By this time last year, I was almost done culling all the committees from my calendar.

I had thought contributing to those groups would make me happy, or at least make me feel like a good person, but it didn’t. Instead, I felt drained and uninspired. I felt removed from the charities I was supporting and smothered by the childish infighting among people who were supposedly present to give back to the community. I learned – not quickly, but eventually – that volunteers aren’t always compassionate, board members aren’t always competent, and adults aren’t always as mature as the average 7th grader. I learned to dread my committee meetings with a stomach-turning, lung-strangling anxiety. I learned that doing something “good” can feel shockingly bad.

So I stopped. I gracefully left everything (after completing significant milestones and transitioning my role to replacements; I’m not a monster). When I was free, it took a little while to enjoy the space to breathe, the space to think about the difference between having a full life and having a fulfilling life.

With Jenn’s help, I tried to figure out what I want(ed) and what I am(was) passionate about. My success was limited. The only target I could settle on with certainty was running. I wanted to run a marathon. Had wanted to for years. Had put it off knowing if I was making excuses for why I shouldn’t do it, then I shouldn’t do it. But I wasn’t making excuses any longer. In fact, I had cleared my schedule, and I needed something to feel good about.

I could write pages and pages on my marathon training – already have, in fact – but for the purposes of this post, all you need to know is from November 2016 when I decided to run, to February 2017 when I started my for realz training, to May when I (re-)injured my knee and had to change my marathon plans, to June when I started over, to September 23 when I completed my first full marathon ever in effing Grand Forks, North Dakota of all places… I did feel good. I felt purposeful and strong and accomplished. Even during the abject shittiness of my injury, I was driven to meet my goal.

And then, about three days after it was over, I felt lost. Aimless.

And stupid.

Obviously, while I spent my year running in temperatures that ranged from -25 to +30 degrees (that’s -13 to +86 degrees for you nonsensical Americans. Seriously. Fahrenheit is bonkers), while I spent hours curating my running playlist and vetting audio books, while I got lost on lonely, marshy trails at the cabin and took too many left turns in the maze of identical houses in the new development down Henderson Highway, I should have also been asking myself the question, “what’s next?”

But I didn’t do that.

I didn’t ask myself “what’s next?” until about three days after the marathon was over, when I was already in “next.” And I didn’t have an answer.