I never called myself a runner, at least not until recently. Despite the fact that I run miles and miles and have run numerous half marathons and a marathon  and training to run the Marine Corps Marathon this year, I felt uncomfortable considering myself a runner. My runs depended on my mood, the weather, free time and I could find every excuse to not run. But recently that all changed.

Maybe the fact that I am trying to push myself beyond my comfort zone to do things that has made me change my mind. I wake up at 6 am on a daily basis for a run, its raining outside, I still force myself to lace up my shoes and go run a few miles at least. It has been challenging to push myself beyond my comfort zone, but I am trying to force my mind to corporate with doing things that make me uncomfortable.

The fact that I am trying to embark on a journey of working for myself, to chase this dream I have had for years has not been easy either, but despite the fact that I get disheartened from time to time and ready to throw in the towel and crawl back to a 9-5 job, I am still holding my own trying to make it work out.

If someone had told me that working for myself would leave me with little time for anything besides working, I would have pooh-pooh the idea. However, even though everything I do, leaves me little time for writing, reading or fun stuff with friends, this is turning out to be quite a journey. I am learning my strengths and weaknesses and that my obsession for perfection is not always in my best interest. There are times I bake something and I find myself so unhappy with the end product that I remake it. My friends who have been my support system through all this, tell me that I am being too hard on myself, while they enjoy eating what I think is not up to my standards.

I feel that I have set a standard for my customers and I have to constantly strive to maintain that. If I have a catering gig, I drive myself crazy for days, about what I will make to how I will transport it and how I will ensure that it all comes together at the last-minute. Fortunately, my customers have trusted me enough to leave all the decision-making to me.

My best friend who lived out-of-state has moved back to try to help me get things off the ground. I have to confess my obsessive nature in the kitchen makes it hard. However, she has worked with me before so she understands that I am like a drill sergeant in a kitchen and want things to be right and perfect. I am working on learning to let go and learn to trust what she will do. But it is a natural instinct that I have when I am in a kitchen.

In order to distract myself from this obsession and just working all the time towards my goals, I decided to train for a marathon. I have wanted to run the Marine Corps Marathon for a very long time and since I seem to be on the road of doing things out of my comfort zone, this seemed like a good goal to add to my list.

Running has been my therapy for years, it will continue to be my therapy. But I am no longer a fair weather runner, I am a runner because I run no matter what. Running helped me heal my broken heart, but now I am hoping it will help me learn to enjoy this challenging journey I am on and not over working or over thinking. But no matter what happens, I am finally a runner and I run because I want to.