Tag Archives: balance

MamaScholar Spring

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Photograph of the author wearing a Pokemon mask and a multiracial little girl holding a running medal

It’s Saturday morning and I’m stressed about a talk I’m going to give in a few hours.

My little girl has a soccer game in an hour and a half. I will miss it because timing was too tight to get there and to my talk which is close, but not quite close enough.

I’ve only been to two soccer games and two practices this entire spring season.

My 16-year old has his last orchestra concert of the year tonight. I’ll make that, but only because I’m leaving the post-conference reception early.

I’ve been away from home nearly half of the last 6 weeks, including last weekend when 6 had back-to-back soccer games and 16 was playing trombone at an all-district event.

It’s my little one’s birthday in less than two weeks, just between the last class of the semester and graduation.

Next week, we volunteered to bring birthday snacks & goodie bags for her soccer team & we’re going to host a birthday playdate for her class.

Which means this weekend I need to get invitations and prep goodie bags and figure out snacks, while also coordinating the panel and activities for my last class…while also grading lesson plans and fieldwork reflections, and giving a virtual book talk.

My partner will help with many, if not most, of these things, but I will need to organize them. And, I will have to let go of the fact that I cannot be all the places at once; I cannot do all the things; the goodie bags will be good enough; and I am doing the best I can.

My family knows that this is their mama. They are proud of the work I do. They love me unconditionally. They remind me it’s okay if I’m not at every thing. They are happy when I am at the things I can be at.

But it weighs on my mama heart to miss moments with them.

It weighs on my teacher heart to feel pulled in a million different directions and wondering if I can do more.

It weighs on my scholar heart to not have time to reflect, as I know reflection brings growth.

This is a post reminding myself and other scholar parents (particularly mama-scholars) to breathe. I can unlearn and choose differently, but I can’t really make any choices in a state of reactivity and disequilibrium.

And we are okay.

Costco & Party City are our friends.

The kids don’t care about perfection, they prefer presence, and play. They prefer play.

The people who come to hear me and engage with the ideas I share will take exactly what they are supposed to take.

Students in my courses are growing in incredible ways as teacher candidates, and I am moved by the ways they are committed to seeing and acknowledging students’ humanity & identities in their lesson plans.

I can only continue to move forward when I remember my own humanity and identity, trusting in the process, acknowledging what is, and the possibilities of what can be.

Peace

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photograph of three lit candles with a twilight sky in the background

For most of my life, I have been searching for peace, joy, and rest.

Sometimes what we are searching for is within us all along.

I have held tight to responsibilities for my whole life. Even as a young child, I felt responsible for the happiness of my family. Through family mythology and the position that I occupied, I learned to shift so that I could fill the needs of others. I learned that my needs were always second to their needs. Though the “they” shifted throughout my life, this lens has been the way I viewed the world.

I was searching, inevitably, through this lens and wondering when I might find the elusive peace, joy and rest that I was seeking. When would I have fewer responsibilities? When might I succeed in bringing joy to those around me? How could my decisions best serve the needs of others?

It was a trap, but an inviting, insidious one. People loved me because I became an excellent chameleon. I learned to perceive people’s needs and become the person they needed me to be. I was good at so many things, and as such was awarded greater responsibilities. I brought joy to many, but at a steep cost to my own well-being. It was never enough to satisfy me, but it was always JUST enough to keep me going, to keep me feeling like eventually, everything would lead to peace and joy. Rest came sparingly and only when I could no longer maintain the frenetic pace of people-pleasing. It “worked” but it was exhausting and inauthentic and so hard.

There is freedom in letting go.

There is peace, joy, ease and rest in acknowledging my own desires and abandoning myself to the truth of those desires, in all of their potential to ruin the illusion of perfection I’ve worked so hard to create, in all of my fear that people will love me less or even abandon me outright, in all of my new unwillingness to compromise my own well-being for the sake of others.

There is peace in that my joy is no longer dependent on the action of others, over which I have no control. I am recognizing my responsibility to honor myself, that my choices are that which are most under my control, and that I really cannot control the lives or choices of others. In not being able to make those choices, I also can’t be responsible for them.

There is so much liberation in this.

I am learning to trust myself and my truth, as messy and unkempt as it may be. It is a journey. I am learning the depth of my love and beginning to turn it towards myself. Slowly, but surely. In doing so, I find myself putting less pressure on myself and others. I find myself able to accept the wholeness of who I am, and give grace to myself and others. I find myself dreaming and exploring, more willing to set boundaries (although I’m still not very good at this, to be honest, but I am learning — walking towards is not always arriving right away), but also more willing to push them.

