I just received notification that my subscription to my domain “runlikemymother.com” is about to expire.  I have been contemplating whether or not I should change the name of this domain.

When I started running, I began to think more about my mother.  I felt like it was a way for me to connect to her.  I thought about how proud she would be if she could watch me cross the finish line of my first marathon.  Back when I was young, my mother tried so hard to get me to like running.  I resisted and she finally gave up.  As I got older and had my own children, I began to fall in love with running.  I guess it is kind of similar to despising broccoli as a child when your parents are trying to force feed it to you and then later realizing that it isn’t so bad (okay, I am still not a big fan, but I am finally smart enough to eat it because I know it is good for me).

Running and my mother just seem to go hand in hand.  When I am running, I think of my mother.  When I think of my mother, I think about running.  Honestly, running is really the only positive thing I can associate my mother to.  I love her, but she made a lot of mistakes that I try to avoid dwelling on.  Since she passed on, there has really been no need to hold a grudge.

Yes, I have been fretting about the genetic issues that I have possibly inherited from my mother (the anemia is a for sure, but the degenerative bone disease is still pending).  I am a little annoyed that I was told I couldn’t go to flight school because of my hemoglobin levels, but I have obviously moved on and chosen a different path that still suited me fine.  Of course I am now annoyed that I have been instructed not to run right now, but that too shall pass.

The other day when I was talking to my step-mother (someone who I didn’t always get along with until I realized that she is more of a mother than my own mother ever was) she reminded me that I am not my mother. I am not my mother in so many ways.  Somehow I have learned from my mother’s mistakes and avoided making those same mistakes myself.  I am a better mother to my own children because I know what it is like to basically grow up without a mother.  The most important difference is that I am stronger than my mother ever was.  She could run marathons and not only can I run marathons, but I can fight and push through all of the resistance that life brings forth.  My mother could not and, in the end, it beat her.

I love my mother because she is my mother.  I admire my mother as a runner.  I will run like my mother.  Everything else is up to me.  I make my own destiny.