Yes, ladies and gentlemen. The completion of an entire marathon begins with one step. Now there may be some of you who have not heard of this goal of mine. That's ok. It's a pretty recent one and I am living far away from most of you readers at the moment, with sketchy access to the internet. But anyhow, marathoning is not the point.
While visiting my dear friend Marita, who threw herself a birthday party for town friends and PCV friends alike, I allowed John to convince me to take a morning run with him. I finished red-faced and sweating (and very impressed with my rugby-playing college self) and absolutely not wanting that to be as difficult as it was, so I decided to let the momentum continue into everyday life here in Kongoussi and have been running every other morning at least and loving it. Looking forward to it.
Unfortunately I did not run this morning...I woke up later than I intended to wake up because of some righteously terrible dreams and lamented that the cool morning weather had already disappeared. ...I was a little bummed on biking over to the internet (where I find myself now) to discover that it really hadn't gotten too hot yet by 8:30. I may try to run this evening to make up for my loss, because I don't intend on trying to squeeze a run in on Wednesday mornings, when I have to be up at the school to teach classes by 7. It's possible...but there's not a whole lot of room for error, so I don't want to count on it.
Anyhow, running is great. I've been starting slow, working the kinks out of my body as I get these particular muscles used to moving again. I take in the landscape as I go, I listen to music with the one side of my earphones that works, I take time for myself to do something good for my body, and it feels great.
Physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, socially, sexually...there are many different facets of well-being that can be attended to. I've started relecting on this lately because getting through the days seems to be taking a lot more out of me the second time around. I need to find ways to take care of myself so that I can keep putting a good amount of effort into the things I am doing here. It's not always easy. Having everything I do be self-motivated...it can wear on a person after a while, especially for those tasks that no one really holds you accountable for. Self motivation...perhaps something I should write a little more about here sometime soon.
...it's what gets me up and running.
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