It'll be okay

Sometimes the simplest words can heal us. I have been searching for the right words, well, for nearly a week. Words strong enough to heal physical pains and restore emotions long since drained. I've been writing and running as I could, but not sharing. I apologize to so many of you for that selfishness. I have needed some time for my own thoughts to gather, for my own strength to grow. I ran, and I run, and I will run again tomorrow and it will continue to save me. When the words can't leave my head, my feet can clear a path.

I am coming to terms with the simplest fact that I won the battle, but not yet the war. I have treatments to go through, some surgeries up ahead, and long drawn out fight with my lymphatic system. And now that I'm done letting it beat me, I am prepared to beat it. I am grateful for what running has given me. I am grateful for the one arm that is still typing today, the strong pain tolerance I have developed from the sharp rocks on the road, the simplest serenity of my meditation, the unending love of soul mates, and the unhinged power of a run that finally allows my words to flow onto the page.

It'll be okay. Everyone has told me this, over and over again, and now I'm telling you. I know... It seems  hollow at first.  I even cry that it's not, and that we don't know, and that it is so very unfair. It'll be okay. It'll be okay. It'll all be alright. I just want to scream.... But after a few days, those words start to fill with love and I start to resent them less. A few more days and the words begin to fill with hope, even faith, and I crave that reassurance. And finally, like today, those words begin overflowing; they become unending. And once that happens, I realize I am lost without them. It may not seem like much, but it is the job of the people that love us to tell us it'll be okay. It's so very important, even in the moment we may hate you for it.

It's all that is needed in the end of the day, and even in the end of the journey. Simply the compassion to  know that it's okay, and the bravery to remind us... reminding us until we are so drenched by the thought that we become it.

It'll be okay. I'll do this again. This time, I enter stronger and healthier in every other way. This time, with a doctor who understands that reducing my miles is rest. And that rest is only for the weary, not necessarily the tired. This time, enduring with the power of hundreds of people running with me, running for me, and running beside me.

Thanks to my fancy new shoes, my duct taped old ones, my favorite new doctor, my cranky old doctor,  my painfully chilly fall mornings on the road, and the snowbound runs ahead, I am telling the statistics to suck it. I'm not afraid. I'm better than the anger. And I'm back.

Sunrise-run suckers... catch me if you can.

In sheer will,

Beth