3 miles and nearly 30 years

I've been running. Six miles max, 3 miles on most days. Turns out even after several months, running still hurts nearly every time. So the real story behind my running is less about the running and more about the "where" I've been running.

I was born in "Turlock" - rough translation, dry lake. I know, sounds like paradise, really it totally is. We lived here until shortly after my father died and then we moved to Carmel. I was in 3rd grade at the time and we lived there until I was a freshman in high school, then we moved back here. It was grand. Fabulous really.

Not many people get to move from someplace bleak to someplace beautiful then back to the bleak right before the height of puberty and all things, like, dramatic. Needless to say, I hated moving back here. I hated our first house when we moved back and I hated the "valley" girls and there big hair and country music. Eventually I learned to fit in with the big hair, I was a total sell-out. Sad. So eventually I went away to college and then met my hubby. He got a great job here in Turlock so we ended up here.

A year ago my husband and I moved from the "new" side of town to the old side and needless to say, I run around here now. Part of my run each day is right past the house that we moved into when I was a freshman. Do you know what a trip it is to run past my old house, my best friend Lindsay's old house, the place where I learned to drive a stick and the place where my high school boyfriend lived? Sometimes it feels like the twighlight zone.

Tonight as I was running, I could almost see my life over the past 15 years just slide by like a movie. I saw little me walking from my house to Lindsay's, sneaking out of Katie's house, and walking to meet my boyfriend. I even saw myself running with the cross country team and wishing it weren't 102 degrees outside. All this time, all these days have passed and I can still smell and feel all of those old moments. I can see little Jenn with all of her wounds. God, so clearly do I see her. She was so hurt and lost and desperately wanting to know that she would turn out to be something meaningful.

Little girl, you are so beautiful. Your heart is so full of fear, I wish I could take it from you. I promise that your life will have so much meaning. It won't be pain free but it will be so worth it. You will be successful, you will be greatly loved, you will bring life into this world. God why can't we see all that we are worth and all that we are meant for in the times when we most need a glimpse? She so needed to know that she mattered. Why did it take so long for someone to answer her?

As I ran tonight, I ran right past my old math teacher. Mr. Donaldson. He smiled and kept going. I am sure he doesn't remember me or remember telling me that I wasn't any good at math and that I needed to pick a career in something other than a field involving math. How cruel, yet brutally accurate he was. Now he is just some stranger passing by.

3 miles I ran tonight, but nearly 30 years went jogging past. What will the next 30 hold? Will I still be running?