Friday Things // 03.19.2021
The one with the tiny victories.
Hi friends!
How are you doing? I know for many, it’s been a heavy and disheartening week, so I hope you find some peace today, and as we move forward into the weekend.
I’m going to start this week’s post with a shameless plug, because… well, I just want to share it with you! Last weekend, a personal essay I wrote, along with two recipes of my mom’s, were published over at Food52. If you get a moment to give it a read, thank you! I hope you enjoy it. (And do read the comments too please — they’ll warm your heart.) It’s a piece that means a lot to me, and that I literally sobbed part-way through writing and had to pause and call my best friend to regroup before finishing. But it’s out in the world and I’m really grateful and proud, and I think my mom would be too.
Anyways, here we are at another Friday. I started my day with a run at the beach (above photo!). Normally this wouldn’t be news but I was * very * excited at the end of this one because it was the longest I’d run since a patella (knee) stress fracture in September. And it felt amazing! I almost couldn’t believe it, and when I saved my run on Strava, I used an obnoxious number of party hat emojis that I don’t feel sorry about at all. 🙃
I know I mentioned my injury a couple of Friday posts ago, when I was delaying my run in Vegas, but what I didn’t say was that this stress fracture hit less than 2 months after my mom died. Running had been one of my main coping mechanisms (for the pandemic, and losing her, and just, you know, life), and suddenly it was gone. Just like my mom, really. Whisked away from me in a flash, without even a chance to bargain or try to change the ending. Now obviously a stress fracture is (or at least in my case) much less tragic or severe or permanent than the literal loss of a person, but at the time, it felt like almost one in the same. Like my person was gone, and then so was the thing that made me feel most like myself; not only could I not run, but I could barely even walk my dog without pain. I know not all of you reading this know me offline, but I’m a very active person, and fitness is one of my favorite things. I’ve been a runner since I dared to give it a shot in college, trying to be as cool at my dad and best friend from high school, and it was something I’d previously never, not in my wildest dreams, thought I’d be able to do. I have a chronic health condition that forced me to sit out things like the mile in P.E. class as a kiddo (which you can read more here, if you’re interested), and if you had talked to 10 year old Joelle and said I’d identify as a runner someday, she’d have laughed you out the door. The transformation since I’ve been an adult has been… seismic. At least to me. And so, running and just moving my body has been an integral part of my life — my mental and physical health, my spirit, everything — for a long time.
I’ve been injured many times since I started running 15 years ago, but this time it felt… more permanent? Harsher? Like a personal slight from the universe more so than even a physical ailment. I was crushed, and remember wondering what else was left to take from me at that point. Hadn’t I given enough to 2020? I realize that way of thinking is extremely flawed and in hindsight, I know I’m lucky, as it could have been a whole lot worse than just a stress fracture… that it was “just” a running injury. But while I was in it, especially right at the beginning of the healing/physical therapy journey, it felt like a cruel and unfair way to cap off an already cruel and unfair year.
The knee pain lasted so long (longer than — if you Google it, which, don’t ever do when you’re injured please — it was “supposed” to, by normal fracture healing timelines) that I was convinced my running days were officially and unceremoniously over for good. You can imagine how surprised impatient me was when I started to have some decent run/walks after 2021 rolled in. Progress, slow and steady. And when I ran a little over 3 miles today as if nothing had ever happened to my knee, you could have pushed me over with a feather… that’s how surprised I was, that there I was — back on the run, back feeling like myself again. Finally. 🎉
Progress!
Tiny victories, that eventually build up into one big victory you didn’t expect.
The universe doesn’t necessarily see our pain or experiences in the same lens as we do. The way we translate the things happening in our lives is not necessarily the same as the grand intent. (Is this sounding too woo-woo?) There’s a quote I really love from Steve Jobs, that I often think back to:
“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
I mean, does that mean that I now know why I got a stress fracture in my knee (beyond the physiological reason)? Eh, not really, but if I think hard about it, I could probably point to the universe trying to force me to sit with my feelings, and find new ways to cope. To remind me that I can survive, and persevere and make it through hard things, even without my usual life raft available.
…do you have to try to pull a deeper significance or lesson out of the impossibly hard or challenging things you’ve been thrown in this last year? Absolutely not. But if it makes you feel better (as it does me), then why not try? 🤗
One more thing. Earlier today, I read an article from the New York Times that hits on something I’ve been trying to get across in my previous posts here — that all grief is valid, and that objectively small losses are still important and significant and you are allowed to feel them. Stop telling yourself that because no one in your life died, therefore you don’t get to complain or be anything other than fine; there is no competition about who had a shittier last 12 months — you’re allowed to feel however you’re feeling.
On that note, I hope you get to stand in some sunshine wherever you are this weekend. Thanks for reading, and if you are enjoying these posts, share The Yay Club with a friend, okay? 💛
Sending you all the YAYs,
Joelle