Learning Humility

The honeymoon is in full swing. I'm in love with running, especially outdoors. I'm in love with the scale, that keeps rewarding my hard work. I'm in love with my smaller jeans, my smaller shirts, the last hole in my belt. I'm on top of the world.

Like I was in October 2007, falling in love with fall and with running (for the second time in my life).

I'm hovering around a milestone weight, just like I was in September of that year, when I bought myself a subwoofer to celebrate hitting 200 pounds (funny how I kept using it after I shot back past that weight :) ).

I took a few moments today to remind myself of the struggles that come with this. To remind myself that I've been down this road before and I know the pitfalls. I know it isn't as easy as it feels right now, and I have many posts written to remind me of that.

September 2007, I talk about staying motivated. In March 2007, I posted about getting back on the wagon.

I could look into my posts and see if I could find recurring themes. Like this post, written in 2007, which I could have written many times in my life. But why settle with 2007? I could go back to 2005, and see if I could find the post where it first became obvious I was on the road to losing my fitness that time. I was stunned to realize it came so quick after my 10K race. Talk about a race hangover; that one lasted 2 years.

And then I pull out something I wrote in August 2007, and realize it's just as true now as it was then:

this is all a cycle -- that we advance, we fall back, we learn and we forget ... but until the ticker runs out, we still have a chance to do the right thing.

I'm not here to be a pessimist. But whether I stay on the straight and narrow or fall off again, I love where I am today, and I will remember that tomorrow. But I know who I want to be, and know how to be that person. Hopefully I'm learning each time I take this trip and will do a better job this time around.