Letting Go

In February, I wrote about the feeling of calm that comes before the rest of the world wakes up on a snow day. Today, I was reminded of that same feeling, as I stepped out onto our balcony overlooking the bay here in Traverse City. It's certainly not that early, but early enough that no one else has made it down to the water just yet. In the busy world we live in, I can appreciate even the illusion of quiet and calm. 

It's been almost a week since our wedding and I've spent a good part of the past week looking for words to talk about it all.  I don't think there's any way to summarize something as wonderful as this...so I'm not sure it's worth trying. Leading up to last weekend, I was surprised as how generally calm I was. We needed to bring nearly everything to the venue several days before the wedding, so it was good to get those things completely done and off our hands early in the week. It was a strange feeling though to have little to do leading up to a day we had spent over a year planning. At times, it felt like I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop...for something to catch me off guard and send me off my rocker, like a detail I claimed to not care at all about that suddenly was going to ruin the entire weekend. I'm proud to say I made it through the whole weekend without that though. I had thought about it a lot beforehand and I didn't want to spend the whole wedding so busy worrying that things wouldn't go right that I missed all the amazing things that were happening.  I can see how easy it is to get fixated on it needing to all be perfect, especially if you're someone who has an eye for these sorts of things...decorations, colors, flowers. We, being me and Ryan, our parents and our bridal party and friends, spent a lot of time over the past year preparing for this one day, and it felt good to finally just let go of all the worrying, and be in the moment. 

I was talking recently with a friend who was impressed by my having run a few half-marathons. Having only known this person since I've moved to Ann Arbor, it was hard to emphasize how I haven't always been a runner...it has been and continues to be a lot of work to be able to say I've run that distance. When I think about why I have and will continue to do it, a big reason is all of the emotions that come along with it, particularly at the end. Like planning a wedding, training for a race takes months of hard work, compromise, and commitment. While the days leading up to a race can be overwhelming and even frightening, I'm always reminded that at that point, the hard work is (err, or isn't) done. All you can do is let go, enjoy the time you've put in, trust yourself, and be present in the moment. For me, it's worth the months of hard work to just be able to let go. It seems we're always so busy, there's always going to be something big going on. We always dream about this idea of "later," when things aren't so hectic, but is there really that time? Oddly enough, for me, running is a chance to stop, feel, and just be. 

I always hear people say that their wedding was the best of their life and I've realized now that that's possible - we are all going to have different best days. I feel a little like I'm jumping on the bandwagon, but for me, it's true as well. As crazy as that day was, there were moments within it that I will always remember so clearly, moments I've deemed my "mental snapshots" (thank you Jim and Pam), where their memory brings the exact emotions of those moments back - breakfast with some of my best friends outside on the patio that morning; seeing Ryan for the first time that afternoon; sandwiched between my parents, deep breaths taken just before walking down the aisle; watching from the balcony before being introduced to what would be a ridiculously perfect party. 

I'm going to throw it out there and guess that life is never going to slow down. There will be moments we remember to take those mental snapshots, but the rest of our days will keep flying by. Having things that anchor us - runs that give us nothing but time to think, races that allow us to appreciate everything and everyone in our lives - help make sure we remember to slow down, stop worrying for even just for a little, and enjoy it...things that make sure we don't just drift through it all.