2022

Oh, What a Year – 2022

/ erikamorck / Leave a comment

“People cannot discover new lands until they have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre’ Gide

In the waning hours of 2021, I could not have fathomed what awaited me in the year to come. I was so caught up in myself and giving my life over to pain that I could not see much past tomorrow. I could not imagine that the words of a stranger but fellow sufferer would bolster me on a journey that would change my life and change my way of being in the world.

“Right now, your pain has no purpose and will only get worse.

After surgery, your pain will have purpose and you’ll only get better.” 

Those words were shared with me in a Facebook support group by a fellow runner and now fellow hippie-sis just a few days before I became bionic and was having second thoughts and way too much fear for the seeming unknown.

While her words were meant to encourage me as I faced down total hip replacement surgery – they rang true for the place in life I had been residing since my annulment and the back-to-back deaths of my parents. For 6 years I had been living in physical pain – popping enough Advil to earn me a blood transfusion but it was my mental anguish that kept me running – running through life and running away from life. I was lost; I was heartbroken; and I had failed in life – in a spectacular way. I couldn’t face myself because I didn’t know who I was anymore -beyond the pain and beyond my failures.

As 2022 dawned I was resigned to more of the same until one day in February I could not walk. My right hip had had enough of me pushing through. I went to my physical therapist who worked me over and got me walking again but something inside me knew this was a turning point. When I finally got in to see an orthopedist and heard the words “never run again and hip replacement” and left with a prescription for Oxycodone (which I never filled) I felt like the earth had stopped but I was still spinning away.

I spent a few weeks on the DeNile River in the Land of Woe but it got me nowhere. My pain – physical and mental- served no purpose and the longer I let it control my life it would only get worse.

It was then that I started to catch glimpses of my former self – the one who could do hard things – who had lived through hard things before – even faced down death. The fighter who smiled and laughed and knew joy and had purpose. Where had she gone?

I decided to find her and embarked on what would be a significant year-long transformation.

With a surgery date on the calendar – I began a training regimen with my physical therapist. I was determined to go into the surgery strong so I would come out strong. This gave me purpose. I am a determined woman. Occasionally my determination is mis-guided – but not this time. I succeeded!

As my strength came back, I was determined to find – not my former self again – but who she became and can still be.

It was hell.

Thank goodness part of my recovery plan was walking because I took a lot of long soul-searching walks and spent time doing some serious internal excavation – digging up long rooted and now rotted ideas of myself and replacing them with good soil in which healthier ideas and ways of being can grow.

We don’t always end up where we intended in life. Long before reaching our final destination, life happens, and we are forced to change course. My naive college vision board at 18 and the “seasoned” 26-year-old me’s long-range plans seem foreign to me now. I’ve always admired those who had a dream at a young age, made it happen and then kept realizing it and living it. In truth, that happens to only a very lucky few.

A BBC article discussing the topic of identity says that some people “struggle to imagine their future self as a continuation of the person they are today… It’s almost as if they see their future self as a separate person that has little connection to their present identity.”

While I struggle with seeing my future life as a continuation of today or seeing it at all for that matter –given how this year unfolded – I don’t see that as a negative thing and I certainly don’t envision myself being a stranger to who I am today. On the contrary, it is because my future seems – at least right now – “unrevealed” – that gives me hope and something to look forward to discovering!

But creating a vision for the second half of life is not as easy as it would seem.

The questions of “Who am I” “What do I want to be when I grow up?”, and “How am I going to get there?”  have leveled up a critical notch to Who have I become?” and “What have I done with my life?’ and “What do I do now?”

When the future was a long way away, the answers seemed so easy. Heck, we could be anything we wanted anywhere we wanted (for the most part.) Dream away! But when we have less of a future ahead of us than we have behind us, there is far more at stake – or so we tell ourselves. Having lost a dear friend to cancer this year – who had so much life ahead of her and had lived her life so fully – really made me stop and think about those questions again.

“Who have I become?” “What have I done with my life?’ “What do I do now?”

But here’s the thing that brings me so much joy on the cusp of a new year. I am actually excited by these questions again!!

That I have been given the opportunity to make a course correction and say yes to life is positively thrilling and a bit daunting.

As I close this annual tradition of reflection and evaluation of where life has brought me and who and how I want to be, I am grateful for those purposeful words of encouragement that helped me accept the challenge before me, make the most of.it and emerge better for it!

I am grateful for the doctors who made my walking, hiking and yes even running again possible. I am grateful for my family and dear friends who walked with me in every sense of the word.

As this “unfathomable year” draws to a close I can honestly say I am so much better because of it! I feel wonderful, healthy, and strong. I feel like Erika again!

I am at peace with life – my life. That is so freeing!

I am finding awe in the present and joy in sharing life with others, in place of pain, regret, and darkness – my old friends. .

Having said that, I am so thankful for the journey that has brought me here today – to who I am! In the journey, I became strong.

There is much to look forward to. What that is – who knows? But I am ready to meet tomorrow with open arms, a smile, a skip in my step, and a warm embrace.

“People cannot discover new lands until they have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre’ Gide

Happy New Year!!!

Let your light so shine!!!

How Will You Run Your Fastest Race?

