“Remember your name. Do not lose hope – what you seek will be found.” ~Neil Gaiman

For the past couple days I haven’t been able to run and I have felt horribly cranky and awkward, short tempered and short breathed. I know that running has something to do with it.  Without running, I haven’t been myself. But what does that say about me?  Running is so ingrained in who I am that I don’t know who I am without it.  And I need to find out.

I began running as a way to cope with heart break and loss, but without it I feel like I’m right back there again, which means only one thing: I haven’t actually changed.  I’m simply a conglomeration of the old and the new;  a mixed up conundrum of personhood.

At some point down the road I lost my way.

It happened gradually rather than all at one.  A left when I should have gone right.  A zig when I should have zagged.  Staying long on the highway when I should have taken the exit.

And I’ve been here before.

I’ve made so many mistakes.  Mistakes that I know better than to dwell on, but I do anyway.  Mistakes that have made navigating certain roads impossible, almost as if my car was on autopilot.  I see myself making decisions, knowing they are bad ones, and yet I make them anyway.  I know what I am supposed to be doing and I don’t.

I need to get out of the woods.  I need to find my path.  I need to return to me.

I’m lost.  And I’m not sure if I can be found.