almost empty

I went for a run today. I've been running quite a bit again lately. Wondering, actually, why I really took a break from it. The answers to that are myriad. Complicated. Maybe even irrelevant. My runs lately are a break. A time to refocus my mind, body, and energy so that I can clean out cobwebs in my mind. I begin my run with a prayer - a conversation with St Sebastian, the patron of athletes. I ask him to run with me, to encourage me, to push me to work harder or to rest as appropriate. I then pray my way through three miles, generally the rosary. Two rosaries, to be specific. My training tool, as it were.
The last two times I've gone out, today and Friday, my route was blocked, quite near the beginning. I had to change direction, determine the course on the go. Be satisfied - delighted, actually - by the unexpected change in plans. Friday the variation was slight, but added a quarter mile to my run. Today, I changed the route entirely when I came to the blockade.
Another unusual similarity in my treks: both days I had someone pull up and ask me directions. Simple things in both cases, the same direction, really. "Continue straight ahead and you'll be there." Very grateful faces looked back at me. Both times I gave the directions out of breath, sweating, and red-faced from running. Both times as they drove off I wondered about crossed paths.
My run today became a walk home when tight muscles and raw emotions combined to draw me to contemplation. As I let myself catch my breath, the roadblock - a bridge out on a path through the park - those asking directions, and a text I saw this morning came to mind and worked their way into my thoughts, the more conscious ones. I found myself encouraged to continue where I'm going. To trust my instincts because they are being led by Love, and to guard myself against any idea that I am either on my own, or able to make my way on my own. I am not my own light. I am, however, guided by a Light that will never fade.
There was a season when I ran from. All my running was to leave something behind. Eventually my running evolved into running to; an effort to reach or find something for which I was searching. Something that turned out to be both inside and outside of me. After I returned home, watching TV with my kids, I realized I am in this season running with. I hope I remember to continue that way, regardless of the detours.