You can pick it back up again

No matter what / Issue 1,206

Oh, hi friends!

What did you leave behind?

Maybe it was a hobby. A way of thinking. An old draft. A business idea. A podcast. A friend. 

We leave things behind by accident or by purpose. Because we start new chapters or get bored. All sorts of reasons.

But that doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

I ran the NYC half-marathon yesterday. It starts near Prospect Park in Brooklyn and winds over the Manhattan Bridge, up the east side of the city, through Times Square, and ends in Central Park. 

I hadn’t run a race like that in six years. 

Six years is a long time.

Long enough to leave jobs, move boroughs, fall in love and get married, learn a new craft, survive a pandemic, survive losing people, and keep going. 

I would say the experience of returning to an old routine is like coming full circle, but you know that’s not true. 

It’s walking the line that’s in front of you and stumbling into something you thought you left behind. 

Funny thing. The reason I ran this race was because I won a lottery. A random number plucked from the air, and there I was again. 

Well, I guess I’m doing this now…

But you don’t have to wait for someone to call your number.

Whatever you want to find again — it’s out there. 

That little itch you feel?

The tug in that one direction?

The whisper?

This is the sign.

Call your own number.