I am grateful for this peace whether it lasts only a moment or a season or becomes my new path.

I am grateful to love fully and be loved completely, perhaps not by as many, but more authentically than I have ever experienced love, than I have ever allowed myself to experience being loved.

Because I am listening and letting that love in, and letting go, and FINALLY beginning to say yes and no with conviction and grace.

It is a gift.

I receive it.

The Other Side

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An Asian American woman standing in front of the Garonne river with the Pont de Pierre behind her

A blurry picture of me in Bordeaux at night

Last week, I went to France.

France is a strange home where I have never been a permanent resident. But it is my heart’s home. It is the place where I am able to most be myself and to be the self that I most want to be. It is the place where the rhythms of life match the rhythms of my spirit. It is the place where my voice finds clarity, and where my full self finds acceptance. It is the place where I feel most free. It is the place where I have experienced the most joy and acceptance in my life.

I had not been to France in 15 years, since my son was just an infant.

I almost did not go last week.

We are still in a pandemic and I’ve had many friends who I love deeply that have been affected by breakthrough COVID who have warned against unnecessary travel. I have all the responsibilities of all the roles that I fill and all of the things that I do, personally and professionally: mother, sister, wife, friend, mentor, professor, church leader, PTSA executive board member. I did not think I could step away from these responsibilities for such a long period of time (even though I’m on sabbatical, recorded videos for my family each day, and planned my schedules around this trip).

I did not want to be irresponsible in my choices, as if I had not considered these things. Taking 8 days to travel to France in the midst of these contexts felt incredibly selfish and impossible.

But I did it.

(Note: I hope that those who love me won’t judge me for it, because honestly, judgment is still a huge fear for me that I’ve only been able to overcome by making peace with the choices that I’ve individually made and the thoughtfulness I’ve tried to put into safety and connections throughout this trip, and by the fact that I have to understand and accept responsibility for my own choices but can’t control the judgment of others.)

The act of choosing to take this trip in and of itself was extraordinary in what it required from me.

It was also an incredible gift of time to reflect, wander, and breathe.

I spent 8 days in museums in Paris, walking for hours in the city, returning to Bordeaux, which is truly the city of my heart, seeing old friends, returning to places that I’ve loved only to find they’ve completely changed, or that they’re still the same. I spent 8 days contemplating what it means to truly be able to love with one’s whole heart, what it means to choose oneself and to choose for oneself, what equilibrium looks like, how unhealthy my life has been for so much of the last 16 years, what it means to be free of obligation and full of choice. I spent 8 days not responding to (many) e-mails, telling people no, actively choosing not to work, and not worrying about what I was running late for (except for the train I almost missed, but that was yesterday’s post). I spent 8 days eating beautiful food, with amazing people who I love with my whole heart (chosen family), being present to the gift of my life.

It was probably the most extraordinary single week of my life.

I realized at multiple points in the week that I had lost touch with some of the best parts of myself, that I had sacrificed them to the gods of overwork in order to prove my worth.

My friend, Carmen, who has been a big sister to me for nearly 25 years, said to me before I left that it’s good to have these realizations while we’re away from our lives, that sometimes we have to get away in order to see what our lives have become, but if we return to our lives as they were then perhaps this respite hasn’t served its greatest purpose.

She’s right, but this means many changes for me.

They are changes that many people who I love who are close to me have urged me to make FOR YEARS: learning to pace myself; reminding myself that just because I can doesn’t mean that I should; not always doing everything at 150%; taking time for myself; not working all the time; learning to say no; guarding my energy.

These are things that I have known for years, that people who love me have been telling me constantly, even more loudly in the last year.

My refusal to choose myself, to listen to these people in my life, has not been intentional.

At first, it was a matter of survival.

Later, it became a matter of habit.

Until, gradually, I forgot who I was, in the process of taking on so many roles that required parts of myself, but that didn’t have room for my full self.

I am beginning to come back to myself.

Because I am who I am, I want to come back to myself all at once, to bring the equilibrium and joy that I found on my trip home with me and to make all the changes tomorrow.

My life is not set up to make these changes all at once though. They are hard changes. They will require time and pacing, grace and growth. They will require the community, locally and globally, that knows my heart and holds space for the parts that are best and worst.

