Run Away With Me...

So, you've probably noticed that I haven't posted terribly regularly the last 2 years or so. Commence judging me...I'll wait.

You done? Good? Good.

Forging ahead...the years 2010 through today have been quite the roller coaster. Over the course of that time I have gone from being a SAHM, to a re-employed working mom. I have gone from being a student of life, to a non-traditional student finishing up an English/Secondary Education degree to a non-traditional student  pursuing a Computer Science/Software Engineering degree.  I have gone from being relatively sedentary, with occasional, seasonal outbursts of outdoorsy activity to being a marathoner. I have also gone from being a large size 12 to a small size 4. So yeah. Changes.

Each of those changes could be a blog unto itself.

Perhaps, at some point, I will take the time to write up each of those. (Don't hold your breath.)

So let's talk running.

There are so many great motivational quotes about running out there, that really, there isn't anything illuminating that I can say, that someone else hasn't already printed onto a t-shirt, so I'll spare you the attempt at ironic brilliance...

If you run, you are a runner.

Running is not truly something that I am new to. Honestly, anyone that has ever been a child, isn't "new" to running. (With the obvious exception of those that are not blessed with full use of their legs...again, another post, for another day.) My earliest running forays were peppered with such encouraging insights as "You run like Gumby" and assorted laughter. Can't imagine why I didn't run more often.

In high school, I accidentally joined the track team. Despite putting up a hell of a fight, I loved it. And bonus!!! Nobody called me Gumby.

Anyway, the history isn't the real story.

At some point I stopped running. Something about an older boyfriend, parties in a basement and hormones...I do't know, I didn't get the whole story. (Hi mom!)

That? Was a long time ago. A very long time ago. Long enough ago that I get mildly depressed thinking about it.

While I was doing my SAHM thing, I started walking my neighborhood. With my dog. For exercise. Not as a professional. Really, what kind of hussy do you take me for?? In June/July of 2008, my best friend asked me if I wanted to run a 5K with her. I arrogantly said "Suuuuure!" And then proceeded to do almost no training.

I ran a few times, found my ankles SCREAMING at me, and did what any sensible girl would do...blamed the shoes, and went SHOE SHOPPING!!!!!

The day of the race came, I strapped on my lovely new shoes, took off and almost immediately found myself hobbled. I walked a fair bit of that race, and think I finished sometime around October. No, really, it was like 46 minutes or something. I've blocked it to be honest. I spent the next week or so with my ankle wrapped, and my pride wounded. And I hung up my shoes.

In January 2011, I went back to work. At some point in the next two months, I decided that it was time to get my butt up off the couch and back out on the road. A friend dragged me into a a running specialty shop, where they would do a "gait analysis" and put me in the best pair of shoes for me. I was skeptical, but figured that, if anywhere would have a snazzy pair of kicks, it had to be a running store - right?

In we marched, and the owner (who has now become something of a running sensei to me) came over and asked how he could help. I told him what I had experienced and he grabbed a couple of pairs of shoes, had me strap a pair on and ushered me over to the treadmill. Me. The girl who once threw herself out. Clearly he had no idea what he was asking for.

I gamely hopped up on the treadmill and started trot. So far so good. He stood reassuringly next to me, and asked me a question. I turned to look at him as I answered and SHWOOP, off the back of the treadmill I flew. Into one of his neatly stacked displays. No longer so neatly stacked.

To his credit, he *didn't* throw me out of the store right there and then. Probably because he knew he was pretty much guaranteed a sale if for no other reason than the fact that I felt really bad about destroying his store.

New rules were quickly put in place, and going forward I was to get on the treadmill, run, look forward, and answer any and all questions only AFTER I had safely exited the ride. Within 30 minutes, he had outfitted me with my first pair of Newton running shoes.

Armed with fancy, brightly colored VERY EXPENSIVE shoes, I guess I felt obligated to run. So I started the Couch 2 5K program. Which I cannot say enough good things about. At some point during that 12 week program, a hazy idea started to really materialize, and I sheepishly admitted to myself that I wanted to run a marathon.

It would take me nearly a year and half to accomplish this goal, but not quite two weeks ago, I did it. I became a marathoner.

Now...in my head, I plan to continue some posts along these lines...in reality? We'll see what happens.

The Thinker Theory

Relationships are a funny thing.

A balance between a set of people that, when just right leaves everyone satisfied and fulfilled, but when lopsided for too long, typically winds up breaking up into a pile of emotional rubble.

