Thank you.

Recently I had my "thank you" party to my team mates and my sponsors for the Philadelphia Triathlon. We raised close to 3000$ to fight cancer and for that I am eternally grateful to them. After the race I wrote a reflection of the race and then used it as part of a thank you speech so without further ado: 

I have been humbled by many things in my life, beauty, athleticism, intelligence, but I rarely am humbled by, and the one you all showed to me,  humbled by kindness and generosity. Please allow me to be vulnerable with you for a moment and share with you something I wrote hours after the race was over and I had time to reflect on everything.

I sat down in the shower, exhausted beyond belief, relieved and sad.  and I thought back on everything that had happened. I saw the race stretched out from end to end. I remembered the anxiety at the beginning, of being the last group and having no friends to see me off. I remembered the hectic-ness of jumping into the water and taking off. My legs even went numb thinking about it as I watched water swirl down the drain. I was scared at that moment. I don't know of what, I wasn't tired, I wasn't hurt, I was just scared. This was it and I couldn't get my rhythm in the water, I couldn't breathe right. I remembered not being able to walk to my bike after the swim, but slowly steadying myself. I remembered feeling like the hills had gotten longer and steeper. I remembered on the second loop I was one of the only people left. I remembered the run which stretched out in the heat, the sun beating down, without any shade. That run was my entire life. And then I looked further back, I remembered the faces of my team mates, and the practices we had together and I was sad that it was all over. and then I remembered back the further yet. I remembered my mother weakened by cancer when I was in middle school. I saw all this laid out before me and with the water falling on my head, I cried. I cried, and the emotions I felt were so conflicting that they only made it worse. I remembered the news that my mom was diagnosed and I remembered how helpless I felt and how helpless I was and then I thought how the money I raised might just save someone else's mom, somewhere, anywhere. And maybe we were a little less helpless now. I felt exhausted and sad that I didn't do as well as I thought, but deep down I felt pride for what I did. I felt pride for me and I felt pride for my family who stood by and waited at the finish to tell me how proud they were. And I cried because I was so happy, I was so happy that I got to have this experience and got to do all this. and I was so happy that my friends believed in me so fervently and so generously that I was able to raise so much money. I wish I could be as generous as them, and as selfless because in my eyes they are saints. 

When I finally got myself together, I finished rinsing off and I fell asleep. I was awoken by my family hours later with pizza and I cried again because I realized how lucky I was and how incredibly life can be. So thank you for helping me get here, thank you for everything.