I thought to make an extended metaphor about how life resembled a track event or maybe cross-country, how most of us spend the first 18 years getting in shape. When the gun sounds at 18, though, I ran into trouble because not all of us have those lovely first splits where the race seems to be a breeze and you think you could run forever. By 21, when I envisioned the first little twinge of pain, I realized that many couldn’t say that—for them the race becomes an endless drudge to be run, not at the front of the pack, but at the end of that solid bunch of runners who know they’ll never come close to winning this thing. And then I saw it isn’t a race anyway, and the metaphor petered out. If I apply this metaphor to myself I…

• changed my event almost as soon as I signed up for it…
• sat out the second lap…
• signed up for a different event and changed that one twice before quitting the race again…
• entered the original event chosen by 17-year-old me…
• ran that race until I realized I just wasn’t suited for it…
• trained for a different event and ran that one for a decade…
• left that race, dreaming of the Perfect Event…
• and fell into a nondescript event only to find my innate talents bloom

And that’s just the metaphorical telling of my career. What about love? Family? The experience of life? No matter. It was fun playing with that photo of my brother running cross-country when we both were young and naïve.