For our fifteenth wedding anniversary, my husband and I spent a jam-packed five days in New York City, leaving C-bus, as we usually do when we travel, at 6 AM and returning five days later at midnight to make sure we got a full day of activities in both coming and going. When I tell people that in five days we went to three shows, three museums, went up the Empire State Building, took a cruise, shopped, ate at three different top notch restaurants, saw Central Park, Times Square, Ground Zero, China Town, Little Italy, the Statue of Liberty, and all the Christmas festivities we could find, jaws tend to drop. When they did, we would chuckle and tell people, with a smile, that was just how we rolled.

While not a weekend warrior, I used to be the type of person who worked hard and played even harder.  I frequently justify our frantic pace by explaining that we only get to travel or vacation every so often, so I want to pack as much as I can in to get the most of our time and our money.  But, truth be told, the real reason our itinerary usually has more stops on it than there are hours in the day is because I want to be able to taste and see and do and experience IT ALL.

When it comes to experiencing new places, I am not a “less is more” kind of gal.  More, for anyone who has studied mathematics, is always, CLEARLY, more.  M. O. R. E.

The problem with this equation, however, is that I am now LESS while my desire is still for MORE.  And this inequality causes me to rack up a deficit of energy on these trips in addition to the one on my credit card bill.

We went to NYC again this past Christmas, eight years later, taking the kids with us.  It was a quick and dirty two days because it was “Buddy’s turn” to see the city.  The difference between this trip and the last one was clear—both in Keira and in me.

I couldn’t keep up with my family.  They kept charging off without me—me, who usually led the charge.  But that was only part of the problem.  I could push through.  I had, obviously, been doing so for the past several years. Pushing myself beyond my limits was something I was occasionally good at, provided it suited me and was a limit I WANTED to push.

But my daughter, whose illness had continued to stake its claim on her life, we pushing just as hard.  Because, well, that’s what we do.  All of us.  The cram-as-much-in-as-we-can-without-killing-ourselves trait is one we all share, unfortunately.  A side effect of not having enough time and money to see and do all that we want to see and do.

But neither she nor I were in exactly in the best physical or emotional shape to be pushing.

Which is BEYOND HARD TO DEAL WITH WHEN IT’S WHAT YOU’RE USED TO.

When Keira was in treatment at the Cleveland Clinic’s Pain Rehabilitation Program in September, we learned a new word in a foreign language.  It was one with which I was vaguely familiar but had never used in conversation, let alone in practice.  That word was “pacing.”

Her first day of leave we were given instructions to do something active that day, but not TOO active.  Active enough but not active too much. As if we were somehow able to figure that out on our own.  (Do other people just naturally figure this out on their own?  How does that happen?)

Had we been going to Cleveland for pleasure (don’t laugh—some people DO), here’s what the trip would have looked like: I would have researched every museum, park, cool neighborhood, good restaurant, and family attraction within a 30-minute radius, and an itinerary would have been set to attempt to include as many as possible.  (Full disclosure: I still did this. But I kept it to a 10-minute radius as my world revolved around the hospital campus and University Circle.  Some habits can’t be broken.)  On our “down time,” when Keira was not in treatment, we would have ticked several of the items off our list, cramming as many as we could into our three-week experience.

So here was the catch—we were SUPPOSED to be active and see things, but we were NOT supposed to overdo it.

Ummmm…

RIGHT.

I asked for time frames.  I asked for helpful guidelines as to how much was too much.  I asked for rules.  I asked for ANYTHING THAT WOULD HELP US DRAW LIMITS where hitherto our only limits had been our departure time and the money left in our wallet.  

They didn’t give me any.

I thought that was RUDE.

They didn’t really care.

They left my daughter and I, along with my equally ambitious husband and son—all of whom are known to push too far—to try and figure out how far was NOT too far.

I wish I could say we nailed it.  There were moments, certainly—times when my daughter and I actually listened to the messages our bodies were trying to communicate and responded appropriately—but on the whole it felt very trial-and-error-ish with a heavy emphasis on the ERROR end of things.  And I’m not really one for trial and error, TBH.  I tend to like try once and succeed the first time.  (Shocking, I know.)

When I surprised myself and nearly everyone else who knows me by running a half-marathon about eight years ago, I learned the importance of pace.  At least when it comes to running.  I knew that I was a 12-minute mile.  (Don’t mock me—prior to running this race my motto was “I only run when chased.”)  My training partner, at the time, was also a 12-minute mile, though she’s a heck of a lot faster now.  Pacing determined EVERYTHING.  Where we lined up to start the race.  How we timed snacks, drinks, etc.  How long to block out for training runs.  Everything was built around that 12-minute mile pace.

So here’s my problem: when it comes to taking in the beautiful goodness of life, I’m used to running a proverbial 7-minute mile, and now my body is protesting and saying a 20-minute mile is the best it can possibly do.

And wanting to run it in seven minutes is not ever going to make it so.

Let me say that again:

WANTING TO RUN IT IN SEVEN MINUTES IS NOT EVER GOING TO MAKE IT SO.

As much as we want to assert our American theology of “limits are only in our mind,” the truth is WE ARE LIMITED.  My body reminds me of this every day.  And pacing bugs the snot out of me because I DO NOT WANT TO BE LIMITED.

Maybe, for you, it’s your gender and there is a glass ceiling holding you back.  Maybe it is your race or nationality.  Maybe it is your health.  Maybe it is your childcare situation.  Or your age or income level.  Or being a single parent.

There are things, no matter how positively we think about them, that we simply cannot change.  And learning, as Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in his oft-quoted Serenity Prayer, to have the serenity to accept the things we cannot change is a step on the path of surrender.

I wish we could say we’re taking this lesson in stride (no pun intended, though it would have been a good one by my husband’s standards). But lessons of this nature are seldom easy, are they?

So we begin, as we were taught at the Clinic, by simply paying attention. What are our bodies telling us?  What is the Holy Spirit telling us? What is a comfortable pace?  What is sustainable?

It is a slow lesson.  A 12-minute mile, if you will.  But a 12-minute mile still gets you across the finish line, and it still gets you through a well-lived life.

I am learning, again, to embrace the slower pace, and let it be what it will be.

Trial and error, with my stopwatch in hand.

acceptance balance hope learning limits pacing serenity