For reasons of which I will probably never be sure, I have always strived to be the person in my relationships that goes the extra mile. Whether it is picking up that small something that I see, when I am out and about that makes me think of you, or writing down the time and date of you next doctor appointment, so that I can check in with you later, I have always wanted to be the kind of friend that makes you feel special. I have done this for so long that there is rarely even a conscious thought involved…its just second nature. So, mission accomplished, right? I should be happy, shouldn’t I?

Not exactly.

The fact of the matter is, humbling as it is to not only admit this, but to commit it to writing, sometimes I am a little jealous of my friends. Sometimes I would like to be the one that was thought of spontaneously…the one that is called up, for no reason at all, just because my friend was thinking of me. Over the years, I am not too proud to admit that I have kept score. And once the scales have tipped too greatly in the wrong direction, I have punished relationships, by quitting cold turkey, and seeing how long it would take the other party to notice that I had simply stopped reaching out. And every single time, I’ve been rewarded with…silence. Absence. Nothing.

It would seem that, without my friendly overtures, the friendship just sort of…dissolved. Disappeared. Became extinct.

Every single time, I missed the other person and was left feeling just a little bit hollowed out. A little bit smaller. A little bit unworthy. A little defeated.

Why was it that they didn’t call? Why didn’t they miss me? Why was I so insignificant to them that they hadn’t even noticed that I was gone? In my mind, somehow, the end of that friendship heralded some shortcoming within me. Some lack that I had, which made me easily forgotten. It would confirm what that small, malicious voice that we all carry inside of us, called self-doubt was telling me…that I just wasn’t good enough. Somehow that friend, that person about whom I was thinking, was more worthy and important than I could ever apparently hope to be, and in the end, I didn’t deserve their second thought.

Now, before this comes off as more of a pity party than it actually is, let me get to my point.

I do have a friendship, a single, longstanding friendship, that I can say with absolute certainty is a healthy, balanced relationship. Half the time, he calls/texts/emails/ whatevers me. The other half? Its me reaching out to him. There is no keeping score, there is no reason to. I never worry that if I call or text, it is going to be a bother…that I am being a pest, or a needy friend. And if I haven’t heard from him in a while, I don’t start calculating a deadline for him to get back to me, I simply say “Hey, where’ve ya been? You OK?” For this friendship? I am eternally grateful. This friendship? Allowed me to reframe all of my insecurities and doubts into my “Thinker Theory.”

I believe that there are two kinds of people out there…the “thinkers” and the “thinkees”. The thinkers are the folks who keep the “Just Thinking of You” division of Hallmark in business. They are the people that pick you up funny little gifts simply because it is Wednesday and somehow, miraculously always seem to remember that your daughter’s favorite animal is a pig. They do these things, not to inspire you to love them more, or to prove how great of a friend they are, but simply because it is who they are.

The thinkees on the other hand, are the folks that are lucky enough to reap these rewards. They are the object of the thinkers’ affections and the recipient of the unexpected phone call. The thinkees merit such treatment not because they have done anything grand or because they are in some way extra special, but simply because they happen to have had the good fortune of, at some point, forming a relationship with a thinker.

I believe that, at some point, everyone is a thinker and a thinkee. Think of new relationships. When you are freshly in like or lust or even love with someone, you are constantly courting their affection, and you can’t help but thinking about them. These thoughts lead you to come up with fun and special ways of showing them that you were thinking of them. The song that you play for them. The YouTube video that you send for them to wake up to in the morning. The note that you sneak into their lunch. In short, you are a thinker, and your beloved is your thinkee. Over time, this pattern either continues, or at some point loses steam, and you forget to think about them the way you once did. It doesn’t mean you love them any less. It just means that your thoughts of them are more background noise. A constant that is always there, just not registering enough on your radar for you to do anything about it.

Armed with this theory, and cloaked in the shield of my healthy friendship, I am happy to remain a proud thinker, and am officially putting you on notice.

I will call you just to say hi. No, I don’t need anything. And no, I probably don’t have anything important to tell you. I just wanted you to know that I was thinking of you.

I am also issuing you this challenge: do something unexpected for someone today.

Call someone just to say hi.

Take a picture of that funny thing you see, that you know she would get a kick out of and text it to her.

Don’t wait for an excuse, or a valid reason to do it.

Just be a thinker today. And maybe the day after too.

An Ode to My Husband

Here’s the thing, you’re not perfect.

