Relationships, Couch to 10K, and Holy Obligations

Yesterday woke up to the first full day of Cousin's Weekend and a gorgeous sunrise. I drank some

coffee, talked to my uncle, and got ready for my run. Took a quick side trip to the green egg where my cousin and husband were starting the butt smoking. I don't remember what it was but Hank said something about me running or being a runner which made me feel uneasy but I didn't correct him...

At the end of the driveway I began to run and not two minutes in stopped. I wanted to run to the end of the road and back--4 miles--as I do every year but I've not been consistently running even though I like to pretend I have. I already knew I wouldn't make it, and I was sad and angry and incredibly disappointed in myself. Yesterday my friend Jason told me about the couch to 10k app; I thought about it, but I didn't want to use it. I AM A RUNNER!!! was screaming through my head not someone who has been sitting on the couch, not someone who has to start from scratch. And yet I am...

My daddy often says about himself, "I am a husband, a father, a doctor, a Virginian and a Roman Catholic. That is my identity." As I waited for the dadgum app to download I thought, "Words I would have used about myself include 'I am a runner and I am a mother'--but both those identifying nouns are beginning to look different as I not so gracefully move into this next phase of life." The app downloaded and I admitted to myself that while I have been a runner in the past, and that I can be again (I hope), right now I needed something to hold me accountable.



As I started my now structured exercise I thought about another conversation...SK is in Louisville for a wedding and not for very long. Someone wanted to see her, but she didn't have time. My mother identity went into full blown mode--I started arguing in my head, "It might just be a little too late. In the past this person never seemed to make time for her and was in and out of contact and now it's not a priority for her and that's fine. She doesn't have to make time." Thought didn't stick long because my mind jumped to a conversation with my aunt last night.

We were talking about visiting family and friends and how sometimes someone might feel like they are being included because of an obligation and not because they're wanted. Here's the honest to God truth I said out loud in that moment, "Mostly it is an obligation." There was a split second of embarrassment over admitting that to myself, but then also a freedom that only comes with speaking truth.

As I often do I remembered a conversation I had with Rev. Hubert Flanagan during Christmas break of my freshmen year of college. I told him I felt guilty because I often go to church out of habit and not because I really want to. "Katherine, " he said in that soft southern drawl, "Why is it everyone considers habits or habitual behaviors bad? Aren't there good habits too?" he paused and then continued, "You know sometimes you may go out of habit; you don't want to be there; and you don't listen much. But there might be one line in a hymn, one word of the sermon or one smile someone gives you that becomes transformative for your week or even your life."

I thought about all this--the obligation of maintaining relationships as well as finding a way to be accountable or obligated (sometimes I have to stretch these thoughts of mind and twist them (read manipulate them like a full fledged teenager) to returning to running as well as Rev. Flanagan's words and I let myself off the hook of guilt, and I also admonished myself for I'm not sure what. I guess for being so all or nothing, for not remembering resurrection. It's not too late, I thought, to rekindle or reorder relationships even if the beginning of that process is out of obligation. It's not too late to become a runner again.

And now back to Cousins' Weekend....