I'm not sure if I am assigning too deep of a meaning to the countless timed mile fitness tests I partook in over the years of soccer pre-seasons, but for some reason, I have recently found myself reflecting on the different feelings I had throughout the preparation, anticipation, and completion of those God-forsaken events. Why did I dread them so much? Was I afraid of losing, or not passing? Was it because simply put, running as fast as you can for four laps is not a pleasant experience?
I always had trouble training for the pre-season mile test. I have a mental block against tracks -- I'm not sure why -- and so, the best I could do to prove to myself that I would pass would be to step out of my driveway, press "start" on my watch and run as fast as I could for however long the time limit for the upcoming test would be. After five minutes and forty five seconds, six minutes, six minutes and fifteen seconds, I would stop running, walk the rest of the way home, hop in the car and drive the exact distance I had made it in the given time. Usually, the odometer slowly rolled to 1.000 miles just as I approached the mailbox, the telephone pole, the stick in the road that I had used to mark my distance. I would breathe a sigh of relief -- a relief that lasted about two minutes before I realized that, in less than a week, I would have to do the same thing all over again ... except that the next time, it would be around a track.
Well, in the course of this two year experience in Belize, I am just about to cross the line marking the completion of my first six months. 25% done. 1/4 of the way there. 3 times the amount of days that have gone, to go. Whichever way I rationalize it to myself, I can't help but think back to both the feelings of triumph and discouragement -- "one down" and "three to go" -- that I always felt in the heat of those races as I finished the first lap.
That first time around the track was always the hardest for me. I never warmed up properly, and my muscles felt tight and leaden. I struggled to find my pace, caught up in the initial rush that makes everyone go a little bit too fast. I also remember being aware that the adrenaline would fade, and letting that get my spirits down before it chemically happened -- mind under matter -- letting myself feel discouraged that even after completion, the first lap would be hardly a bite in the whole cake that lay before me to eat. (Bad analogy -- I really enjoy eating cake!)
In any case, I find myself retracing these familiar pathways of my mind these days. Though the landscape is unfamiliar -- the people are different, the place is different, the task at hand is different -- my mind is falling back into its similar patterns of quantifying and compartmentalizing the time, deflating the natural adrenaline rushes with the constant reminder of the difficulties that lay ahead, while also trying to celebrate the landmark of sixth months spent living abroad; it's like back in July, I raced ahead and planted myself a bouquet of flowers at the January 31 mile-marker, and am pretending to be surprised now I as I stoop over to pick them up from the side of the road. "Awww, for me? From me? You really shouldn't have ..."
I can't say that things have gotten too much easier in the past few months, except perhaps my acceptance that this experience is really hard. I have had some ups and downs with my job, like most recent graduates I'm sure, wherever we are -- I guess I'm just trying to find my groove while also desperately trying to understand what my purpose here, in Belize, really is. Community life has been equally as difficult in more abstract, yet somehow reaffirming, ways. Something much greater than the five of us drew us to be together in Belize City, to live in the same house, to share the same resources, to live parts our lives through each other. Never have I been so open and so exposed, yet so lonely all at the same time. My relationship with words -- both in the reading of others' ideas as well as the articulation of my own -- has grown, and is something I find myself dependent on to process the internals and externals to my daily life: the invasiveness of Belizean culture, the beauty of this country, and the crude sights, sounds, and smells of this city. And finally, the distance from home has evolved such that I wake up in the middle of the night from dreams of the second-floor bathroom of my house at 6 Mohegan Road, or at random times during the day, my mind floods with memories of junior high and high school -- things and people that I haven't thought of, or heard from, literally, for years.
In the grand scheme, it's only been six months, one lap. Time -- either around a track or in life -- doesn't stop, and for that, sometimes I am thankful. On the days when I'm really not sure that this, Jesuit Volunteers, is what I'm supposed to be doing right now in my life, time keeps me going. And on the days that I can imagine myself nowhere else but swinging on a hammock breathing prayers and Belizean sunshine, I am glad that time is something I'm aware of -- and in these precious, orginal moments -- that I can hold on to.
And, when all is said and done, I think back to this past August when, for the first time in God knows how many years, I didn't have to run a pre-season mile fitness test around a track. And boy, am I thankful.
Huma la aburemei. Peace be with you.
Much, much, much love,
Molly
