You never give up in the middle of a race

I rowed on the crew team in college. I started a little late in the season, and sat in the boat house on what is called an erg machine, simulating rowing a race. I had given a little too much of my all in the beginning, and ran out of steam part way through. In a room full of teammates giving everything they got, I started slowing down, and giving up. The coach noticed, and caught my eye as he walked over. I never forgot what he said: “You never give up in the middle of a race.” I started again and he continued: “what are you doing to do with that energy when it’s over? Use it all, reach into your big toe if you have to, but squeeze out every little drop you’ve got. You never give up in the middle of a race.”

You can be so close. Found courage to start projects, and now have to finish them. And you're frozen. You’ve finally been running towards what you want and you feel like you are stopping before the race is over. It also feels like the finish line is actually a canyon that you have to leap off into and hope you make it to find earth under your feet. Everyone talks about the first step or steps being so hard, but no one talks about the end – not the finish, because we're not there yet, but that wall that shows up before you can see the finish line, when you’ve had a nice road and you can fade off now and say you’ve tried. I t can feel like it’s mile 22 of a marathon, and before you have to reach into your big toe and pull out anything you could muster, you could instead fold into the crowd and say you had a nice long Sunday run. You have to find out how to break through that wall.

Part of you wants it so much, and the other part of you doesn’t want it at all. Part of you wants to share it and the other part wants no one to know. Part of you wants to push through that wall, and the other part wants to stay exactly where you are.

Yet, you never give up on a race.

forgive.

I collogue of mine became a close friend in one conversation. She has been dry for years, living after a love affair with alcohol. She was infatuated with the rush of suffocating until she came up for air, and took inventory of herself and people in her life; her effect, her love, her disappointment, and pain she was not letting herself feel, but feeling it anyway. She told poignant examples and drew me in to a story that was for her both centuries ago, and yesterday. It was all an explanation for a simple gift she was giving me for Christmas.

She gave me a stone that had the word “Forgiveness” written on it. It was sweet, simple, and I appreciated it. It can take me a little while to forgive, but I get there and it’s worth it. But she surprised me. She acknowledged how hard it was with someone that has wronged you, but followed it by saying the most powerful thing she has ever learned was forgiving herself. And then asked me if I had done it.

She emphasized forgiving everything, anything, the pain I gave to another person or pain I gave to myself, poor decisions, second guessing, loving too much or not enough or not doing or doing…. “All of it” she said, to not leave anything out, because it all, always, deserves and needs forgiveness.

She added one more thing. It’s not regret, or apology, and doesn’t need one. It’s just forgiving yourself unconditionally until this moment. “The best gift I have ever given myself,” she said, and that forgiving myself was also a gift for everyone around me.

That stone was and is a continuous gift for me too.