Weak or Strong

You weigh 165 pounds. Grab your bestie, your spouse, the closest thing to human standing next to you, weighing approximately the same. Now let them ride piggy back all day long. No, let them ride for 10 years without ever letting them go, except for maybe when you're swimming!

Now take yourself with that person on your back and do anything. 

Walk to bathroom. Sit on the toilet. Get up from sitting on the toilet. 

Stand for 3 hours making dinner, sweeping the floor, picking up your 30 pound 3 1/2 year old and fixing her booboos. 

Sit down on the couch. Rest for 5 minutes. Now get up, with back buddy, and walk up the stairs to do laundry. Don't let your buddy go! Go back downstairs to load the dishwasher. Bend over, don't drop plates. Oh no! You forgot the hand towel. Run back upstairs to get it in the washer before it's too late. Come downstairs, rinse, repeat. 

Do anything with your buddy on your back. After a few minutes, you get exhausted with this now monster on your back, as it's not much less difficult trying to live the exact life that you did without your buddy.

Now get on the treadmill and start running.  Bam!  Bam!  Bam!  You bet your foot stomps are LOUD.  It's clunky. It hurts.

Throw 'em off! 

Just kidding...pick 'em up. Now go run the Spartan Race and finish it (and so what if it takes 2 hours and 44 minutes).

I am not lazy when I cannot get up, or when I'm miserably exhausted at the end of the day. 

I am tired. 

But I'm not sitting here complaining about "needing" to lose the last 10 pounds. 

I'm sitting here breaking down. My knees are shot. My ankles keep failing me. 

But I don't quit. Remember I said, "Do it anyway"?

Maybe you don't have a whole buddy on your shoulders. Maybe you're just carrying around someone's backpack full of schoolbooks. Whatever the case, this is difficult. This sucks. 

Do it anyway. 

There is a back story. There is a "how" we got to this point. How we started carrying people everywhere we go. How we let ourselves pick up those schoolbooks and how we chose to carry the people wearing those books. 

Irrelevant. Do it anyway. 

What matters is now. Right now. Right now, busted knees, wobbly ankles. Right now is my 18 month old running faster than I can keep up, running into danger sometimes. Right now is a fight. Right now I can choose life or death.

Sometimes, right now means sitting on the couch giving those busted knees and wobbly ankles a 32 ounce soda and chocolate bar for no good reason (per contra: birthday cake on your birthday is always a good reason!). And the all-consuming guilt weighs more than the buddy on the back ever could. So right now is to say, "Sorry I hurt you with that junk. Let's try again." And dropping the trash where it belongs, right now. 

The tears are okay. They are temporary. Don't allow them to turn into more chocolate bars. Turn them into walks in the park, up steep hills, with dear friends who inspire you and who are in your corner. 

Or get up that hill on your own, take in the sunshine and cool breeze standing on the top of the entire world looking down, and right now say, "I did it anyway."

Did you hear that? I heard a backpack drop. 

We will all have moments of weakness. "I can't do it anymore!" Yes. You. Can. 

Do it anyway. Allow your weak to validate your humanity. Then allow your strength to validate your awesome. 

Whether weak or strong, you're always an awesome human.