As a kid I was very insecure. I had No self esteem. I felt like EVERYONE was better than me b/c they had real familes (not divorced like mine) and lived in houses (not run down places like ours) and wore nice clothes(not the hand me downs I wore bc my mom had no money). On top of that My poor mom who struggled to hold down 2 jobs, dealt with her stress by drinking. She has been an alcoholic my whole life.
This carried over into my activities and relationships and especially my self image. By age 14 I no longer had any confidence to run. I didnt' feel I was as good as everyone else and I let it stop me from doing what I loved. I felt weak and beat up and didnt' love myself or feel worthy of love or success.
So where am I going with this? .....
Well this Friday night, my coach has me signed up to run in a college track meet. The 5K. He told me there would be lots of girls running 20:00-21:00 min 5k's but when I looked up the results from last year a few min ago, I found that out of 54 girls, about 40 of them ran 16-18min 5K's while only 4 ran 19:30-19:54min 5K's. This is where I will be which means I am going to be near the END of the pack for sure. I am afraid of feeling all those feelings again that I felt when I was younger. I don't want to feel that overwhelming feeling of inadequacy and failure. I'm afraid of it being so discouraging that I will just want to give up again. there is a very DEEP hole inside from LONG ago and I don't want to dig it up.
I hope this makes sense. I get emotional just talking about this. its a very painful place to go back to.
My friend Ryan who was a professional track athlete for years gave me some encouraging words and I know I need/should do this just for myself and just to get a good OFFICIAL 5K time but it is just SO HARD for me.
It's deeper than feeling sorry for myself or being a sore loser...it's not that...its about going back to who I was when I was a teenager and it is not a happy place for me.
It is going to take all my courage to just show up and run. The other girls might think I've LOST the race, but if I can just finish and still feel good about myself then I guess I will have WON.