So I wasn’t going to write today but sometimes words just beg to get out of me and so here I sit, next to the beautiful roses my husband gave me and wearing the gorgeous bracelet my boys presented me with this morning. I’ve been thinking about my kids all day (typical of us moms, right? We get a day about us and we spend it thinking about them?) and how much they motivate and inspire me. And it occurred to me that so much of why I started running and why I take care of myself is because of them.

You see, a few year’s ago, before the running marathons, the crazy running friends and the insane o’ dark thirty in the morning daily workouts, I was a slightly overweight, depressed, non-energetic mom. I loved my kids every bit as much then as I do now, but I fear that my short temper (due to fatigue and depression) and my lack of joy for my life took a toll on them for a long time. Not dramatically, mind you. Not Mommie Dearest in the rose garden crazy (just re-watched that scene last night – YIKES!). But more just subtle staring into space. Staring at a screen. “Not really listening” disengagement.

I realized that I couldn’t really take care of them unless I took care of  me. I couldn’t really love my husband well unless I loved ME well. And I was consistently putting my health and my spiritual and emotional needs last on the list. When you struggle with depression you will look anywhere you can for answers and for me shifting my focus from being constantly on my kids to being on my own spiritual, physical, and emotional health were the way out. It meant getting serious about my relationship with Christ first and foremost. It meant a drastic change in my diet. And it meant running.

And there was a clock ticking. The boys were in early elementary school when it all started and I wanted to change the very pattern of our lives when there was still time. The vegetarian diet, the running, even regular visits with my doctor and my counselor. And slowly something started to change. I felt more engaged with my family, more grateful for what I had, more alive in my own body, and more aware of how much my own self care was going to contribute to the health of those I loved.

And now, although I still make so many mistakes every day, I am a different mom. More engaged, more energetic, clearer minded, more prayerful and more at home in my own skin. I hope they will grown up knowing that I took good care of myself and even more importantly, that their father heroically supported my efforts to do so, by truly being my partner and not just a “helper” in our daily lives. And that they will, in turn, care for their own spiritual, physical and emotional health and encourage the same in all whom they love. It’s a big ambition. But I look at them and I just know, with God’s help, they can pull it off.

I’m reading George Sheehan’s Running and Being right now. It’s pretty remarkable. Life changing, even. Note that he didn’t begin running until he was 45 and at 61 set a world record for his age group in the mile. And he says this:

“My fitness program was never a fitness program. it was a campaign, a revolution, a conversion. I was determined to find myself. And, in the process, found my body and the soul that went with it.” (pg 51)

Amen, George. Does that mean you have to run? Goodness, no. You can bike, or swim, or walk, or hike . . you name it. Just do something with that body that God gave you. Because when we move we can begin to live. And when we live, we can give life to others.

Happy Mother’s Day. And happy running.

Jen