Epilogue: A Decade of Flight, Part 3 of 3
The running aspirations are still there. I want to get back to Boston every 5 years or so. I'd like to try a few ultra distances when the time is right. I'd like to not just coach, but run with my daughters when they are of running age if they choose to do so. See how the goals morph nicely? That last one is important: I don't want to be the banged-up/hanged-up role model---I want to be the living, breathing role model in motion. While my little girls are the primary reason my mileage has been throttled back (~20 miles/week, as opposed to 2-3 times that volume ten years ago), it's as if those un-run miles are being banked to share with them 10-20 years from now. To think: my three-year-old and one-year-old are actually boosting my longevity--now that's about the funniest thing I've written here in years! Funnier still is that statement is perhaps ripe with truth. And I write that fresh off of six hours of sleeping on my daughter's floor last night--she was really upset that Big Bird didn't see Santa. (That floor of hers is comfortable once you get used to it.)
My running aspirations are now complemented by other aspirations: seeing the girls through a healthy and happy childhood (of course), home maintenance (I've been bitten by this bug hard--being in my neighborhood Home Depot gives me a wonderful sense of calm), enjoying a quiet night with my wife (rare, but possible!), audiobooks (where has this been all my life?!) and the like. This complement is necessary and wildly fulfilling.
This complement requires trade-offs: time--however infinite--is ironically a limited resource. This journal is one of those trade-offs. OHF has been a high-quality, creative and immensely enjoyable experience, and I'm a little sad to see it go. When we moved out of Oak Hill last year, I knew it would be tough to put my home for 12 years on the market. My recurring thought back then, put to words: "I'm not leaving this house until we find another house that makes me want to leave." We had the fortune of finding that exact house, and I was packing boxes last summer with a song in my (exhausted, sleep-deprived) heart. That same song allows me to tape the boxes of this journal shut as well. There's a lot in front of me to look forward to. The thought certainly crossed my mind of perhaps opening a new journal online for this next phase (the double entendre of "Running Rain Creek" has a nice ring to it, and I am floored that no parent has scooped up the "Footnotes to Play-Doh" namespace yet), but if I can't put my full effort into it, I don't want to start one. Besides, I still have my handwritten running journals, with writing similar to what you find here--they existed long before this blog, and will continue to exist long after.
Back in 2004 I wanted to capture the seasons of life upcoming. If chronicling those seasons could inspire others, hey that's nice too and oh-look-by-the-way there's a perfect new medium for doing just that. And for the love of god, I wanted this blog to be unique. Perhaps--as of today--this blog achieved that goal by doing something that no other blog in the history of computing has done: it ended. Surely this act alone puts OHF into the minority. When the internet is dead and buried and James Cameron-inspired cyborg archaeologists thousands of years from now find this post underneath yottabytes of clickbait and beer photos, maybe they'll think: "hey, there might actually be something worth reading here." Maybe.
after a long afternoon outside
comes not from the playground
but from the hourglass
reminding me
there's only so much time
before you'll want to play
in a world much larger
than any world i could ever create for you
Keep moving. Be well. See you on the trail. And thanks so much for reading.
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