Already, I am changing. I am learning to listen to what I want most in my heart versus what I think I should do. I am learning to honor stability, to choose my boundaries, but not limit myself in ways that come from insecurity. I am learning that sometimes when I want to watch junk television or rest, that these things are not just okay, that they are great. I am learning that if I want to be most present for the people I love, I have to be present to my own desires and my own needs.

I’m learning to choose myself.

Walking

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I’ve started walking recently.

Pre-pandemic, I ran. I ran a lot (not as much as my friend Jung, but a lot more than zero and pretty consistently). I ran because it felt like the only time I could put my brain on pause. I ran in spite of injuries and exhaustion.

Pre-pandemic, I also ran a lot professionally. I was running from a meeting to another meeting, a session to another session at a conference. Metaphorically, I was running between multiple obligations, from a school site to campus, to shuttle my kids to and from school or activities, from a work meeting to a volunteering gig — it never seemed to stop.

Then the pandemic came, and I stopped running physically.

But, I felt like I was literally sprinting mentally all the time.

I was sitting in front of a computer all day, but I was still “running” from meeting to meeting, jumping from paper to paper, moving from one task to the next. It literally never stopped and it has been the most exhausting (and highly sedentary) period of my life.

I was so tired, and anxious, and depressed (though yay for high-functioning depression & anxiety that hides it all!).

I am on a sabbatical, which is, by origin, a period of sabbath (shabbat) or rest.

But I am realizing that I have still been so busy. I have still been (metaphorically) running, dashing, moving, carrying far too much along the way. I have still been running through and despite injuries and exhaustion.

I am healing, but I am not healed.

And if I keep running, I will never heal.

So this week, I have started to walk, as I move towards rest. I have finished things on my calendar and not replaced them with more things (although there are still more than enough things on the calendar that have not been cut).

I am slowing my pace, intentionally.

I am pulling back and making time for the people I love most.

I am not allowing myself to be defined by the judgment of others.

I am coming back to myself.

I am building back my strength in a low-impact way.

I am planning and taking time away, for myself.

I am focusing on one thing at a time, even if it’s not quite according to plan.

I am remembering to breathe, eat well, and hydrate.

I am beginning to unlearn the notions of moving towards a goal as quickly as possible and beginning to embrace the journey itself.

It’s growth and it’s good.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Step, step, step.

One foot in front of the other, gently, at a pace that can be sustained.

Both/And

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Photograph of the author's son and daughter feeding ducks by a pond

I have always wished for a “happily ever after” ending that wraps up neatly in a bow, like a fairy tale or most American screenplays.

If sheer will and effort were enough for such a life, I imagine that I would have found a way there.

However, my real life is much more complex.

It is a series of “both/and”s.

This weekend was filled with joy. I worked hard to center joy and find it in the places I know best: writing, cooking, being with family, resting, running, good food, independent bookstores, celebrating the accomplishments of others, reading, taking warm baths, being as kind to myself as possible.

It was a great weekend.

AND, I am still struggling with sadness, grief, and a profound sense of loneliness, as a chapter of my life comes to an end. It is ending by my choice, the right choice at this time and space for my life, my health and my family.

AND it is still hard to leave — colleagues I have come to love, students who have made a profound impact on me, work where I made a significant difference.

I am grateful for so many blessings in my life, more than I can list, and for a community that deeply loves me.

And, I am exhausted and still default to doing all the things on my own.

I am always focused on a larger goal, working towards a transformative future.

And sometimes, I can only take things moment by moment.

I deeply love my family and friends.

And I need time that is fully my own sometimes to make space for that love.

I can want and need help.

And I can not know how you can support me.

I can really be fine.

And still have moments of sadness, and still have moments where I want more.

All these things can coexist.

And they do because I exist.

Still striving for better balance, and giving myself grace for when I stumble.

Both/and.

Seeking Balance

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Photo of a bowl of chiriashi with salmon, kampachi and spicy tuna

I made this today. It’s beautiful and nourishing as I hope this next period of my life will be, if I take the time to focus on it.

I am a Libra.

It’s an identity marker.

While I’m really not THAT into the Western (or Eastern) horoscope, I do find that I function better with equilibrium, seek balance, and go to extremes when I’m not doing well. I also try to listen and reconcile multiple sides of an issue, am sociable and capricious. If you look up Libra characteristics, not gonna lie, this is pretty much me.

As a Libra, I’ve been struggling A LOT lately. My life has been all out of sorts for awhile, because there hasn’t been balance…pretty much anywhere.

