“Whuuuuh?”
A few people still think I’m kidding, but I kid not! On April 24, 2010, 70 women crossed the finish line of the Music City half-marathon, raising tens of thousands of dollars for breast cancer survivors.
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I didn’t play team sports in high school. I was a cheerleader, but in all fairness I wasn’t close to the other girls; so I’ve never really been part of an athletic team, until HFH.
Boy, was I missin’ out.
There were jokes, of course:
Hubby truly enjoyed such “perks” of the experience, and took a (blushing) pleasure in having a group of sweating women throw clothing at him (mostly jackets and mittens, but he wasn’t one to be picky) mid-way through training when we’d stop to hydrate. I really appreciate the support he showed to me and my friends, and the Hoopers’ gracious treatment of our water boys.
But most of all, I appreciate the determined attitude and focused energy of my fellow hoopers. So many of the ladies I trained with had this inner fire that burned through the doubts that fog a mind 3 miles in to a 6 mile practice (because, mind you, we trained early on the weekends, before the sun could warm Nashville above the 40° mark). We each had a different motivator, a different fuel, but when we were training we were a team and those differences didn’t matter: only our goal did.
That attitude came in handy race day, when it rained poured for at least five miles of our trek. In true Southern style, Nasvilleans were more than happy to cheer us on as we brought up the rear (and may I say, the best caboose is a hooping caboose — especially when it’s pink!), even offering to share their beers (yes, we had a few takers).
It was supposed to be a charitable walk for breast cancer survivors, but, in the end, I feel like I walked away with even more than I gave. From the experience I took a renewed sense of self, a confidence that had been missing since the time when I was too young to realize that what other people said and thought was supposed to matter enough to change my core beliefs. Our society likes to talk about embracing others and their beliefs, but I saw women actually *do* that while focusing their “change” powers on something more important than our voting history or social views. It was empowering. It was humbling. It was incredible.
A sea of pink hoops swept me up and delivered me to a new chapter of my life (yea, it sounds cheesy, but it’s true enough to bear saying nonetheless).
* * *
Hubby once explained that cancer is a perfect cell in that it doesn’t die, and that perfection is what makes it so deadly: our bodies are meant to change like seasons, like the cycles of Mother Earth. Within us is a cellular dance of the birth and passing we see play out in the plants and animals around us. So many of us don’t even realize that our complacency, though it may not manifest physically, is a form of cancer to which we can either succumb, OR fight with gusto.
I challenge you to find something that changes you. It’ll probably be scary, it will likely be uncomfortable, but we are constantly being remade as our cells divide and die, divide and die; what’s the point of constant rebirth if nothing ever changes?
