put such high expectations on myself that this spills over onto other people. And not everyone is wired this way. Some people can shrug expectations off their shoulders like a cardigan, remaining cool and breezy. Others wear them like a parka with a stuck zipper, hot and stifling.
Wisdom comes from age and experience, learning and loving over the course of a lifetime. If we’re lucky, we have a handful (or a few fingers) to count the people we can count on. The people whom we can hand a piece of our heart or a grant a glimpse into our soul, and they have reverence, tenderness, and fierce loyalty. These people are pearls, rare, priceless, shining.
On hill number 10, I thought some more about my part. And came up with the idea that just like running hills, the only thing I can work on is myself…loosening the zipper on expectations and spending my time and energy on being a pearl for those who count on me.
Kristin Armstrong is a mother, a writer, and a runner. She has written six books, including her latest, Mile Markers: The 26.2 Most Important Reasons Why Women Run.
