Do you ever place value on what you think about in your very first waking moments? These are important thoughts that set the day in motion and catapult you into action and live in your thoughts. They have power. They make your day.
I woke up this morning at 4:45 thinking about someone I have never met.
I was thinking about a single mother a few years younger than me, whose challenges and stories and glories and fears and joys may have been very similar to mine up until just a short while ago.
But now she faces the unimaginable.
Her name is Tracy Dort Kyne and on September 4 of 2011 she was training for a road race when her bike crashed.She is now a quadriplegic. If you understand spinal cord injury it is much like all of life – a fraction of a second here, a millimetre of a difference there , a quick decision to do or not to do something and everything is changed. Forever.
It is an interesting thing about adversity. You think for a time that you are dealing with the very hardest thing on earth. And the next day those challenges may be dwarfed by struggles never dreamed of.
And then you have choices.
Today we only know this version of struggle and pain.
Lately I have been thinking about health and well being. I have been loving my health and both emotional and physical strength more than ever and how it has thanked me for the attention I have paid to it.
This morning very early, I went for a run and then an hour of hard yoga. I did it because I can.
I wondered what it would be like to need so much help. And to accept it.
I wondered about not being able to do the simple things and the things that brought you pleasure and independence. I wondered about less of that treasured time alone.
I do not know her but I woke up thinking only of her.
She *inspired me today.