But, I am finding my way back to equilibrium, and seeking balance.

I want to thank the amazing Lorena & Roberto Germán who posted this entry for #31DaysIBPOC yesterday which got me thinking a lot about joy. I read their entry in the morning and couldn’t get these lines out of my head:

“we need to resist through joy. We feel it deeply. We feel it urgently. None of these people, none of these systems, none of these events can steal our joy.”

While there is such truth in these words, they hit me hard. I felt as though they were an indictment of my own complicity to my suffering. These people, systems and events cannot steal my joy…unless I give it away.

I do not mean to criticize myself or to claim that in the last 15 months, I have not experienced joy. However, the further I have gotten away from my life prior to March 13, 2020, the harder it has been to center joy and to find a balance between joy and advocacy, joy and struggle, joy and obligation.

But now, it is time to resist by centering joy.

This year, I’ve also done a lot of thinking about resistance. Earlier this year, I published a co-authored piece using a framework around coalitional resistance. Part of the central argument of that piece is that resistance doesn’t always look like one might think it “should.”

Yes, sometimes, resistance is direct and visible, particularly in situations where one’s position and privilege allow for direct action to affect change.

Sometimes, however, resistance is behind-the-scenes, hidden from much of the world, but still effective in ways often not celebrated.

Other times, resistance is found in a quiet resolve that may appear to be submissive, but is actually both navigational and future-focused.

Still other times, resistance comes through surviving unjust institutions, in fugitive spaces of solidarity that allow for visions of transformation.

And sometimes, resistance is reclaiming balance, finding and centering joy authentically in a world of injustice, being wholly human, a complex collection of grief, outrage, joy and love.

I am resolving, as I move towards a period of sabbatical, to seek this balance, to affirm a right to rest, to work towards letting go of things and people that are not for me so that I can truly embrace that which is mine, to let myself be poured into so that I can naturally allow for the love in me to be fully expressed, to choose my battles intentionally so that I might also be there to stand alongside those who are fighting their battles with my complete presence.

In balance, I know I will come closer to reclaiming my authentic voice, my joy, myself.

I’m so ready for this journey and what it will bring.

Growing in Grace

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green leafed seedlings in black plastic pots

“What we pay attention to grows…what we put our attention on grows”

I recently finished reading adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy and took note of these words (and many others). Since then I’ve been in an inquiry around transformation, and what it really means to live a life committed to growth, transformation, resilience and healing.

It is a process and it is hard.

I should have expected this because I read the book (which I recommend that anyone reading this blog also read).

“Transformation doesn’t happen in a linear way, at least not one we can track”

“Emotional growth is nonlinear.”

“It is so important to cultivate our patience, our thoughtfulness, our willingness to slow down and seek the wisdom of those not already part of our movements–not to get them in step with our point of view, but because we need their lived experiential wisdom to shape solutions that will work for the majority of living beings.”

Yes, and…

…this is so antithetical to my internalized, individual norms of fixing it now, internalizing critique, making it always and only about me.

But as Lisa Thomas Adeyamo says (and adrienne maree brown quotes on p. 123-124 of Emergent Strategy), “Everything given time and nurturing, is moving towards balance and healing…healing is our birthright.”

I have been re-reading these words, these two pages in my journal where I’ve taken notes, multiple times today.

They are grounding me.

They are reminding me that I can teach myself new things. I can grow in grace. Perhaps there is no greater calling in this new year.

Later in the book, amb shares a conversation Jodie Tonita during which Jodie says, “In the face of daunting challenges, we must summon the courage to believe we are the ones we have been waiting for, take risks and experiment towards solutions. We’re being asked to behave in our inherent capacity, step into the unknown and challenge deeply held assumption. For most of us, that’s radically disruptive and contrary to how we’ve organized ourselves to succeed in life to date.”

Yes. It is so much to unlearn and to relearn and to learn anew.

There is courage in saying, “I did my best, and I will continue to strive to do better, now that I know better.”

There is courage in listening without personalizing and defending, but with openness to grow.

There is courage in change.

There is courage in extending grace to oneself as well as others.

But, it is a process and it is hard.

“What we pay attention to grows…what we put our attention on grows”

I am seeking to grow.

Uncharted Waters (Final Reflection Fall 2020)

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Dark sunset over water

Just over 10 months ago, I accepted a new position.

Just over 9 months ago, the world, and with it the educational world that I had previously known, completely shifted.

6 months and 3 weeks ago, I started a new position.

