Identity

Today I heard words that no runner ever wants to hear.

“It looks like a stress fracture.” 

Ugh. 

I feel frustrated and disappointed, not to mention the excruciating pain in my foot.  For so many months I have been running, training, preparing for a race that may never come.  I look at the hours spent, the hundreds of miles run, and aches and pains fought through and find myself here. . . just short of the finish line.

Arg.

Check out my new kicks. . . or kick, I suppose. . .

. . . pretty fancy, eh?

Seriously, though, this is not my first injury.  It kind of comes with the territory.  I’ve had more stress fractures than I care to admit.  What is truly frustrating is that I find myself dealing with the same insecurities that have accompanied almost every injury before this one.

Oh, it is subtle.  So very subtle.  It creeps into my subconscious like a snake slithers through a tall grassy meadow.  It sneaks into my insides and begins to eat away at the very soul of who I am.  It taunts me and teases me without my awareness.  I am its prey and it attacks with the vengeance of a Momma Bear protecting her cubs.  What is “it”, you ask?  Just a few simple words. . .

If you’re not a runner, then who are you?

Yep.  Another confession.  It seems crazy to even write it out.  The reality that if I am not running I am somehow “less than” I’m supposed to be. . . less than I could be or simply “less than”.  That somehow, if I am sidelined I have lost my sense of self.  How did my identity get so wrapped up in one thing that I do rather than culmination of the many parts of me?

I have spent this day battling these thoughts, processing these ideas and fighting through tears of frustration.  I want to do it different this time.  I want to fight “it”.  And so on this day, not knowing if I’ll be running next week or next month, I’m choosing to be thankful that I am a woman.  And it was the following words by Maya Angelou that pummeled me like ice cold water being poured over my head: 

How beautifully simple.