Right On Time
Book launch week, deep relationships, and the eight-year road that led me here.
The book launch week of The Long Run Home came and went like a shooting star burning bright across a midnight sky—brilliant, stunning, and singular. As I reflect on it all, I realize: I will never publish my first book again.
I find it incredible that it took me eight years to publish this book. Eight. Years. Four years writing, two years creating and pitching the proposal, and another two years giving it to God. Okay, God, this is your story, I prayed. I’ve done all I can. I’ll wait until you show me the door. I’ve learned I often have to come to the end of myself before God moves—lest my sneaky ego try to take credit for the work.
And yet, those eight years went by in a blink. Which feels comical when I think about how many times I was frustrated with the process and wished it would just move the fuck along.
But now, looking back, it’s so clear that this is the right time. And I’m truly glad it didn’t come sooner.
Eight years ago I didn’t have the full breadth of friendships that filled the room at my book launch event on Monday night. Thinking about the love they poured over me during launch week still makes me teary. Years from now, it won’t be the media interviews I remember—it will be the long drives they made to be there that night and the way my local friends decorated my lawn and driveway launch morning with words of love, encouragement, and praise.
I opened the garage door, ready to head to the gym, and burst into tears at the chalk messages covering the concrete.
“I can’t take credit,” Aaron said. “Your friends woke up at 4am to do this.”
My friends—with kids and jobs and families and lives that move as fast as mine—pulled themselves from bed in the dark to decorate my house before dawn. I am still stunned. What can I even say about that?
Many of them joined me again on Monday afternoon to set up the venue for the celebration. As we carried boxes from my car and built balloon towers, I held back tears of gratitude—because time is the most precious resource, and they chose to spend theirs helping me get the space ready. Them being there overwhelmed me in a very touching way.
While I bounced from promotion opportunities in New York City to local TV interviews and radio broadcasts, I kept thinking about the people holding it all together at MS Run the US. Christian Jensen, our new Executive Director, and long-time staff members Carrie Berg and Haley Halverson have kept the work steady and growing through every challenge since they joined me in 2021. Their diligence makes it possible for me to step away from my desk and share our story with the world—something that simply wasn’t possible eight years ago. And I’m grateful all over again for the timing.
I want to say I’m lucky, but I also know these relationships are a circle. I give too—and an important part of giving is being willing to receive, a lesson I’ve had to learn the hard way. There is much in the receiving. It doesn’t make you weak; it makes you loved. And when you have love to return in the ways that are uniquely yours, nothing is owed.
The Long Run Home is out in the world, and I’ve never been more prepared for this moment or the miles that lie ahead. I feel deep gratitude in my heart and a fire in my bones that burns brighter with each passing day. The miles continue—and I am not running them alone.