You’re not the most emotionally available man in the world.

You either talk a lot or not at all. Many times when you do talk, it’s not so much “to” a person, as it is “at” a person. When you don’t feel like talking, you just simply DON’T.

You can be extremely harsh and hypercritical of others.

However…

You let me be me.

You are strong enough to know to let me chase down my dreams and goals, no matter how they may grow and evolve over time. You don’t take them as a threat. You don’t view them as attempts to run away from you. You give me the space and the encouragement to continue becoming whomever it is that I am going to be, which is the only reason that I keep trying some days.

You get that it is more important to provide me with the good soil to plant my own garden, than it is for you to bring me flowers. What we can grow together is more beautiful than anything we can buy from someone else.

You recognize that I don’t need you, but I want you. You realize that this is a good thing. If I were with you out of need, I could just as easily fulfill those needs with someone else. But I’m not. I’m with you out of want. No one else can be you, no one else could ever fill my “you shaped” hole.

You’re not perfect, but neither am I.

Somehow though, when you put us together we are.

Terror

It’s a funny thing, that terror. It can sneak up on you when you least expect it, and strike at you from angles that you have never even considered, let alone girded yourself against.

As the child of a 2 time breast cancer survivor, I am perhaps a bit jumpier about my health than the average bear. I have been getting yearly mammograms since my early thirties, and try not to take my health for granted. In fact, to that end, I have just completed my annual gauntlet of medical appointments: dentist, family doctor, gynecologist, ophthalmologist, bloodwork and mammogram. Rinse and repeat. Having completed these, and received a clean bill of health, just in time for my 36th birthday, I smugly thought that I was in the clear for the next 360 or so days.

Until Sunday.

While at church services, I smoothed my dress, one of the many times that we stood up during worship. In the process of smoothing my dress, I noticed a lump, on my right hip, that I don’t remember ever having felt before. Attempting to be as inconspicuous as possible, I began quietly investigating it with my fingertips, and realized that it felt like a very large swollen lymph node or something along those lines. I immediately excused myself and headed to the rest room to investigate more thoroughly. There was no pain, no real discomfort and no real visual clue as to why I might have a lump there. The lump moved fairly freely, within a restricted area. Though there was no external bruising, now that I knew where to look, I realized I could faintly see the shape of it in the mirror.

I hustled back in to church, took communion and willed the rest of the time to pass, so that I could get home and talk to my husband about it.

At home I had him come upstairs and feel it himself. He looked calmly at me and said, “Call the doctor. It could be anything from…a cyst? A localized infection? An internal bruise? Call the doctor.” We looked at one another, both knowing that it wasn’t the “from” that was scary, it was the unspoken ground, on the other side of “to”. We also both knew that it was Sunday. Which meant no doctor available.

The rest of the day was spent immersed in busy work. Straightening the house, putting up the laundry, looking after the kids. On the surface, all was status quo. Internally, the terror had started to set in. It began as a dull anxiety, poking its head to the surface every once in a while, to remind me that all was not as typical on this Sunday as it would seem.

The next day was Labor Day. Still no doctor available, so it would have to keep. As the day progressed, the anxiety began to turn to momentary bouts of panic. As is my fashion, I launched into research mode, to try and assuage my preliminary fears. Bad idea. Seriously bad idea. And one that I should have known better than to indulge in. The internet…home of everything in the world is a portent of something fatal. Knowing this, I went back for a second helping. This time, rather than searching for ailments to cause my one, lone symptom, I picked a few slightly more palatable maladies to search, and see if my symptom would find kin there.

This morning, I drove myself to work, waited until the office was open and called the doctor. They were able to get me in straight away, so I turned about and went back home. As I drove home, I started thinking about the “what if’s”. All of the scoundrels that waited on the other side of “to” introduced themselves, and vigorously pumped my hand, up and down, thanking me for inviting them to the party. Fears of missed birthdays and mourning children gripped my heart with potent ferocity. I started to feel faint and nauseated, just from driving the car. I did the only thing I knew to do, and called my mom, and asked her to meet me at the doctor’s office. Having her there, having someone to hold my shit together in front of was a powerful salve, and just what I needed in order to beat back the terror.

The doctor says it is likely a lipoma, or cyst.

She wants to do a CAT scan, just to be sure, but in her educated opinion, it “doesn’t feel like cancer”.

Which makes me feel a little better.

The terror though, it is still in there, waiting.