Finding Momentum

Last night I lost my keys somewhere between Berkeley and Fremont BART station.

To this hour I have no idea where they are. I stood out there on the Fremont terminal for a good fifteen minutes emptying my backpack, patting my pockets for those elusive keys. I ended up calling my Dad (at 12:30AM) to pick me up from the BART station. When he arrived I kept apologizing. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, “it’s small stuff.”

I tried my best to not think about it. Didn’t work. I tried to pray and let it go. Kinda helped (I think God just told me “You’ve got control issues, son”). But I my brain was running a million miles an hour as I was driving back from the BART (and if you know me, I was driving 55MPH in the slow lane).

I woke up today and felt like a loser.

Like I can’t describe it. I just woke up and felt low. I woke up and suddenly I heard subtle voices telling me I was an idiot. I should have been more careful. I can’t keep things in order. I’m scatterbrained.

I couldn’t shake ‘em. They followed me to work, where I tried in vain to finish a presentation that I only got half-done before I had to run out to a doctor’s appointment.

They stuck with me as I waited an hour in the waiting room and slept with my feet all over a Brio train set and other assorted kids’ toys.

They were there when I notified the receptionist I needed to leave — I couldn’t wait any longer (I had to get back to work and present), and drove back to the office, feeling even lower.

I managed a less-than-stellar presentation. If I could describe it, it would be “apologetic” and “lackluster.” It was a long walk back to my office.

 — 

It’s days like these that the fight for joy becomes the very last thing you want to do. It takes too much energy, mang. It requires a heck of a lot less energy to wallow in a pity party. It’s times like these you just want to say “well today sucked” throw in the towel and call it a Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Very Bad Day.

I had to get out of this funk though. This negative energy was sapping me. So I went to the gym and ran.

And ran. And ran. And listened to a sermon as I was running, where the pastor was talking about how Jesus was worth it and his tone of voice told you he believed it with every last fiber in his being and you could hear the warmth and love that this man had for his community. And then I was rereading my journal (yes, this is whilst mounted on an elliptical machine)  and I thought about a living hope in every circumstance. And I thought about running the race with endurance.

Yeah, today was rough, but each stride was good for my soul.