/ erikamorck / Leave a comment

The fastest race we will ever run is the race of life. Our time is fleeting, the most important facets of life become mere flickers of memory as days become weeks, weeks become months, months become years. And yet what do we have to show for it?  Certainly not a trophy – this race isn’t winnable and yet we keep running it – chasing after the prize just beyond our reach. Certain that with every mile of must do’s, every mile of minutiae, every mile of saying yes – we will garner a prized position on the roster of life. When in truth, in the end, all that is left is the etching of our name and the numerical bookends of our life onto a slate grey stone. Some trophy.

With those enlivening words, I bid you a Happy New Year! As I glance over my shoulder at the year that is now 2 and half weeks in the past, I keep asking myself, wait, what happened to 2021? How is it that another year has passed? How did I manage to run through that year so fast? And how is it that I have run through fifty such turnings of a year?

Actually, I didn’t run all that much. In fact, 2021 taught me that while I may have miraculously made it to 50, I am not invincible. One would think I would only have to learn that lesson once, but alas, 2021 also revealed a hint of obstinance within me. 2021 will go down in my book as the year that knocked me off my feet – more times than I care to count and instead of getting right back up and finishing the race, this time I was forced to limp to the sidelines – if you will allow me to continue the race of life metaphor. Turning 50 reminded me I likely have more years behind me than I do ahead; precious time I do not have to take for granted.

If 2021 had been my bookend year, how would it be remembered? Well, on the bright side, those nefarious maladies forced me to slow down and re-examine the course I have been running for longer than I can remember and instilled in me a hunger for life – real life – not the “settled for instead” life I have for too long allowed to dominate my existence.

Such wisdom only comes with the walk, and I have walked more than ran many miles this year. As I reflect on the year that was and the year to come, I realize I spent most of 2021 reacting to my circumstances instead of navigating them. After the initial shock to my system brought on by relationship upheaval, the pandemic, sudden injury, and illness subsided, instead of thinking about what these instances might be telling me I began figuring out how I was going to keep on doing life like I have always done it – racing through it and avoiding obstacles that might slow me down. Which is how I arrived at the beginning of the New Year feeling ragged rather than refreshed, resigned rather than renewed. How indeed does one satisfy that hunger for really living life instead of enduring the settled for life?

To run a race and finish well you have to be intentional with your training and intentional with your run during the race. Cognizant of those around you and any obstacles you might encounter, in touch with how your body is performing the tasks you are asking it to do, and keeping your focus not just on the finish line but on every step you take – lest you trip on a rock or stumble on a pothole- which I am infamous for!

The race of life is no different. It must be run with intention if you want to finish well and not just settle for having run it.

Living intentionally is not easy especially when faced with the unpredictable, impermanent, and unknowingness of life. We have to be intentional when living in sustained uncertainty, living without knowing, embracing the mystery, and keeping the possibilities that arise from this state of ambiguity open. I don’t rest well with uncertainty as this time of pandemic has so graciously revealed.  Rather, this state of uncertainty impels me to rush with urgency toward an answer – any answer. A life of restlessness is not what I am after, after all, but my ways of relieving that restlessness have simply prolonged it.

Too often, in my quest for a reason for being I have let others define it – or worse – accept what I think others want to define as my reason for being.

Too often, my reason for being is simply a daily reaction to what is happening around me or a rush to get somewhere. I settle into the complacent comfort of taking each day as it comes rather than shaping each day for what it could be. Too often of late when contemplating what tomorrow will bring or what I want my future – even just a year from now – to hold – I find myself responding with “I just don’t know. I just don’t know anymore. “  

In the end, my urgency to define my life has instead only confined it. I’ve settled for not knowing – and as time has worn me out – not caring – or living as if I don’t. And this is not how I want to be – and I don’t think how any of you want to be in this world either. I know God doesn’t want that for me or you.

But, here’s the thing, none of us truly know what our future holds. There is nothing guaranteed about tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. The last two years have made this irritatingly clear. No wonder my ponderings of late didn’t get me anywhere. No wonder they all end the same way. No wonder I don’t know. None of us know our destination until we arrive – and sometimes we don’t even realize we HAVE arrived!

To live with intention and to live intentionally in this ever-present state of uncertainty requires a compass and the patience to use one in the urgency of life.  A compass requires you to be still in order to orient yourself to the direction you want to go. A compass that embodies all the points that provide meaning and direction to life.  A compass provides the way.

Emily Dickinson wrote: “The sailor cannot see the North, but knows the needle can.” 

Martin Luther wrote: “I know not the way God leads me, but well do I know my guide.”

By what means are you orienting your life for living rather than settling in?

Who or what is the compass that will lead you through all the unknowns of 2022 and beyond?

  • What are the values and qualities that will direct and guide your life;
  • Whose advice and counsel will you seek and trust;
  • To what principles and standards will you hold yourself accountable;
  • What tenets will help you put shape and form to your life;
  • What deep longings or callings will energize and move you forward;
  • By what practices will you maintain your integrity and authenticity?

And where will you find the stillness and solitude to quiet your mind and orient yourself along these points of life direction?

These are the questions I have tasked myself to ponder at the start of this new year and in this present stillness of my life. I can’t tell you where my life is going but by truly reflecting on what matters most – my compass points – I can trust the way.

What about you?  By what way do you want to go? What are your intentions for the race you are running?  Go and find stillness – welcome it into your life and finish the race well.

A moment of stillness at the end of the day.

Let your light so shine!