Just about 4 months ago, I began the fall semester, teaching courses I’ve never taught before, in a new university, using a new LMS, with new administrative responsibilities, in a very different educational world, with a child starting online bilingual kindergarten in a language that neither her father nor I know, with another child starting 9th grade, with everyone at home.

It has without a question been the hardest semester of my life.

I can only completely feel the weight of this as I look back.

During this semester, my primary goal was to make it to the end, to survive.

I kept focused on what was directly ahead of me at all times, moment by moment, facing directly ahead and moving forward.

I hoped desperately that my family would be alright, that my students would learn something, that I could contribute to my program, and to the many individuals and communities that I hold dear.

But honestly, I just wanted to survive.

To do this, I had to draw from everything I’ve developed over my lifetime that has helped me to survive: hard work, years of classroom teaching, my love for teaching and learning, an adeptness with technology, my partner who loves me wholeheartedly and supports everything I do, my community who reminds me to care for myself, my refusal to do less than I’m able in any circumstance, therapy, tears, and incredible focus.

I made it. I survived. My family did well, all things considered. My students reported learning.

But surviving has come at such a cost.

It is my first real moment to sit down and reflect on it all, the victory and the cost.

The Victory

There is always beauty in the growth of my students. They grew so much and brought so much to our classes and our community. I got to bring in friends and educators from across the country to speak to these talented future teachers. I got to teach subject specific methods in my three credential areas which was a joy.

My program co-constructed a beautiful collective vision. It can become our North Star, and move us forward towards transformation. I got to co-facilitate beautiful and powerful professional learning workshops with an incredibly talented colleague and friend (shout out to the brilliance of Dr. Kristal Andrews). I got to work alongside some incredible educators and future educators. I got to work with leadership that sees transformation as the goal of our work. We are building with the help and support of the Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity. I’m making fewer mistakes.

While I try to limit the pictures of my (home) family I post here, I am so proud and grateful for them. They have somehow thrived in this time, of all times. My 5-year old has learned so much Korean in the last four months. My 14-year old and I have made a tradition of Tuesday-Thursday hot beverage runs and he has largely self-managed himself to an earned 4.0 in the first semester. My husband still loves me despite taking on a large portion of the childrearing responsibilities while working full time from home.

My communities have been a constant encouragement. Whether they are colleagues from my current or previous institution, whether they are friends and/or friends turned family, whether they are church family, social media connections, they have helped me, encouraged me, walked alongside me, loved me, empathized with me. I couldn’t have made it without you.

I am so grateful.

The Cost

I am so exhausted. I am spiritually, emotionally, and physically drained. I was listening to the brilliant Season 2 Episode 7 of the Black Gaze Podcast and the concept of taking on too much as violence against the self hit me hard.

To survive, I have begun in the last few weeks to read books for my survival: Healing Resistance, Emergent Strategy and How We Show Up and I have fought for my survival through therapy (individual and collective) and the message from God and the universe have been consistent. I cannot keep contributing from emptiness. If I am to engage in non-violence, I cannot continue engaging in violence against myself, giving away my time, energy, heart and life to institutions and systems without consideration for myself and my community.

There is a lot of unlearning, relearning and learning to do if I want to move past survival into a life where I am thriving.

These are perhaps the most terrifying uncharted waters.

But I keep being led here.

I keep finding myself washed up on shores and looking out at the horizon, but wandering the same ways to find something better.

I am not where I was 10 months ago, or 9 months ago, or 6 months ago, or 4 months ago. I am not where I was yesterday. I am where I am, and choosing where to go next.

There is power in choosing anew every day.

Tonight is the winter solstice.

Tomorrow the days get longer; there is a bit more light.

May it guide my choices.

Breathing

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I am not okay, but I will be.

First, I want to start off this post by thanking God, my family, and my many friends and colleagues who have expressed concerned about my well-being during this time, or have seen the signs of stress and overwhelm, overwork, and the unproductive patterns of people pleasing. You all gently, but firmly, have been reminding me to prioritize self-care, drink my water (Marian, you know I’m talking to you!), and turn off my computer when I need to. You’ve said no for me (thanks, Jung) when I hesitate to say no for myself. You’ve supported me when I’ve been too tired to move forward. You’ve modeled for me your own self-care. In a million big and little ways, you have reminded me I am not alone, even when I feel most alone.

But sometimes, all of that, and all of the strength in the world isn’t enough.

