Posted on July 2, 2014, by cruisingrunner
We are anchored in 80 ft of water just off the town of Vaitape on the main island in Bora Bora. Yes 80. 8-0. That’s not a typo. There were no mooning balls available when we pulled in yesterday, so what are you gonna do? We did our clearing out of French Polynesia today for a Thursday 0-dark-thirty departure. Being near a town is not usually very fun when you’re only staying a couple days because those days are filled with a whole list of chores. I find we need to stay about a week to be able to start actually enjoying the town, but we typically don’t do that because there are always so many other places away from town that we want to enjoy. I fit a run in this morning before laundry, school, clearing out, and groceries. I had to run along another busy road, this one much busier, actually, and unlike running on the road in Huahine, drivers seemed to give less room to the pedestrians as they drive by. Maybe because there are more pedestrians.
I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been in a town and I’ve been going around like crazy taking care of this and that, and I somehow decided I couldn’t possibly have time for a run. As I thought of that today while running, I can only conclude that I was temporarily brain damaged or something. At home, I was way more busy, and I always found time for a run. No, I didn’t find time for a run, I MADE time for a run. It’s not like I would just be sitting around doing nothing and think, “hey, I’m not doing anything, I think I’ll use this free time to go for a run.” No, I had to make it happen. I’d run in the morning while it was still dark outside. I would run at lunchtime. I would run to the soccer field and meet Tim and the boys there for one of the boys’ soccer games. OK, you get the idea.
In fact, I’ve always sort of rolled my eyes at people who say they are too busy for, well anything. I maintained that it’s all about priorities. If you want to do something, you’ll make time. If you don’t you won’t. I guess I forgot about that, too. Whenever anyone told me they didn’t have time to do something they were implying they kind of want to do, I always wanted to ask them how much TV they watch.
I recently started making movies of our travels using Windows Movie Maker. I really enjoy setting our photos and videos to music. It’s a creative process, but it’s also somewhat technical getting the photo transitions to occur at the right time given the beat of the music. Anyway, I showed one to some friends recently, and they were like, “Wow, that’s awesome. You must have way too much free time.” Of course, I brushed that off at the time, but now after thinking about it, I call bull*@$%. I have no more free time than anyone else out here, it’s just something I make time to do. You don’t have enough time to do it? Yeah, whatever.
The run felt good this morning. I’m glad I made time.
-D.
Gresham Family Exodus 