• Being with and being •
[2 MIN READ]
Throughout life, I’d managed to stay close to a few important people. People whom I knew and trusted and ones that knew and trusted me. But only a few.
Then I started running. I joined a running group at the local running store. It was a good group for weekly running. We would talk politics, about running, and about our lives, but we never really got super close. One of them was an architect who finally bought a property and was able to start building a dream house for himself and his family. That was pretty cool and I would ask him about the progress. Being the brother of an architect made it easy to ask questions and express interest.
As those runners started drifting away for various reasons, I kept at it, occasionally showing up to the store to run solo just because it was a way to maintain discipline. New folks started joining. As the one constant in the running group during this period, I unexpectedly started shaping it.
One new, young runner shifted with me from the last peloton into the next. We found common ground in faith. We’ve become close. So close that I watched him meet a gal, court her, get engaged, and get married. So close that Wife also connected with guy and his gal. We’ve had a standing monthly couples’ dinner for 3 years.
The running group now has anywhere from 4 to 14 runners weekly. While faith and monthly couples’ dinners haven’t been a part of every runner relationship, close has taken another form. We’ve started and continued to extend every weekly run with post-run hang outs at local pubs.
That architect from the before group finished his house. I reached out to him and got a tour as he was finishing it up. He said I was his biggest fan and he loved telling me about it. There’s a Christian radio station I listen to whose host has a line he loves to use: “The world is full of nice people. If you can’t find one, be one” (Nishan Panwar). I’ve gotten close with that one.
FINE PRINT ¶Text: Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ¶Cross-posted: (1) Facebook 2025’07’25’F and (2) Life @ iCandybyWangC
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