If you want to be a ´Jack

http://thehood.raptorhideout.com/t_pain_dom.mp3

There are things you wrestle with, you know.
Things that are life decisions, or that change your daily life. They are decisions that you don´t take lightly and they are ones which require a lot of thought.
Wrestling with these options and choices and alternatives and pros and cons and why´s and why not´s and what have you is difficult. It´s tiring. But it is always important.
What I have found, though, is that God speaks to me in impulses (Side note: The problem with this sort of communication is separating ¨divine¨ impulses with normal ones, if the two are really even that different).
So, when I not-so-accidentally received the Humboldt Cross Country meet schedule yesterday, my aching longing to again run for that team and my impulse to E-mail the new head coach were the answer to the question that has been bothering me for the past several months: should I run next fall or not?
I urgently sent out a few E-mails to friends seeking advice, even though I already knew what I was going to do about the situation.
Deciding to run Cross is the right choice, I think. It does change my outlook on this coming semester and how I was approaching it. But, in the end, I do think that it is a decision that is truer to who I am than the decision to not run.
Going back to Humboldt will be interesting. Not only will I have been away for a year, but also it is my last year; additionally, Sandy won´t be there as a coach and a few of my best friends have left Humboldt. Running then, isn´t just something that makes me happy and that I want to do, but it is something that familiarizes a place that, upon return, will be completely different.
But change is something that must be embraced, just like Primetime TV shows have told us for years. Change isn´t something that happens on occasion but it is a state in which we live constantly and inescapably. A process of elimination leaves optimism and opportunism as the only two logical and healthy reactions to what is now going on in my life.
Less existentially, as I ran today, I ran a normal distance on a normal route, but I felt better. I felt like me. I felt purposeful.
Running alone in Chile for the next month will be difficult and boring, but it will be a lot better than not running, and it will be a lot better now having something to run for.
So with this difficult decision behind me and a whole season of possibilities ahead of me, I´m excited. And most of all, I´m happy with the decision I made.