I've been sitting, staring at the nice day outside feeling like I've broken the law. To be fair, I've taken two walks today, but had this been a normal day, I would have gone for a run, done some gardening and taken the kids to a park. But I still don't feel good and I'm getting impatient. I gave myself three recovery days. Now, I should be back to the program. My body, resolutely disagrees.
My body is the hardest thing for me to be patient with. Perhaps this is because my body is the one thing that is fully in my control. I can't control my kid's meltdowns and so I learn to accept and wait through them. I can't control traffic or the weather or a global pandemic. And so my response is to breathe and find beauty in the moment given me. Or at least to connect to the positive thing I can offer. I always joke that rush hour means I'm going to my own personal jazz club.
But my body. That's different.
I sucked at sports as a kid. Like bad. There was the kid picked last, then... far far after that, there was me.
But my family was into sports and I was always in something - softball, track, basketball. I figured if I kept practicing, kept playing, eventually I might not be the worst player on the team.
So I worked my tail off. I went to practice. I practiced in the yard. I tried. I felt terrible and I kept pushing. I never got good. I never really even got better.
My health wasn't great in my twenties. I think grad school does that to people.
But when I got married at 27, I had a calm life, a decent job and a best friend so it was time to give a shot at improving my health.
My husband challenged me to run a 5k with him. That was father than I had ever run. Father than I had ever considered running. But I thought I would humor him. I ran a block and my asthma flared and I threw up. But I did it again the next day and the next day after that. I ran a little farther each day. I made it to the 5k and then I did 10. Then I did a short triathlon. Turns out I was a runner, but not until I've gone at least 2 miles. I'm a distance person. That made sense. Distance comes from not giving up and eventually you get amazing endorphins.
Then came kids and a startup and the pressure of life. I didn't want to lose my health good health, so I kept running.
Life was hard then. I got up at 4 and went to work with a baby in tow. I didn't sleep for like a decade, but I always found a way to sneak in runs where I could. And generally, my body stayed healthy.
Except there were strange things that didn't make sense. My blood oxygen levels randomly dipped. Sometimes I'd be running then not be able to breathe. I lost my voice for weeks at a time. I coughed like I had TB. But I kept running and kept fighting for breath and finally in 2017 I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that connected the dots.
But all that effort did matter. All the running had really helped my lungs and body have a higher starting baseline. Gave me more wiggle room. But, there's this hard new world of negotiating with my body and trying to understand when pushing through discomfort is helpful and when it is harmful.
This "maybe" makes it hard to be patient. Because in some circumstances, maybe it's best for me to not be patient.
In faith, we have many areas of maybe - where maybe we should be patient and maybe we shouldn't. Even looking at Jesus we see tremendous patience on one hand and resolve to act, whatever the cost, on the other.
God grant me the serenity accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
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