Track and Field Blogs - Anna Thieben

They say pain is "weakness leaving the body", but what if the pain is in your heart? Are you all the more stronger when your heart breaks? Or is it the coldness that follows that is the true strength? Is it the anger? The apathy? The righteousness?

The cold blooded resolve to pick up the pieces, no matter how many there are, and become whole again - to teach the breaker a lesson. That no one. No. One. Has the authority to destroy you. To destroy anybody, really. You are the phoenix, always rising again.

To choose to be a phoenix is strength in itself, but then showing off new life can sometimes signal the wrong people, and they will squash you down again. Is it better then to take a leaf out of the opposum's book and play dead? Or the armadillo's book and withdraw? I say no. It will harm you more greatly to hide away than to face the day. You can only hope to fade with the other two, should you choose them.

It is too hard to find yourself again once you have played the opposum's role to a tee and too hard to coax yourself out once you have had the walls of the armadillo. God help you if you somehow take up both roles. But it is never too late to take up the wings of a phoenix. To shed the tears that will heal you and to pick yourself up and fly from your place in the ashes to your destiny. It is never too late for rebirth.

Though fire is the most destructive element, it is also the one you must face to achieve greatness. "Trial by fire" it means the road is long, and the journey tough - but the victory is the most sweet of all. The snake is sometimes a representative of this phrase, more like a signal of it. Perhaps your sly friends will burn you, but as the phoenix you can rise again - quite a complimentary aspect if you go amuck in choosing your allies.

And though it may be tempting to never put faith in others again, small reminders will continue to find you and tell you that there are those that care out there, those that are not standing over you - leering and holding a match. And sometimes your faith in others can be restored by people from your past, people who you never thought you'd see again. Or even those of the present, whom you hadn't paid much mind to, because your head was caught up in the matters of the heart.

It all comes back to you, one way or another. To be mindful of the phoenix ideals, is to recognize the inner strength that can always keep you going. Always.