"Commitment" Isn't Such a Dirty Word

In 24 hours, I will have completed my first marathon. That seems like such a huge thing to say, but the reality is that I can't even wrap my mind around it! The words sound ridiculous coming out of my mouth. Nicola, a runner? Bah! No! Well, I have done some big runs in the last few weeks, but I feel like nothing can prepare me for what's about to go down at 4:30 in the morning...tomorrow morning. Sheesh! It's that soon??

On top of it all, in the last couple of weeks, it has been pouring with rain. It's been the kind of rainy season that makes you realize that you live in a developing nation. Picture this - driving to school on a motorbike, through 2 feet of water, gutters overflowing, the city flooding, and school still in session. I started to wonder, "what would it actually take to close schools in Thailand?" Apparently a raging river down the city roads is no reason to be alarmed.

Yet, despite the feeling that I need to turn my bungalow into an arc - hell, I have enough creatures here on the mountain (spiders, snakes, cats, horses, soi (road) dogs, and lizards) to make a pretty good Noah story, I have been running. I am aqualung!

Fortunately, like the end of any rain story, the sun has just come out and I'm hoping that the sunshine that has FINALLY graced Phuket with its presence since 7 a.m. this morning, will hang around for the next 24 hours, so that I might run 26 miles without the feeling that I'm in New Orleans.

You know, we never think we can do anything until we get out there and do it. I had never painted a mural before or run a marathon, but I finished my mural this week and tomorrow I'm running a marathon, so I don't know; I guess what it comes down to is that most of the time we just don't make the time. We are such capable beings. We have the ability to do so much more than we would have ourselves believe and I mean this in a physical and a mental way. It's all about making a commitment to something. Hah! Commitment? Holy shit, that's another word I try to omit from my vocabulary, but in this regard, maybe commitment isn't such a dirty word. Maybe commitment is what gets us over finish lines and surrounded by color.

Even if the rain comes back, even if my should angel turns saboteur, even if I'm crawling by the end of it, I'll be crossing that finish line. I know that this will leave me as broken person, but when I look at what I've accomplished and remember what I'm capable of, the words don't sound that ridiculous.