just keep running. p2.

I made it to prom; I was able to fasten the pink dress. But somewhere between my house and the road, a part of me fell in love with the action of running. Eventually I ventured off of my driveway and onto the undivided blacktop road that still finds it's way in front of my house; my mom worried some more. I remember the first time I ran three miles. The summer before college, I would run a mile and a half, stop at the white cross that was painted on the middle of the road, and say the Prayer of Jabez. That was, until I realized I didn't agree with the prayer of Jabez. Then I just started running past the cross, thanking God for the beautiful morning.

All along, however, I began to develop an extremely unhealthy relationship with food. I had watched my mother struggle with this same horrible struggle my entire life, and I vowed to not end up in her heavy position. I thought beating the problem before it began would be my savior, so I started dividing food into categories very early on. Good foods, foods I could eat, and bad foods, foods I couldn't. And when I veered into bad food territory, my new savior would be running. This dependence on a task to save me from unhealthy behavior built up an incredible amount of resentment toward one of the healthiest things we can do for our bodies. Even though a part of me loved it, if I didn't do it when I knew I "should" I would beat myself up emotionally, and not run for weeks, since I was "failing".

This cycle followed me into college, and reigned supreme my freshman year. College presented new problems of its own. I was suddenly surrounded by so many lovely women that didn't seem to be struggling at all. They seemed to be thin and eat pizza! How could this be?

And this is how the story went, for the next three years. There were bursts of health, when my true love for running took over, but battling my weight reigned supreme, and never let running gain enough of a foothold to set me completely free.

After college, I moved to Florida to live with my brother. Though I loathed the experience, the year, and still nearly loathe the state, I loved the fact that I could run all year long! I could shield myself from the comparing, as I was no longer on a college campus surrounded by beautiful women I would never live up to. I could stay in and eat dairy free pancakes, a recipe I perfected while there, and run whenever I wanted. And though, as I mentioned above, I hated Florida, it was the first time in my life when I realized that the struggle I had been having for so many years, and still had while there, wouldn't always be there. It's the season where I started to be more forgiving toward myself. These were the thoughts swirling around in my head when I would hit the road. It's where I ran my farthest distance up to that point: seven miles. And it's also where I realized that this running, it would be a huge part of my exit from the mess of unhealthiness I had been immersed in for so many years.

Even though I was still fully in the mess, if was the first time I could see the exit, and the only thing I knew to do was to keep running.