A Year of Running + Gardening |
2010: In the grips of a Quarterlife crisis, I'm striving to both commit and find meaning through training for a marathon and becoming a first time gardener. 2011: Second marathon. Second (dead) garden. Higher stakes. 2012: Another marathon. No garden. Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Probably. Only time will tell. |
Now that I’ve entered my second year of gardening and marathoning, I’m struggling to cope with my self-imposed expectations. It’s the delusion that I now know everything there is to know because I’ve done it once. I’ve been hiding from you dearest followers because I’m not living up to my own expectations.
It’s not that I haven’t been gardening or that I haven’t been running as I thought would be the case when I entered this world of internet accountability 18 months ago. It’s that I feel like my garden is a baby garden. The damn lettuce won’t grow and the garden down the street from mine has like, the sexiest lettuce plants. It’s that I’m running, but I feel like I’m not running fast enough so then I run too fast thereby forcing myself to take breaks.
I guess when you do the things you don’t think you can do, you’re forcing yourself to do them better the second year.
Sadly, the compassion, discovery, and personal growth I experienced in the first year seem like a distant memory.