Two days ago, my friends, Dr. Kisha Porcher and Dr. Shamaine Bertrand held a special live Black Gaze Podcast with Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz on transparency & healing, a follow-up to their recorded conversation with Dr. Yolie on Radical Black Self-Love, and it was a word.

It was such a word that it prompted me to do what I KNOW that I’ve needed to do for the last several months (at least since COVID social distancing started), but that I “haven’t had time to do.”

I got serious about getting back into therapy.

I have been in therapy before, during some of the hardest and most stressful points in my life. I kept telling myself in the last few months that, although things are stressful now, they’re not THAT BAD (because you know, when you have experienced multiple major traumas in your life, a global pandemic with xenophobic racism directed towards your racial group and a major job transition are actually just not that bad), and I can just use the tools that I’ve gotten in therapy before (which I have been doing) and I could lean on my communities (which I have been doing), and I can just push through (which I have been doing).

But this week, it hit me, that I can actually do more than survive (thank you to the brilliant Bettina Love for introducing that thinking to me through her brilliant and powerful abolitionist teaching book), that it is possible to have the tools, communities, and strength, but actually want for more, to freedom dream in my own way, individually so that I can have the strength to do the work collectively that I am called to do.

Because, good Lord, I have only been surviving, and barely doing that, in these last few months, despite all outward appearances.

And what I want is to thrive, and be free to set boundaries so that I can do the work that I am called to do. So that we can do the work in community for the world we deserve.

When I get serious, I get moving. Had a consultation session with a therapist today and my first appointment on Tuesday.

This is a big step in radical self-love, that I can commit to healing “even when things aren’t that bad,” that I can commit myself to more than just surviving, that I refuse to fight myself for scraps of my time for the people that are most important to me, that I can be important enough to myself to want better.

I’m writing this because if I had not heard and witnessed the transparency of healing from the Black Gaze podcast and through the words of Dr. Yolie, I might not have had the courage to claim my own healing. And for some of you, maybe this blog is that push you need. Maybe it’s therapy, maybe it’s boundary setting, maybe it’s the courage to say that you want and deserve more.

But get serious, and get moving, because we’ve got to commit to ourselves.

Sometimes Getting Better Isn’t Getting Faster

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Today, I ran the Surf City Half Marathon and completed my fourth Beach Cities challenge.

My time was a 2:07:52 with a 9:46/ mi pace.  This was about 45 seconds slower than last year, and a little over 2 minutes slower than my best time on this course.

I am notoriously bad at appreciating my races when I don’t improve my times, but today, something different happened…well, many different things happened, and I wanted to reflect on and remember them because they show that I’m making progress on my new year’s resolution to “do less, but be more intentional.”

Today’s time was slower, yes, but I felt great during and after the race and I ran negative/ even splits throughout the whole race.  My slowest two miles were at the start and my mile splits ranged from 9:19 (at mile 13!) to 9:52.

This is remarkable for me because I have previously started my races with a goal of getting a sub-2-hour time which means that I generally start at a sub-9 minute pace (which I can usually keep for about 5-7 miles) then crash really hard. While my times are slightly faster when I race this way, I end up in a lot of pain post-race and I feel super exhausted.

I also was really happy with the race itself. In the past, if someone were to ask me my time and I had gotten the time I got today, I would have said it reluctantly with the caveat that it wasn’t a PR and that I had been sick during training.

But today, I felt really proud of myself and what I ran.  I went out and ran my race.  I listened to an awesome K-pop mix (with a sprinkling of Lizzo, Moana & Soy Yo for good measure) while I was running and I felt joyful to be running in a cool marine layer for the entire race, walking to drink water and take energy gels and looking out for teammates.

After the race, I dropped my friend that I had carpooled with off at her car, picked my son up from Chinese school, went to lunch with my family, then went to put flowers at the gravesite of my mom, grandma and aunt, three of the strongest women I have ever known.  I walked up the hill without any physical pain. I got to start my week honoring my mom, spending a moment near her.

Tonight, continuing our recent Sunday evening tradition, we had a living room dance party.  And I was able to dance with my son and daughter.

All of this, I guess, to say that sometimes, it’s not about the result, the destination, the time, how fast you can go, how successful you are by a numeric measure (this makes me smile because it’s actually the message of my upcoming TEDx talk too 😉 ). Instead, perhaps it’s really about the beauty in the most human of moments, in the journey, in the connections — in being able to be present because you didn’t overextend yourself.

I’m not sure, but I do know that today was a good day and I’m feeling surprisingly good for having run 13+ miles this morning 🙂