Dedication ...

I had a discussion with a friend today about dedication. The conversation started with a simple question.. "How did you get to where you are today?"

I was never an open book until I began writing blog entries the last couple years and to be honest it's still a struggle for me to even type words. I have countless notebooks from over the years that only my eyes have seen. I'm a writer but that doesn't mean I always enjoy expressing exactly what I'm thinking or feeling. Vulnerability. Something I often struggle with or have too much of, there's rarely a happy medium. I started this blog to encourage people, to help other people along the same journey that I had been traveling on. It's easier to motivate yourself when you know you are motivating someone else at the same time. 

I answered my friend with a simple one word answer, "dedication." As an athlete I have always understood the concept of being dedicated but I never experienced the true meaning until I lost myself. I haven't thought about the last 4 years in awhile until the last couple weeks. It's hard to admit to yourself that you were lost at one point in time, but I've been willing to talk about it. I've learned that keeping feelings bottled up and ignoring them only makes your struggle worse. 

When I told my friend that dedication was how I arrived to the place that I sit in now, she looked at me like I should have had a more profound answer for her. There wasn't some written plan that I could give her. When I think of all the work I've done and all the sacrifices I've made, the changes that have happened, the woman I've become, dedication is the only word I can think of to describe it. The countless days I sat in tears because I thought I couldn't manage moving forward but deciding to lace up my shoes and run out the door. Or on the days the thought of  eating a salad might kill me or even when I thought my broken heart wouldn't heal. At the end of every ending there is always a more beautiful awakening. There have been so many "endings" in my life but the ending that took place in 2012 was only the start of the person I was going to become. The strong woman that I am now. It took dedicated hours of training, preparing, mind changing...I had to see the world different. I had to see the world for how beautiful it could be, not how ugly it had been. 

"happy girls are the prettiest girls"

I struggled emotionally and with my health for two years, but that's only two years out of an entire lifetime. Those two years shaped the course of everything that has happened in the last five years. I gave up a lot of things to get to where I'm at but who I am at this very moment is who I've always been, I was just covered up with things and toxic people I didn't need any more. Running found me and I found volleyball again. For the last two years I could and can honestly look at someone and tell them straight out, I'm happy..and mean it. Do I have bad days of course, every one does, but you get a new day and that bad day just becomes a memory. I've spent the last four years experiencing life, trying new things, being single and embracing that singleness. And in the last year I decided it was time to try and open my heart again, it's failed a few times but if you don't keep trying you'll never find the person you are meant to walk through life with.   

I looked at my friend and asked her "Are you happy?" and told her not to answer the question just to think about her answer.

I had to ask myself four years ago if I was happy, if I was satisfied with who I was and what my life looked liked. It takes something powerful inside of yourself to admit that you truly aren't happy. But once you admit it to yourself the struggle becomes real and the healing becomes activated. I don't mean to sound like my world was entirely corrupted, I'm meaning that what I was facing had become bigger than what I had thought it was. We can't control how people treat us or what they do to us, we can only control how we react and learn from it. 

If you know me, which most people that read my words do, you already know that I am a genuine person. I have a kind heart and I'm real, upfront, and honest. I care deeply for every individual that is in my life, I have so much love to give and a willingness to share my life with people. I don't trust easy... but when I do I'm vulnerable. I'm told I'm an old soul, not sure how true that is, but I am unique and that's one thing I enjoy most about myself, apart from laughing way too loud, laugh-snorting when it's inappropriate, and smiling about just about everything.

My point for this post is that once you dedicate yourself to something don't step away from it, find the motivation within yourself that drives you to be better. Dedicate you to you. You have to push yourself, no one else can do it for you. As a runner, you have to find the will power within yourself to keep your legs moving and your breathing going. And in life it's the same thing.. every step counts. Become a positive person, embrace your imperfections. Dedicate yourself to finding what's important to you. We all struggle in one way or another, that's life. We're all living in the same world. You just need to have the faith, even when you think there isn't such a thing. You can't control what happens to you but you can control how you move forward. I chose to make changes, to become better, to open myself up to new possibilities. To be healthy and to find beauty in life again.

I ended the conversation with my friend by saying this...

Whether you are 16, 27, 31 or 61 you can strive to be a better version of yourself. You can choose your happy. It doesn't have to be chosen for you. You can dedicate yourself to a life of adventure and new beginnings. You don't have to be afraid of endings. Embrace them because they only make you stronger and prepare you for something else that hasn't happened yet. You're stunning and the world deserves to see your light.

xoxo