I’m a streaker.

Not like that.

It’s a trend in running where you see how many days in a row you can run at least one mile.

I started on Thanksgiving 2019 with the goal of “streaking” until Christmas. I made it. And then just never stopped. As of this morning I have been streaking for 2,122 days.

I streaked through a global pandemic. Through family vacations to Disney World and California and more. I have run at 3 am before driving to Omaha to fly to Switzerland. I’ve run at 11:30 at night on busy days just to get it done on time. I’ve run when my kids were sick, run when I’ve been sick, run when my husband is out of town with little people in tow, in the dark, in the cold, in the heat. I don’t care about being fast – most of the time it’s a real slow mile. Sometimes I go farther. Sometimes I don’t.

In December 2024 my daughter started chemotherapy. I remember my first run outside the Children’s hospital, figuring out a new route and a new routine so that I could be away from the room for 15 minutes to get my run done. There is no gym or treadmill in the hospital so I ran outside in a below freezing windchill on snowy roads. That seemed easy compared to everything else that was going on. It felt like a 15 minute escape from a life I no longer knew how to comprehend.

Almost ten months later, a lot of things still don’t make sense but the edges of the thing no longer feel so sharp. Our hospital stays are a little more predictable and we have a routine that works. I wait until she has to go to the bathroom in the morning so I can help her, and then when she is snuggled back into bed I head out.

I’ve used a few different routes from the hospital over time, but for the past few months I’ve gone back to the same hill every time – one of the steepest hills I can find. I’ve run up it from both sides and both are equally steep.

Slogging up a hill like that when I’m from the flatlands of the west doesn’t help my already snail crawl of a pace, but who cares. I’m trying to embrace the growth opportunity that hills present. Even when it sucks.

This is my daughter’s final round of high dose chemo. The fourteenth cycle. This morning was the last time I will follow my morning routine in the hospital the way I have been every three weeks for the past many cycles. As I ran up the hill this morning the sun was peeking over the top so bright it was blinding me. I ran steadily towards it, willing it to be a sign that brighter days were ahead, that we were almost through the dark.

And then out of nowhere a giant chocolate lab came running at me, startling me. I stopped and froze, worked through my fight or flight, and discovered the dog was at least friendly enough that he wasn’t going to hurt me. He slobbered on my tights, ran a lap around me in that lopey way labs do, and headed back in the direction he came.

At which point I looked up and realized a car had come over the top of the hill and had thankfully stopped, having seen both me and the dog in the road.

I continued on my run, at which point the dog ran back toward the car and the driver got out and called the number on its collar. The last thing I hear as I descended the hill was “Are you missing a dog?” It occurred to me that I should have checked its collar and called someone but I was too caught off guard by the encounter, pulled too suddenly from my hopeful daydream about signs and sunshine and days ahead.

You would think I would have learned my lesson by now.

After this cycle of chemo there will be scans, three more weeks of radiation, months of maintenance chemo. We are at the end of a huge milestone in her treatment plan, but we aren’t at the end of treatment yet. And while this is obviously a moment worth celebrating, moments of changing course always feel a little precarious. It’s easy to get comfortable in your routine and convince yourself that you know what is coming. I think it’s human nature to always be reaching for comfort in the face of unpredictability.

But that kind of comfort isn’t real. We never actually know what’s around the corner or over the hill. Maybe it’s exactly what we expected – a sunrise on a hill. Maybe it’s a giant dog coming at you out of nowhere.

I’m glad we are done with this phase, but I’m recognizing that for the past few months there has been comfort in the routine. In some weird twisted way, leaving that routine and comfort behind feels almost a little sad. Or at the very least, weird. This next phase should be easier… but walking into the unknown never feels that easy.

So I guess all this is just to say… what exactly, I’m not sure. I feel like I don’t know anything and I never will again.

Maybe that’s okay.