Celebrate A Little Every Day

Driving home from Manteo today I made my usual stop at Border Station.  No longer can I get a Blizzard there, but it's still the place I like to make a pit stop during my three and half hour commute from one home to the other.  While I was pulling into a parking spot I noticed a young woman jogging out towards the highway.  Normally people use that area to walk their dogs and what not, but she was just sort of heading out toward the intersection so I watched her for a second.  She stopped by the side of the road and held up her phone to take a picture of the "Welcome to North Carolina" sign.

I have driven by this spot I don't know how many times over the past 18 years or so, and I don't think I've even noticed that sign but a couple of times.  Here there was somebody taking a picture of it!  I thought, "Man, she's excited to be going to North Carolina!" and I immediately was reminded of how much I love coming here.  It's the state I consider to be my Home.  I have tons of friends here, a house I love, and a town I absolutely adore.  I always get excited when I drive down here, but I've never stopped to take a picture of the sign.

Maybe it's her first trip down, or maybe she's going to be getting married down here this week.  A lot of people do that in the Outer Banks.  Whatever the reason she wanted to capture that moment so she could remember and relive it again later.  Cool.

I figure every one of us does things over and over again and we allow those things to become mundane or mechanical.  Even things we love to do.  We might have even celebrated them in the beginning, but now just sort of do them, because it's what we do.  Nothing special here.  Then we find out that very thing we take for granted is something entirely spectacular to someone else.  It's a big event, a major achievement, or a completely unique occasion that they're going to celebrate, record and relish for years to come.  I take pictures all the time, but when I drive by Border Station I should grin big and think about how incredibly cool it is that I get to do what I'm doing.

Living the dream!

And of course all this reminded me of running.

I've been watching all the comments of friends who will be running Marathons or Half's in the next month and marveling at the mileage they're all logging.  Most folks are going into their tapers or just about done and I have to laugh at seeing phrases like "I won't feel bad for only doing 8.5 miles this weekend," or "just did my last 20 miler!"  I mean, seriously.  I still remember what it was like to walk/jog a single mile.  Now I can go out and run 14 miles with friends and talk the whole way.  That's ridiculous!  Those comments, and those runs, didn't just happen.  A lot of sweat, pain and effort have gone into getting to this point and I wonder if we're stopping to take enough pictures along the way?

I know there will be lots of celebrating, story telling and commiserating after those mammoth races, but I want to encourage everyone to high five somebody during their next run and take a quick moment to celebrate the fact that the run is EASY.  That you can do it.  That you're doing it with friends or all alone.  Smile about it!

Being on the journey is a blast in itself and a big deal.

Congratulations!