I have started running again. Not fast, not training for anything specific, just running because my mind and my body love what happens when I do it.

I had been lifting weights, and I love seeing the strength and definition that come from this effort (love you, Shaun T!). But I never cry after lifting weights. I don’t feel awe at the world around me like I often do when I’m on a weekend run.

Inevitably I’m hit with some kind of great idea, or some a-ha moment, while on a run.

Last week, I was on a run and thought: ‘What identity do I want to have?’ and it immediately came to me that I want to be the person who does what she says she’s going to do. Non-negotiable. I follow through.

And it changed my week.

And yesterday while I was on my run, I went past my children’s school… which happens to be across the street from a cemetery. I thought of all the beautiful and full lives that each of those stones represented. Some of the lives that maybe weren’t so beautiful and full. I thought about the lives that ended too soon, that were cut short, the final breaths that were taken with or without the awareness that perhaps there was a little more they were meant to experience.

And I’ll be honest, running past that cemetery yesterday I decided to run a little harder because I have the privilege of being able to run on this day.

There isn’t a guarantee of another day, week, year or decade. We get this day. I want to seize all the days I have with enthusiasm, to greet the challenge of a new day with vigor. I don’t want to wake up feeling dread, wanting to push the snooze button because what waits for my when my feet hit the ground is overwhelming, stressful, or simply not aligned with my purpose.

I have the gift of a day today. And I choose to claim that gift with gusto, to play this game of life full out, and to pick up my heels at a faster clip on the run that is my life.