One of the worst memories I can still feel in the core of my being is getting in the starting blocks at the beginning of a sprint.  In high school I was a 100m hurdler.  If you know me, then you’re probably thinking, “Huh… that’s funny, she’s pretty short.”  Short but determined.  (That could be a motto for my life).

I loved jumping over obstacles – running in straight line seemed too easy.  Put 10 large objects in my way, and –bam- I had a challenge worth my time. I even held the school record for a few years.

Theme songs from movies and the Frosted Flakes commercial would play through my head as my competitors and I would warm-up, stretch, and entertain our mock starts.  There was always a feeling of anxiety… always.

Thoughts would creep in about backing out, but then I would remember all of those laborious practices.  What were they all for if not for this moment?

I would glance at the other teenagers, some with long lean builds and muscular arms.  I was a soccer player – lean and stocky, with muscle but I wasn’t a gazelle, more like a timid tiger, prowling, waiting, on alert, weighed down, scared.

There seemed to always be a voice in my head equally as loud as the advertisement for cereal, “Do you really want to do this?”

“Runners take your marks,” came the pronouncement from the line judge right before the acid in my stomach talked me out of it.

I could feel my heart start pounding as we all bounded in front of the starting line and crawled our way backwards into position, stretching out those hamstrings one more time; hoping they would catapult us like a sling shot over the first hurdle.  We would wait in vein as one runner would always take a minute longer than necessary to find her mark.

“Get set.”

We would raise our hips to the sky, now ready to pounce, some looking like chipmunks, others like roadrunners.  I always prayed for no false starts, otherwise you had to go through this agony again: The mind games, the anticipation, the hope, the unknown.

“GO” – with the blast of a gun we were off.  As if that wasn’t enough to jolt you into running from something, I would take off counting my steps, hoping my loose arm wouldn’t smack the person next to me.

The thing is, I was fast, my soccer sprints, running stairs and hills had made me a quick on the up take. My coach had me start relays because I was good out of the blocks.  I never worried too much about the finish because I knew when I started, I would finish, but I never knew how the start would go.

That time, leading up to the start and the moments in the blocks – is the ultimate mind trap.  You can’t see the finish line, you can still back out.  I almost wondered if people false started just because the pressure to perform killed them, thus it was almost a suicide of performance to bow out and take a knee.

Two hurdles in, I would love the race.  I would throw my body over the finish line praying to be under 14 seconds.  Fourteen seconds of adrenaline coursing through my veins, muscles working in tandem, and a spirit of tenacity driving me on.  I wasn't racing against other people, I was racing myself.

Once I started and stood up, I could see the finish, I knew I could get there.  But before the race, anything could happen.  I could pull out.  Someone could forfeit. Rain, well, we lived in Washington, so we did everything in the rain.

It seems an apt metaphor for my life.  I don’t choose what’s easy.  I choose to start work two days after graduation; I choose to take on responsibility at church, home, and work; I choose to rip up my lawn and plant… a farm. I love it, but I hate the feeling in the starting blocks. I don't technically have to do this, so why do I? I am starting to explore that question in this season. 

I am in the starting blocks of my life once again.  There are mind games about my career, family, and home.  There have been easy ways out, but I didn’t take them.  I see the hurdles, but I can’t see the finish and I’m just waiting to start.  It’s the feeling before the gun goes off, before the cord is pulled, before you open the letter, pick up the phone, or pee on a stick.  (And for the record, no I’m not pregnant.)

It’s radical. It’s miraculous. It never ceases to amaze me -- this feeling and this wonder.  It also irritates the heck out of me.  There are days I wish I could just bow out of feeling like this.  Like I don’t need to write another book, I don’t need to dream big dreams for myself or my family, I don’t really need to raise chickens and grow vegetables or see my therapist.  It’s really tiring.

But I still get the same feeling of adrenaline and the same smile greets me at the finish line when I actually do embark on that journey and feel my body working and mind racing.  I look back at the hurdles I’ve jumped over and I see my mom in the stands throwing popcorn in the air while still chewing and I remember that it’s worth it.  It’s all worth it.

Even the races where I left part of my skin on the track or knocked over a hurdle in exhaustion --  I was never guaranteed to win, that wasn't the point, but I started and I continued dreaming even when it seemed like the last rational thing to do.

So hear I sit in the starting blocks once again, ready to run over the hurdles, ready to take on a new chapter…. Ready, set… I’m just waiting for the go.