Until Whenever

I’m staring at my keyboard now for what feels like forever, been staring at those thoughts in my head for weeks if not months now. And no matter how long I wait, it just does not get better. Don’t ask me how many words I have typed out now and instantly deleted them again. I don’t think words could do justice to what I am about to do and trying to explain. But I wanna do it justice because I feel like I am closing the chapter on a part of me and this feels so difficult. But also just like a bandaid or breaking up with someone, I am just going to say it:

There will be no more runs with Move & Meet.

I said it. And probably no one is surprised. I have been going “no contact” for more than a month now after all. But I have been trying to find a solution. I didn’t (and probably still don’t) know to what exactly. Just that the passion I once had is slowly fading away. And if there is one thing that I had learned and promised myself so dearly, it is that no matter what I do in my life, I want to stand 100% behind it. Feeling the passion for what I am doing fill my soul and body. And unfortunately without anything or anyone to blame, that passion became less and less. So I have been trying to find a solution and something or someone to blame. I been trying to sort through my thoughts. Trying to identify thoughts that are mine and thoughts that emerged because I projected what others might think about me and that situation onto me. Thoughts like “I don’t have the grit and patience to go through a rough patch. I just have to endure that patchand everything will come back again.” or other thoughts like “I am doing this for attention and the runclub simply is not enough anymore and I need something new that people can talk about.” Let’s just say, a lot of thinking has been done. Also not only about Move & Meet, but also about me, what running truly is for me, if running still is the same that running used to be, what of all that other parts of me that didn’t get to breathe as much air anymore just because I fell in love with running and my runclub so much, it took up all the space? There is so much more to me and what I want to do and achieve in my life.

Some of you know that there is not one version of me. There is not only the runner. There is the girl that loves reading, taking walks, travel just to have coffee and pastries in a foreign country, that loves not to work out for a couple days. There is the girl that fell in love with art and culture the same way she fell in love with running. The girl that loves lifting weights and grunting her way through a heavy bench press and drinks her white Monster after. The girl that bakes fresh bread while having soup on her stove for all her friends. There are so many more layers inside of me. And maybe those layers mean even more to me because there were years in my life where I lost access to quite a few of them. Years of substance abuse and losing myself somewhere along the way. I don’t want to dive too deep into that here, otherwise this blogpost will actually turn into a book, but I think all those different Nicoles needed space to come back and heal. Running became a huge part of that. Move & Meet became a huge part of that. And maybe that is exactly why I don’t want the version of me that found herself through running to become the only version of me that gets to exist.

And after experiencing so much passion through Move & Meet for a year, falling deeply in love with running, running with other people, falling back in love with who I am, it is time to move on. I need the space in my life to live as fully as possible and even though running won’t take up 90% of my free time anymore, I want to treasure this sport solely for me and not tie it to a task and commitment anymore.

It took a long time and lots of thinking and talking about it for me to realize that I do not need to do something for the rest of my life just because I started it. A dear friend of mine told me once, that just like earth, we live in seasons. We wouldn’t expect to harvest cherries in winter or hear the birds chirp outside in autumn. So why should we as humans tie ourselves to one season and see it as failure when moving on? Move & Meet was exactly what it was supposed to be. Move & Meet was a way for me to live with my love for running, bringing that love to other people and building a community where friendships were made and running celebrated.

The community part is what probably hurts the most to press pause on. Because if we strip away the mainstream, the sport, all that noise, what is left is what I think is truly what I love and what I think is one of my callings: bringing people together. Giving people a little something that makes them feel better. Whether it is meeting like-minded people and build friendships or just letting them not think about any bad things in their life for even just one hour. It is building a space where people can feel safe and accepted exactly the way they are and give them a room where they can discover themselves even more and try new things they might start loving or never do again. A space where people come to laugh, work on themselves or just simply exist with no need to fulfill anything.

And as I am writing these words on my desk in my living room, the morning sun finds its way through the trees past my window and warms my face. I take this as a sign that those words are exactly what I need to put out there. People who understand understand and those who don’t know what I am talking about are welcome to not understand and keep going with their lives.

I think what I owe myself more than anything is the freedom to change my mind. To love something deeply without promising to love it in the exact same way forever. I want to live life exactly the way it feels right in this moment. Who knows, maybe something that feels wrong today starts feeling right tomorrow. Maybe this is exactly what life is about. Finding yourself again and again in different chapters of your life and living those chapters fully until the time comes to close them. Move & Meet is such a chapter I am closing now. Maybe not forever. I don’t know. There are already some ideas in my head that might start growing. And maybe, in a way, some of them already have.

The Space Between, these words you are reading right now, started for exactly that reason. I wanted a place where I could write simply because I love writing. A place that doesn’t need to fit into running, coaching, community building or whatever else I might be doing at the time. Just somewhere for everything that exists in between all those versions of me.

Maybe that is what I want to give myself more of now. Space between the things I know I am, for all the things I might still become.

But for the time being, I allow myself to live wholeheartedly. With my love for running and everything else I love doing.

Until whenever. Stay kind.

Much love,

Nicole