Time to Heal

It’s been a long time since I posted.. basically over a year.

I’ve gone through so much this past year. Torn ankle ligament, torn meniscus and torn hip flexor - these injuries have thrown a huge wrench in my training; but my biggest wrench occured In July 2014 - when I was sexually assaulted.

It feels freeing to finally admitted it, finally speak it! I don’t think I’ve actually spoken those words officially since the day I met with the investigator. I think I was so afraid to say them because I would fear people would think differently of me, I feared people would look at me like I was broken, fragile, frail. I want you to know I'm not broken but I'm strong. 

I believe being sexually assaulted prevented me from running more than my injuries did. It hurt more than tearing any ligament in my body. It hurt more than breaking any bone. It hurt my heart and soul.

As you runners understand running is mental; you hit a distance and you get a flood of emotion, you feel every hurt, every up, every down, every tinge of pain. Your emotions are heightened. Feeling this prevented me from running anything more than 4 miles. 

I don’t want to get into all the details. I’m still not ready to talk about that nor do I think I ever will be  fully ready.

What I want to discuss is healing, my healing.

I felt so terribly broken. I felt destroyed. I felt violated. I felt that all the goodness in me had been taken away. I felt so unhappy. Yet I hid this away from the everyone, I put a smile on my face daily and continued life as you all know it but deep inside a darkness was taking over my happy place and making me feel worthless, small.

That day I changed, I became a different person. Someone stole a piece of me I’ll never be able to get back. They stole a happiness that lives in me. They stole my self worth.

One year ago I learned that not all people are good people but there is still good people in the world.

These past few weeks I’ve managed to lace up my running shoes more often and I’ve even tackled a 10 mile run.

I’ve decided it's time to get back out there and I'm currently training for a full marathon .. I’m ready to put this past year behind me and get out on the trails again.

My runs have been nothing less than emotional but in the emotion I'm finding joy. In the pain I'm finding relief. I'm finally starting to admit what happened to me and I truly believe admitting it is the first step in moving past it. 

I am getting back to the person I once was. The happy, determined, fun Tiara.