Punctuation

I was never a big fan of English class.  From diagramming sentences in elementary school to required essays about The Scarlet Letter in high school, it always seemed like a big snooze to me.  Perhaps it was because it came easily for me, or perhaps it was because English class always seemed like a vehicle for putting my creativity into a box.  Whatever the reason, it always seemed incomprehensible to me how--especially as my peers and I grew older--some people somehow failed to grasp the basic purpose of all these convoluted assignments: to learn how to convey oneself clearly and intelligently through writing.  For me, it was (and is) simple: the flow of writing should mirror the flow of life.  There is a beginning, a middle, and an end to most events.  There are pauses, interjections, and conclusions.  It was never very hard for me to take the commas, hyphens, and periods of life and translate them onto paper.  Life is, after all, a story.

What we don't realize sometimes is that though we can't always control the events, we can choose how they're told.  We each hold our own pen, so to speak.  Our own interpretation is the one that matters--and everyone has a different take.  It's easy to think of some events as a period, the final condemning dot at the end of a long, seemingly well-thought-out sentence.  It seems to scream "this is the end!"  But is it?  Much of the time, that's up to us.  One person's realism may be another's pessimism, and one individual's optimism can seem like idealism to someone else.  We are each telling our own story, and the multiple perspectives this can create is as amazing as it is frustrating.  "Why," we wonder, "can't people see the truth?"  What we fail to understand is that the "truth" we see is actually only our truth.  Yes, you might see a period in the events unfolding in your life--but somebody else might see a comma, a pause, a "but wait, there's more."  It drives some people--myself included--crazy sometimes to not know what's coming next.  It's the "but what if" syndrome.  The thing is, uncertainty can be a huge pain in the ass, but it can also be a saving grace.  Uncertainty keeps us turning the pages.  It helps us make decisions and take risks.  It helps us live in the moment, and I honestly don't think there's anything more beautiful than that.  I have moments that I return to often and fondly, many of which wouldn't have been possible without a certain degree of uncertainty.

I guess what I'm postulating is that if we can see our lives as stories--stories that are imperfect, subjective, and not finished until the back cover is closed--we can live more richly.  If we can see life's "punctuation" as variable, love those "characters" in our story because and not in spite of their flaws, and realize that our "voice" isn't the only one that exists, then we will be able to not only accept the uncertainty of life but embrace it.  Good stories make us laugh and cry, but don't we love them for both reasons?  I know I do.  I suppose it all comes back to that stubborn period.  You read the sentence, your voice lilting with the words, rising and falling with the expression of good times and bad, finally coming to the conclusion.  Your voice drops, signaling the end.  The crazy thing, though, is this: no matter how firm and blatant that period seems to be, if you add two more dots the meaning changes instantly.  What seemed like the end now seems like a "to be continued..."or a thought left hanging.  Is it "The end." or "The end..."?  Well now, I guess that's up to you.

Resilience

Sometimes in life and in training, things go wrong.  Something that seemed so promising or well-planned can crash and burn unexpectedly, often leaving us stunned and confused in the wreckage.  A bad race at a crucial time, a failed training plan, an injury...whatever it may be, it doesn't matter.  The common denominator is the emotional investment and the feelings of disappointment and sadness following the ill-fated event.  As endurance athletes, we tend to wrap ourselves up in our training and accomplishments, and sometimes when things go wrong it can feel like our whole world has come crashing down.  Even after the initial sting has faded, we still find ourselves asking, "How did I get here?" and "Where do I go now?"

"How did I get here?" can be a more complicated question than it first seems.  As painful as it can be, retracing our steps to find the roots of the problems that caused the downward spiral can teach us much about what went wrong and how to avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future.  Often we put so much of ourselves into our training that it's hard to step back and look at a situation analytically and logically.  I in particular find it hard to escape the "all or nothing" philosophy.  It's so easy to give and give and believe that the more you give, the more you're bound to get out.  And while this can be true much of the time in endurance training, it's important to remember to reserve our "all or nothing" moments for when it truly matters and when this kind of intensity can benefit us rather than hurt us.  If we can step back and take a more distant perspective after a disappointment, sometimes it can help us see things we wouldn't have seen when blinded by our own feelings, plans, and desires.

It's also easy to feel a little lost in the aftermath.  Often we feel confused about what steps to take next, and at times when we look into the future all we can see is a big question mark.  It is at this point that our most important characteristic must take center stage: resilience.  It is the reason we are endurance athletes, the reason why we've come this far, and the reason we've accomplished everything we've ever been proud of.  If I had to define it, I'd say that resilience is the ability to be stronger than the situations around us.  Resilience is having confidence that even if things get turned upside down, we'll still be able to pick up the pieces and start again (and do even bigger and better things).  It's not preparing for the worst all the time--that's pessimism.  It's simply knowing that we can handle whatever life throws at us, and not living in fear.  Sometimes events can change us.  That's just the way of the world.  The key is to change in a positive manner.  Rather than shutting down and closing ourselves off, we need to remember to learn, grow, and mature. A wise friend once told me, "This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last."  As long as we believe in our own resilience, life will go on, and soon what seemed like a crushing blow will only be a blip on the radar.  Life may pack a punch sometimes, but the important thing to remember is...so do we.