In January, I was diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation (AFib). There were months of not feeling right leading up to the diagnosis, which I chronicled in an article for Ultrarunning Magazine. Considering my running career spans 30 years, with the last 15 years focused on ultramarathons of 50-100+ miles, the diagnosis was jarring. From the onset, the cardiologist was clear I would have to adapt.
Weeks after a cardiac ablation and heart study, I was disoriented. It was hard to grasp that I had a procedure on my heart and that I was taking medicines my dad took during his last few years. I was full speed ahead, then I had to slow down because I could no longer function in the fast lane. Resilience in motion was natural for me – I was always able to push forward to the next mile, the next aid station, the finish line. Resilience in stillness was different. I showed up daily to my life with a positive and driven mindset, but without all the movement, I felt dull.
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Over the months, I have been trying to change my ways, to slow down, focus each morning on my daily meditation and yoga practice. Metamorphosis is hard. Whether or not I’m training for 100-mile races, my mind and imagination moves 100 mph. There’s so much I want to accomplish each day, professionally and personally. I am perpetually in motion, even when I’m sitting still. Feeling out of sync with my body unsettles me.
When I’ve confided my health situation to others, I’ve heard “you’ll figure it out,” to “we all have to adapt as we get older.” I’m sure both are true.
While I’m fully functioning, the issues in my heart, which have shifted in recent weeks, are unsettling. I feel up and down. I cannot run more than a few feet without my heart rate spiking in ways that make me uncomfortable. My heart rate also drops throughout the day. The meds make me feel edgy.
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When I write fiction, there’s typically pages of back story until I arrive in medias res, with a character at the end of their rope. I have always thought of it as the now what phase. As in, after all this has happened, after all these events, changes, and twists and turns, now what? It’s the intersection of past, present, and future. Of character and mystery. The defining moment for a story to unfold. Now what is the catalyst of first chapters.
I’ve thought I was here in my own life many times in the past via loss, change, moves. This time, though, it felt different. Now what looped on repeat in my brain. I was stuck. The first chapter hadn’t percolated. Stories are about characters wanting something. If I was honest, I wanted to go backwards to how my life used to be, but that was not an option. I understood spiritually and intellectually that life happens now, and that the present moment is always perfect and all there is. But I couldn’t feel it, and so while the present moment was happening to me, I wasn’t in it.
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Over the years, I’ve taken time outs from my corporate career to live with Buddhist and Roman Catholic monks across North America, spent weeks at ashrams, and did yoga intensives across the U.S., Europe, and India. In all my travels, whether my quest was spiritual or creative, the hardest challenge was always living in harmony with myself. The quieter my external life became residing on prairies and in hermitages, the louder my inner turmoil grew. Decades back, at Mepkin Abby in South Carolina, I learned a truth that resonated: you don’t leave your heart at the monastery gate. Your heart is with you every step of the journey. It was at that monastery that I also shed the myth of a quiet life leading to peace. I learned that it’s never where you are that dictates your heart, but who you are and how you show up that fuels your wellbeing.
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My mother, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2005, did not let it change her life. She showed up for monthly chemo, for clinical trial after clinical trial, blood and platelet transfusions, and when she wasn’t at the hospital, she was out for lunch or dinner, going about her life, laughing, having fun, reading good books. I’ve always found it incredible, but now, it’s even more inspirational to me. She was happy, optimistic, and driven even when her prognosis was not.
In June 2023, when my dad was in hospice, fading, I listened to Ram Das’s “Conscious Aging” lecture each morning as I made the hour drive to the hospital. When I first heard him say, “death is the culminating adventure,” the words gave me great hope. When I shared those words with my dad on his death bed, albeit in my own version: “what if your next chapter is amazing? What if the best is yet to come?” I really meant it. I worked with my dad daily to get him ready for his next chapter and when he lost words and consciousness and could only listen, I whispered to him: the best is yet to come.
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There have been times during 100-mile races that I was sure I could not go on. Times I’ve told myself, no way, it’s impossible. Sometimes it was too hot, or too cold, the mountains too high, the trail too technical, or the road was too long. I have been afraid at races in the middle of the night so many times – on Florida trails with alligators looming; in the foothills of the Ozark mountains when snakes slithered by; in desert landscapes in Arizona, the sound of coyotes in the distance, howling. I panicked the nights I got lost and realized I was miles off the course, and that somehow, I would have to stay calm and focused, re-trace my steps, and find my way back to rejoin the race. Dark nights of the soul during races taught me that no there was no savior coming to get me and no way to make it easier or better. The only option was to accept my fate, choose positivity, find gratitude for something – the star-filled night sky, the impending sunrise – and keep going.
In every instance, my mental talk went from you can’t do this to you’ve got this. The struggle and surrender during races became my granite. It taught me to believe in myself, and to stay open to possibility. It taught me that it doesn’t always get worse and that I was never running from, but always towards clarity, community, and commitment.
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Time is passing. For now, there are no more finish lines, only starting points. I’m learning to adapt and accept my new normal, although I still question and push daily. I’m a realist, but also an inherent optimist. I don’t give up that easily. While I may wish I arrived at a different chapter than the one in front of me, I know that until you get going on your journey, you have no idea what awaits you. Part of moving forward is the possibility that the best is yet to come. That what’s ahead may be amazing, and living into the future versus fighting it, is where and how the mystery of what’s next unfolds, and the first chapter of a new story that answers the question now what begins.