Comeback

I wish I knew how to properly understand this word. And even more importantly, and albeit challenging, I wish and so strongly desire with all of the powers of my inner most being how to apply this word directly into my life. In essence, I would have thought this compound word was one of the most basic, simplistic creations of its kind.  However, the word “come” is actually rather complex as I found when I studied it for a brief time.  Its definition possesses three parts of speech: a verb, a preposition and a noun.  In the meaning I am seeking to decipher, “come” can be defined as “when a specified time or event happens.” All true things considered, the word “back” would also seem just as easy to understand.  However, “back” is slightly more complex than the word “come” as its meaning possesses four parts of speech: a noun, verb, adverb and adjective.  In the word “comeback”, the adverb form applies and can be defined as “expressing a return to an earlier or normal condition.”  The chaotic train of thought seen in the most elementary of words has led me to a state of struggle and feeling of uncertainty for the first time in my life.  Shall I digress?

I have been an athlete for the last 25 years.  I began playing baseball, “coaches’ pitch” to be exact, in Tabor City, NC, when I was in the first grade.  I loved sports and was always a competitive, contributing member of my teams.  Baseball was the main focus of my extracurricular life for the following seven years (along with piano lessons and enjoyable church children’s programs centering around music and service projects) and then the seed of running was planted for the first time in my life in middle school.  Although I was successful at every level of competition while attending Green Sea Floyds High School, I did not run fast—AT ALL—and remained injury free for the first time until I was 18 years old.  I was a freshman in college running cross-country for Presbyterian College and suffered a stress fracture in my left fibula bone about ½ inch above the ankle joint—a rather small four-to-six-week setback.  It wasn’t until I was 26 years old that I experienced what one would call a “career impacting injury” where I was sidelined for eight weeks as a member of Team Indiana Elite in January and February of 2012.  An injury that would rear its ugly head again in March of 2015 that leaves me at a point of confusion and disarray now in December.

Each of my prior injuries I described pre-surgery on June 1, 2015, impacted my life in very small ways in comparison to my current state.  I am sure my friend Jenni Bohn can remember the many hours we spent watching “Dancing with the Stars” with her sweet family in Bloomington as I tried to find some solace as to why my running journey would have taken a turn as soon as I had accomplished one of my most pivotal running goals to date—joining a professional running team.  This decision required me to quit my job, move out of state for the first time and solely devote my life to running and nothing else for the first time in my life.  After much reflection on those many dark days in 2012, they seem quite bright in comparison to my current daily mood.  Jenni and her family saved me that year and a golden opportunity arose later that summer in 2012 that changed my life forever as I was able to pursue a job as a full-time teacher back in the state I love the most.

Sorry to give a bit of my running biography here, but it is actually helping make some sense of why I am struggling today.  Flash forward to the Fall of 2014, after coming off the best season of my professional running career in 2013, I had the worst, most disastrous season imaginable (finishing off my European racing season with a 4:20 mile) and relinquishing some sanity due to the fact that my mind and mojo were essentially the only major injured pieces of my body at the time. Then another change occurred in my life—AGAIN.  I took an opportunity to move to Knoxville, TN, where I focused on running again full-time, but balanced the life change with giving back to a local youth track club that helped take the stress and pressure associated with thoughts of constantly “making it happen” and “me, me, me” off the table in my investment with so many young runners.  What ensued was a new era of fitness and an indoor track season that any rising pro would have taken in a heartbeat and then…it all vanished. 

My foot started bothering me for the first time all indoor season at the 2015 Indoor National Championship pre-meet tune-up.  It began to swell and feel like it did in 2012 for the first time in almost three years, but I was able to complete the race and the following months were filled with question marks. Several other life-altering events took place that I have yet to figure out how to handle.  Ultimately, there have been many days and many hours that I have spent wondering if a “comeback” is something I am capable of.  Of course, virtually 100% of the greatest athletes in any sport have had to overcome injury at some point in their careers.  But “HOW THE HELL DID THEY DO IT?”  I would love to know because I had a vision of getting back to running on September 1 and it is now December 3 and I am not in much greater standing than I was then. 

I know that setback is many times synonymous with comeback. I know that recovering from surgery is not easy. I know that there are so many people who have had or are currently experiencing far more devastating circumstances than I.  But that doesn’t make it any easier to run—to run free, to run fast, to experience the joy that only running can bring. Please don’t pity me, trust me, you shouldn’t. I have all the tools and resources necessary to begin this journey that I know I am meant to take once again.  I just need to see the light at the end of the tunnel that just isn’t as bright as I’d like it to be.  I saw a quote while driving in uptown Charlotte early this week that struck me in a unique way: “There isn’t a day of the week called someday.” I just hope my illusion of someday will become today or tomorrow or maybe even the next day—soon.