Still Running After All These Years

Yesterday, I ran my favorite loop with one of my daughters and her baby son who came along for the ride in a jogging stroller.  Running is one of the things that I enjoy doing with her.  We made that connection now almost fourteen years ago.  She was running on the high school cross country team at the time.  I needed to instill some exercise into my schedule.  What could this non-athlete do?  Kat encouraged me by setting my watch to beep every two minutes.  I would jog for two minutes, and walk two minutes, and then jog again.  It wasn’t much.  But it caught hold.

We forged a connection – something we could do together – and we are still running after all these years. 

If you are a parent, or a grandparent, or you are just trying to connect with someone to mentor, find something, find a connection, a mutual interest that you can build on.  As our girls were growing up, often that “something” changed from year to year as they grew.  But it is a precious place.  And it doesn’t just happen or emerge.  It is an intentional bonding.  I took a risk with many activities, from running to cooking to writing this blog.  Once I even joined a choir to make that connection, fearful that someone would realize I could not really sing.

My husband and I even read many of the same books that our girls were assigned in school or reading on their own.  That mutual activity introduced us to new authors, increased our literary knowledge, provided a great source of conversation, and allowed us to be more connected with what they were thinking about or learning in school.

Through the years, all those connections, those activities and adventures, shared experiences and talks along the way, those became the building blocks of strong abiding relationships.  When (not if), you go through shaky times in those relationships, you still have something to hold onto, until the storm passes.  And in good times, well, all the better. 

It’s never too late.