Working Through the Pain

I've often heard people say that at some point during exercise or some form of extreme physical activity that you eventually "hit the wall" and have to push through the pain in order to get to the other side, the end. I've never been active enough to actually experience the sensation for myself. But today, as I worked out, I found myself working through the pain.

For some reason, and I don't know why, as I started to put in my 25 minutes on the NuStep cross-trainer, I began to "feel." At first I felt the pain in my hip as my legs kept pushing against the resistance of the machine. I found myself thinking, "gee, I'm just not that into working out today. I just don't have it.' But I did. I kept moving. And so did my mind.

It's always near and dear to me that I'm working out to improve my health and to be able to adopt a child. So, that's my number one motivation. I keep that motivation near and dear to my heart every step of the way. Some days the only thing that gets me through is pictures, visualizing someone handing me little Lyric or William. The emotions can overwhelm. But today, my future/potential child was only one thing on my mind.

Since I last wrote my family has been affected by cancer twice. A young lady in her late thirties, who has had a horrible start at life and a teenager and young child is still waiting to find out what kind of cancer she has. And another family friend, mid-fifties, who has raised three grown men, and has two lovely grandchildren finds out that she too isn't immune from cancer. While the type of cancer is still unknown, the general consensus is startling. It's the kind of cancer that I am already at a high predisposition to battle myself. It really hit home.

The more I worked out, the more I thought about my mother who will be beside her best friend, as she fights whatever form of cancer she has, every step of the way. How hard that will be for my mother. I thought of my father who has been without his own best friend for almost 10 years now. A man who treated me like his own child who died peacefully in his sleep after several warnings by his physician to lose weight and stop smoking.

Parents are supposed to feel the pain of their children and try to make it okay, but today I felt pain for my parents. I thought about my life, my best friends, my husband, my family and all I stand to lose if I don't get a handle on my life and get healthy. Even more sobering, I considered what they have to lose.

There's my best friend Ginger. She's already lost her sister, her greatest confidant, her childhood through adulthood hero. She has always said she considers me a sister as well. I can't be the reason she buries another one. I can't imagine having to stand at the head of my own brother's casket while well wishes express their sympathies. I felt for her and the strength she had to have to endure that and what she has to continue to have in order to put one step in front of the other. I felt that pain.

There's my husband who lost his father several years ago to an illness that only a transplant could have cured. He didn't do anything to contribute to his own death. It could only have been prevented if he received a new liver; however, he went from not being sick enough to list for transplant to being too sick to list for transplant. Nevertheless, my husband is fatherless now. I felt that pain.

I felt the pain of my own losses in life: opportunities that will never present themselves again, a child that I jeopardized my own health to conceive, and opportunities that will be passing me by if I don't complete this journey.

At the end of my 25 minutes on the NuStep, I found tears in my eyes. It really became abundantly clear to me why I'm on this journey.

I've said before I'm an emotional eater. Had I been home while thinking these things, I probably would have eaten. But I was at the gym. So, the only thing I could do was to keep pressing on.

As my workout progressed, I began to feel more hopeful. I compelled myself to think of happy things and what I hope for in the future. The last song that came on my MP3 player that I worked out to was "Shackles". It speaks about having the shackles taken off your feet and being free, praising God and thanking God that He brought you through the fire and the rain and the pain. How happy it is to be able to dance now, free of the hurts, pains, and situations that shackled you. And I stopped my physical movements and I sat on a weight machine and I closed my eyes and I listened to the song again.

It was the perfect ending to an emotionally charged workout. I began to wonder how and where a celebration of survival could take place. How will we who have come through so much, fought so hard, those of us who wanted to give up but didn't, where can we come to celebrate.

Where can my friend Courtney and her husband go to celebrate the lives of their late sons and the possibilities if not presence of their future children? Where can my brother and sister-in-law celebrate all of there hard work and its rewards? Where can Ginger dance as she thanks God for bringing her and her family through the horrible experiences of 2009? Where can I dance when I'm thinner, healthier, finished grieving (if that's possible), and the potential mother (if not real mother) to a lovely adopted child? Where can my mother dance with her best friend after she wins her fight against cancer? Where can my sister-in-law's mother dance to celebrate no further brain tumors?

The answer: the day my husband and I renew our wedding vows in front of family and friends.

I won't go into that history right now, but other than my husband's sister and her now ex-husband, no one was present when Jeff and I wed. No one even knew. So, we have been wanting to renew our vows in front of our family and friends, not as the "wedding I never had" but rather as a party of reaching five years of marriage. So, in a year and a half from now, when we have this celebration, there will be dancing and all of these people whom I've thought about so deeply today, will be dancing with us.

And I think I know the perfect song...