Life is a race. And other clichés [3 min. read]

Type “Life is a Race” into google and you’ll get over 450 million results.

Life has been compared to a race… journey…a highway. Millions and millions of times.

This analogy is nothing new.

And so, a true cliché, I tend to envision everyone moving through life alongside each other, slightly less as a race and more as jogging companions.

On the beach of course.

Sometimes we run.

There are times we really feel like we’re getting somewhere, we’re productive and happy and have a great pace going. Sometimes we get tired from running, so we slow the pace back down to a walk for a while. Work has been stressful. Life got a bit too busy. Stop. Breathe. Feel the sand between your toes. Breathe. Ok. Good. A gentle stroll, that turns into a jog again and we pick back up momentum.

Sometimes I’m on the beach along with everyone else. I stop and go again. Energized, tired, angry, sad. Natural ebbs and flow. Natural responses when things go awry. I catch my breath and move again.

But sometimes, I feel like I’m trying to jog in waist deep water.

I open my eyes on a morning.

Ready, get set, go.

Go.

But somehow I’m not moving as fast as I’m pushing. Everyone else glides by it seems. Or are hunched over catching their breath for a moment after life’s usual difficulties, before picking back up as their energy returns.

But somehow I’m walking, pushing, running even… but each step is held back by this resistance.

Ankle deep. Waist deep. Chest high.

Not always. But sometimes.

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My shower has a recurring drainage problem.

It doesn’t happen overnight, although it feels like it.

Hair, I assume, finds its way down the drain day by day until one day I’m in the shower and I realize I’m standing in ankle deep soapy water. I never realize when the drainage starts to slow down nor the precise moment the water level started to creep up.

It doesn’t happen overnight. Yet I only realize it after the water has collected, stagnant and soapy around my ankles.

Honestly, sometimes I’m not sure if I’m on the beach or in the sea trying to run.

Is this just the regular weariness that comes with the journey or is the water at my ankles rising inch by inch?

Is there really a difference?

Do I need to poke a stick at the drain, buy some chemicals or will I just catch my breath and go again?

How deep is too deep? How slow is too slow?

Is the water clearing on it’s own this time?

I don’t want to wake up one day to realize I’ve drowned.

Today I’m ok. I think.

Feel the sand between my toes. Stop. Breathe… maybe look for a stick?

I don’t know.

I really don’t know sometimes.

Yet here comes tomorrow.

Ready, set, go…