Why do we run?

  A year ago, this week, my family and I moved to Montana from Washington state for my  husband's new job.

  We were leaving behind the only home our boys had ever known, my dad and grandparents, friends made over the years and that sense of security and comfort one develops in the communities they live in. We were looking forward to a new adventure, a bigger home with land in a more affordable area. Yes, we were leaving behind the beach that was a mile from our home, the beautiful Puget Sound, but I had somehow convinced myself Montana would be better suited for us. Just as beautiful as our old home, green and mountainous with never ending nature to explore.

  Well, reality smacked us in the face within just a few days of arriving. The picture that we build up in our minds is so often not what life turns out to be. I felt like I had fallen for a bait and switch scheme when it came to Montana. It wasn't the green mountains and endless rivers that we moved to, instead we ended up on a prairie; flat and brown the majority of the year. Casinos and bars were the theme of the area we had moved, a strip club and 24 hour "body shampoo" parlor were on the main drag near the mall and grocery stores. The bad part of town that you avoided in most of middle class America, was essentially the whole town.

  There wasn't a day that went by for the first few month that I didn't cry. Going into town for the most basic things, like grocery shopping, would have me in tears because the selection of places to shop were dismal. The variety of food was even depressing. I seemed to have stepped back in time to two decades ago and I longed to return to the 21st century. Foods I normally bought and took for granted weren't available, once I asked the man working in the produce section where the bay leaves were and he said they didn't carry them. Organic food seemed to be a new idea here and the selection at the grocery stores were sort of like that weird basket of fruit that sits on convenience store counters, only there so that they can abide by a law that allows them to take EBT for soda and other junk food.

  My boys often said we had been brought to Montana to teach us a lesson about not taking things for granted; so essentially we were being punished.

  After years of boarding my horses, I finally could have them at home, but even my horse became a symbol of why we were here and I lost all desire to ride. I would do the bare minimum; grooming and feeding her twice a day and mucking out the stall, watch her enjoying her new life through the windows.

   My husband, I guess finally beaten down by his family's misery, assured us we wouldn't stay here. Knowing this helped, I told the boys we wouldn't be here forever and we just needed to make the best of it while we were here, despite the misery I felt I knew I needed to help the kids get through this. After a night of text messages back and forth with my aunt back home in Washington in which she told me I needed to make the best of the situation, I knew she was right and began to spend my days wondering what I could do differently to chase away this deep pain and sadness that brought on tears and anxiety attacks on a near daily basis. Even sermons at church entitled "how to love this city" didn't help. I knew this was where God put us for the time being (even though we viewed it as a punishment) and I needed to rely on Him to get us through to the other side but I still feel empty and depressed. An email to a friend back home came back with the advice to go and get counseling. It seemed there was no one that could just hear my grief and pain that I didn't have to pay.

  The winter was miserable. The wind blew, and blew, and blew and at times it was so cold my horses had frost on their eyelashes. Even if I wanted to ride, that was out of the question, it was just too cold. With no way of going outside we got a membership at a gym that was one of the best gyms I had ever been inside. Three swimming pools and a huge basketball court would provide plenty of activity for the family. Oh well, I told myself, at least I can get into shape.

 I had played sports in high school and since then had been sort of an on and off exerciser. We would run in the summers when the weather was great and the days were long but as soon as the rain returned in late September, we were back on the couch and in front of the t.v. until spring. We tried gyms at various times but never stuck with them.

 I always imagined myself as a runner. Always wanted to be one of those people that had to get a run their run in, no matter where they were, but I never managed to do it. I always heard about the terrible knees runners had, or the damage marathoners did to their hearts, and I was never able to find anyone that wanted to run with me, so my excuses for not running piled up.

 Which brings us back to Montana and my tale of woe. I started in the winter, on the treadmill, first I was barely able to trudge out a mile, and then I slowly eaked out two miles, and then three, until finally I ran four miles one day and marveled over how good it felt to get off the treadmill having run for 40 minutes. I finally read the book I kept seeing mentioned on just about every running blog and Ted Talk, "Born to Run." In it the author says running booms occur after national tragedies, so my newfound joy in running made sense since I had had my own personal version of a national tragedy. It makes sense, I suppose. We were created to run, run for our food, run as a form of travel, run to flee danger.

  Or run to flee stress and sadness. So here is my journey.