A fork in the road

What a stressful couple of days. I needed tonight's run to sweat out some of that stress.
My father, who continues to recover in the hospital from his swan dive off the ladder last month, has picked up MRSA and has been having an irregular heart beat. I have not slept well the past couple of days while that gets sorted out.
So I was ready to head out tonight after work. I wanted to see, too, how my legs would feel after the Peachtree Road Race 10K. That was my second 10K race this year. I've been sticking mostly to 5Ks this year, after so many injuries that seemed to come as I trained for half marathons. Never say never, but my days of being a half marathon runner may be over.
Tonight's run was profitable. I found a bright shiny penny along the route.
And then I came to a fork in the road.

The things you find while running

I'm not sure what possessed me to pick this up -- and run home with it! I did manage to get a little scratch from it while running. Glad I got my tetanus shot renewed this year.
But after I picked it up, it made me think about the figurative forks in the road. We've all had them. The decisions we've had to make that we knew would alter our path.
I thought of my cancer diagnosis as a fork in the road of my life. There was no other choice for me but to accept surgery, chemo and radiation, and yet that radically altered my life's path.
Maybe I'd still be running half marathons if I hadn't been subjected to all that harsh treatment. I feel very sure  the treatment has harmed my body and my running, causing more injuries.
But I also know that won't be the only fork in the road that I will face. There will be many more decisions to be made in life, some painful.
What THAT fork in the road taught me is I can rise to the challenge of any fork in the road.