It started out like a Hallmark movie. My old high school friend was having a destination wedding and I was going to be able to collect my first passport stamp. I had never traveled alone and I was nervous that I would end up spending the five days by myself. She lived 500 miles away in New York city and I wasn’t really going to know anyone besides her. But I wanted to push my boundaries. I wanted to start traveling so badly and I didn’t want my being single to stop me from doing it. I figured the wedding would be a good test run for me. So I packed my bag and away I went.
I, however, did not anticipate meeting a guy. Well scratch that. I figured maybe there would be a cute guy there I could flirt with, but I did not plan on meeting someone that I would continue to see after the wedding. I was content being single. So I was really surprised when I met someone and he wanted to continue to talk once we got back home. He, of course, lived in NYC too. It didn’t seem like a good idea. It was the textbook definition of a bad idea. I told myself to live in the moment. Don’t think about the future or the heartbreak that could come. Enjoy the time together and see where it could lead.
The Bliss
Well it led exactly where I had predicted…DISASTER. That is a bit of an exaggeration, but I did get my heartbroken. It was an amazing experience though. For four and a half months I was blissfully happy. We texted every day during that time. I think that made the connection stronger because all we had were our words. It was nice to feel like someone really understood me and was in my corner cheering me on. I was so nervous going to visit him the first time. What sort of responsible adult travels to see someone that they really don’t know?! It was crazy in my book, but pushing those silly boundaries again. I didn’t want fear to dictate my decisions. So i gave all of his contact information to my family and told them to start there if I turned up missing. Responsible adult, remember?
I didn’t have anything to be nervous about though. The first trip was perfect. He showed me the city and gave me so many new first experiences. I went to my first art museum. A big deal for someone who has loved art since a child. When I got to see work by my favorite artist I almost cried. Sounds silly, but i felt like a whole new world was opened to me. Things that I never would have experienced on my own. Maybe that made my attachment to him stronger. I was really trying to be logical about the whole thing. I mean, seriously, how could it possibly work when we were so far apart?
I got sucked into that world regardless of how hard I tried to fight it. When I was there, I didn’t even think about home. I had been to the city when I was in high school and since then I had always said that I wanted to live there. I had always been too scared to try. Now that I knew people though, people who could help me, I started thinking I needed to consider moving. I began looking at a possible career change so I would have more opportunities to find a job there. He helped me look at training so I could develop a new skill set. I wanted to be ready if the opportunity came.
The Heartbreak
I began putting a lot of pressure on myself. My current job wasn’t going well and then add on trying to learn how to do something new so I could move away from everything I knew. I didn’t handle it well. I had unrealistic expectations and felt horrible when I wasn’t meeting them. It put a strain on our “relationship” (we never defined it). Every time we texted I was in a mood. Freaking out about something and expecting him to help me fix it. Not even really help me fix it, more like listen to me whine about it. I had no idea how to achieve this goal. I didn’t even know where to start so I just complained…a lot. Then the day came where he didn’t want to listen to it anymore.
I knew we had been drifting, which in turn made me put even more pressure on myself. It was just too much. Things ended amicably. He said the distance was too much for him. He said he still wanted to help me with my career and at first he did. Three days after the split I found out I had not gotten a job I was waiting to hear about. It crushed me. He was there for me and supported me through it. We still talked every day for a couple weeks. I, however, kept up with my whiny bad attitude. It just pushed him further away until he just didn’t want to talk to me anymore. It hurt. A lot. It’s one thing for someone to support you through the bad times but when every day is a bad time it wears on a person.
I was so unhappy. How did I let myself get to this place? Was I letting my happiness revolve around someone else’s feelings about me? Yep. Was that healthy? Nope. Was I expecting someone else to make me happy? Yep. Is that how it is supposed to work? Nope.
I wallowed in my self-pity for a couple weeks then I was tired of it. Tired of feeling like I’m stuck and not knowing how to get out of it. Nothing causes me more anxiety than feeling helpless. I had to find answers. I had to search Google.
Starting Over
That’s when I stumbled across articles on personal development. Topics on how to better cope with what life throws at us. I started reading up on goal setting and how drastically it can impact your life. It really got me thinking. When do we stop chasing dreams and start waiting on them to come to us? When do we start limiting our abilities? As kids we have big dreams about what we want to be when we grow up. Where does that go? Maybe it’s the idea that you’re supposed to get a stable job and happiness will come. You don’t need to dream anymore once you can successfully pay your bills and live the “American dream”. I finally realized how stagnant I had become. Work, eat, sleep. That had become my life, but it wasn’t the life I wanted. I had bought into the “American dream” but I certainly wasn’t happy. I had things I wanted to do in my life, like travel more, it just never occurred to me that I would have to work towards them.
So I decided I was going to set a goal that really pushed my limits. I remembered, from a few years back, how much I enjoyed challenging myself physically. I literally ran my first mile six years ago at the age of thirty-one and cried when I did it because I genuinely never thought I would be able to do it. As I was scrolling on my phone I came across a half-marathon. It had been something I had talked about doing before but I never committed to it because, you know, effort. It was six months away so I’d have plenty of time to train. My aunt had always wanted to run a half too so I asked her if she wanted to join me. Twenty minutes later we were both signed up and ready to crush our goal. Twenty four hours later we may have been second guessing our decision. Ha!
We don’t regret signing up but the training definitely isn’t easy. Some days I just don’t want to do it. I make excuses: I’m tired, I’m hungry, my body hurts. But I show up anyways. I remind myself that I can do anything for a short amount of time. Pain is temporary. Suffering a lifetime of regret is not.
So that is how I went from heartbreak to running a half-marathon. I have no regrets. The experience reminded me how capable I really am. I will always be grateful to him for that. We are all capable of more than we give ourselves credit for. We limit ourselves out of fear. What if I fail? What if I look stupid? What if people make fun of me? I fight these thoughts all the time, but I remind myself of the quote that I have hanging on my wall. It’s a quote from Theodore Roosevelt referred to as “Man in the Arena”.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
We all have a choice. I choose to dare greatly. How about you?
