Connected

"The leg bone's connected to the - knee bone; The knee bone's connected to the - thigh bone; The thigh bone's connected to the - hip bone. ~ "Dem Bones," James Weldon Johnson

Stay with me on this one...

When I first started training for half marathons, then for the marathon, my body greeted me to many of the requisite injuries concomitant with running long distances: runner's knee, hip soreness, ankle twinges. The ankle tweak came about on the opposite side from where my first injury had erupted, my right leg runner's knee - also know as the dreaded floating patella.

This is when I was introduced to the wonders of the iliotibial band, a lovely fibrous ligament that (in layman's terms) extends from the butt to just below the knee, holding everything at each end and in between together, albeit tenuously.

I would joke to my fellow runners, "I guess the hip bone IS connected to the knee bone," incorrectly paraphrasing "Dem Bones".

I've come to realize in my short but oh so joyous half and marathon running career that everything in our bodies is related, connected and must work together for a successful run on race day. Mind, body and spirit must come together, muscles ligaments, tendons, internal organs - ewwww!, must work in harmony, any negativity that pops into one's mind may appear but must be quickly purged, and the calculations of how many miles,  hours or minutes remain to the finish, the glorious end game of race day, have to give way to remaining in the moment, taking every mile as it comes and relishing in the exhilaration of accomplishing what few can.

Marathoners and half marathoners are a positive subset of our population, yet we fully understand the daunting task ahead when we embark on each training session. Whether 13.1 or 26.2 miles, or the challenge of the 50 or 100 mile races (I am definitely happy to not have to go there - but maybe someday...?) so much can happen between the inaugural training run and race day. Even each training day, each track workout, each ping in the knee, twinge or tweak in the ankle, hip or hammy must be taken at face value. There can be no looking beyond. Each successful run builds on the next, each failed run is a lesson learned and a caution you are not Superman, you're no Wonder Woman, pull back, rest, listen to your body, "YOU'LL BE FINE, GIVE IT TIME."

For a runner patience is not a virtue or an option, it is requisite. And this has all become oh so clear this year as I resume my running schedule after cervical vertebrate and carpal tunnel surgeries. I'm not quite starting over, but I have been provided with a very humbling "Back To Running" schedule by my Fleet Feet Running Club coaches  - 30 minutes max for the next 4 weeks increasing the run to walk minute ratio until the fourth week when I will be running 30 minutes without a walk interval.

As I mentioned, this is humbling, but exactly what is needed, what I NEEDED.

Runners rely on each other. We share in each others successes and relate to and support each other during our times of failure. Runners are raving optimists. I've written about the marathon training kickoff meetings where the air is electric with anticipation. The newbies who have never crossed the 26.2 mile finish line actually think they can do it. And they will!  The community of runners is a positive and joyous force to be reckoned with and I firmly believe training with a group of runners greatly increases the possibility of success while for some odd reason decreasing the risk of injury. Did I mention community?

So what does all this have to do with our journey as parents of addicts? Apart from simply substituting the words parents of addicts or parents of addicts in recovery for the word runners, there are almost endless parallels between our journeys. There are a lot of us out there. We can choose to know we have power over The Addiction if we simply acknowledge we cannot do this on our own.

We are all connected. Even if we don't know each other there is that connection we can find whether or not we consciously reach out for help, through personal counseling or the myriad of groups built to walk parents down the pathway to our own recovery. Simply making that decision to say "ENOUGH!" to The Addiction is enough to connect us as parents affected by the disease.

We must find the positive in our lives as we navigate the tightrope of loving our sons and daughters while hating The Addiction that has, hopefully temporarily, taken over their lives. This is never an easy endeavor. We'll have our good days and bad days. Our spirits WILL become injured. We can listen to our hearts and our souls, find the gentle spaces that remain even after Addiction's oh-so-personal attacks on our psyches, rest, recover, and move on along our recovery pathways. We can find other parents with whom we can laugh, cry and collectively despair over the battles won and lost. Through these connections we can heal. We can become that positive force to be reckoned with who have that raving optimism our children will, with our love and by their own devices, actually beat The Addiction, rendering it irrelevant. We can keep our positivity in the moment, not obsessing about what has passed or what might be, but relishing the little victories and taking a pause to learn from the failures. Know this, the task of our recovery may seem daunting, but it IS doable. It's a marathon, not a sprint, with long periods (plural) of training, but we can all make it to the finish which in the case of parents of addicts can lead to more vistas and joyous experiences.

One big difference? The subset of the population who have or have had a loved one dive into the rabbit hole of the disease of addiction is much larger than the .1% of the population who have completed a marathon. Remember, over half the people you will see in any public place have been directly touched by addiction. You are only alone if you wish to be.

Did I mention community?

. . . keep coming back

"I am a part of all that I have met." ~ Lord Tennyson