Finding Myself Again

This past week, I was bopping along on a weekday run down my familiar dirt path, jamming out to the best of Sunny Day Real Estate (hello teenage emo years!) and a realization suddenly dawned on me: I’m ok.

Later that day, a friend asked the standard “How are you?” I answered “I’m doing really well,” and for the first time since probably early last summer, I realized I could answer with that and actually mean it.

I’ve always said that “being happy” is a terrible goal in life: happiness is an emotion, and like all emotions that ebb and flow, it is not a fixed state of being. To be a well-rounded and emotionally healthy individual, humans need to feel and accept a broad range of emotions, including all the tough ones. Happiness in life will come and go, which is normal and to be expected.

It’s no secret that I’ve been dealing the tougher emotions for these past six+ months. Heartbreak and injury combined with anxiety and a crippling flare of my obsessive-compulsive disorder have left me in a functionally dysregulated state pretty much constantly. Add to that turning 40 and experiencing an existential “so what do I do with my life now” crisis and lemme tell ya - it was barrels of fun.

But as I was running along the other morning, a sense of contentment came over me. It wasn’t happiness, but just a feeling of groundedness. Of peace.

Of feeling like myself again.

So what does it mean to “feel like myself again?”

It’s not just being able to run and train and plan for races again. As much as running is part of my life, I’ve learned to decouple myself from it (of course, running always helps!)

But “feeling like myself” is moving through the world with a levity and playfulness (with acknowledgement that there are sometimes still really bad days), with excitement and for the future. It’s feeling like I have a purpose, even if I don’t necessarily have a “plan.” It’s noticing joy, it’s being able to show up for others, it’s not crying myself to sleep at night. It’s being present and engaged and hopeful.

It’s feeling whole as myself and confident that no matter what, I got this. And actually really believing that.

In full honesty, in the past I would only find this place when I was in a stable relationship and excited to plan for the future with a partner. It pains me to admit this, but I’ve always struggled to find it on my own as something always felt incomplete: I would stare into the abyss ahead and wonder what I was doing with myself and my life.

Feeling this while on my own is a new one to me, but I don’t think it’s blind luck or random spontaneous maturation: I took many actions these past six months to build a complete life around me. I started a group in the Front Range for women without children to build that community there and foster new friendships.¹ I leaned into my existing friend network, showing up for others and allowing others to show up for me. I’ve spent more time with family and old friends who ground me to my roots. I’ve tapped into myself through parts work and really embraced pieces of me that I love and adore, even if those are the parts of me that others may find “harder” to understand and appreciate.

There are still really shitty days or weeks, and there always will be in life. I’m going to be the person with the big ups and downs who feels everything so deeply, and I embrace that. I’ll likely face injury again and running will break my heart again, but I can embrace my “injury-prone” body and enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to still race ultras in a way that honors and respects my body and its current limits. I will always love big and grieve hard, and I’m not afraid of that despite how many times it kicks me in the face.

Here I am, complete and whole. Content just because. Excited for things to come, even if I have no idea what they are.

1. for anyone who knows me, putting myself out there like that is a HARD thing for me, so I’m just sitting here being proud of myself dontmindifIdo.