On the road less traveled….

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Running has quickly become something I love. I left my office the other day and walked out into a beautiful day with a slight breeze and actually whined to myself…”UhhhhhhhUH! It would be PERFECT to run tonight!” but I didn’t get to (because I was taking a gun class which was equally as fun and empowering as any run I’ve done recently). I love the feeling I get when I complete a run, knowing that I frickin’ did it. It’s been a long time coming, this running thing. And each day, I get closer and closer to being okay with calling myself “a runner”…I think I’ll do that when I finally hit 5 miles.

When I go for runs outside, I start and end at my house. I run through a great park in my neighborhood and sometimes wander through the neighborhoods themselves. There are gorgeous trees and a pretty creek to run next to…being in nature feels good! There’s a more ghetto side of the trail I run and I only really do that with a friend because the one time I ran it alone, it was a bit sketchy. And by “a bit” I mean “almost entirely riddled with sketch characters.”

It’s interesting to me, the metaphor of running away from and toward my house. I feel like that’s something I’m kind of experiencing right now. I’m in a state of heightened emotions and running has given me the opportunity to get some of that out of me. It also allows me an hour or so to just be with my thoughts (and my music) and really evaluate and take stock of things. I guess I’m not entirely sure what I’m running away from, or even toward. At a base level, I’m running toward 13.1 miles. I want to hit that goal so badly I can taste it. Running is allowing me the chance to see how capable I really am. I’ve given up on dreams of running several times in the past and now? Now I just go for it. I want to be the person that puts her mind to something and does it…and does it well.

Sometimes, running away from and toward things can be terrifying. What’s behind me is comfortable and easy; what’s in front of me is somewhat unknown and will probably be at least a little challenging. What’s an adventure without a little challenge though, right? It means letting go of what I’ve known for so long and being brave enough to trust myself in the future.

On embracing the unknown….

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Change is absolutely petrifying to me. Well, some change is. Most change probably, but not all. I get nervous about life and start over-thinking all the things that could go wrong or all the unintended consequences of change, whether realistic or not. I wonder if that’s, in part, due to the fact that I’ve never really done change before. I’ve never up and left anywhere. I’ve always been the responsible one (it’s been determined that, in my family, I’m the “responsible failure”, my brother is the “irresponsible success”, and my sister the “reponsible success”), the one that does things the right way and thinks things through, often to a fault.
So maybe that’s why I’m so antsy for a change right now. A big change. Something that takes me somewhere new and exciting, either physically or emotionally…or both. Life is ripe with opportunity and I don’t know that I’ve ever really taken advantage of unexpected change. Maybe it’s time to do that. Consequences be damned (sort of. I am a grown up, after all)!
I start to get really excited about things changing (when it’s good, anyway) and then I wake up the next morning and say to myself, “What the frick was I thinking? I can’t do that!” but at some point, I need to stop doubting myself. I’m learning lately that I’m a lot stronger than I thought I was. I can barrel through a lot more crap than I ever thought I’d be able to. Maybe it’s time to put my money where my mouth is and really test my strength. I’m not entirely sure what that looks like right now, though I have some ideas. And maybe something will come of all of this sooner rather than later. Who knows?

On joining the club…

/ micahdl / 2 Comments
“There’s a club. The Dead Dads Club. And you can’t be in it until you’re in it. You can try to understand; you can sympathize. But until you feel that loss…”
Admittedly, I’ve been watching Grey’s Anatomy in excess lately. Despite that, and despite the fact that I said I’d probably never watch the show (let alone LIKE IT), there’s some damn good writing that goes on. And there have been a lot of things one or more of the characters have said that resonate with me. The statement above? One of the biggest.
I think it’s because my pain feels unbearable and lonely more often than not. I have few friends that can understand what I’m feeling on a personal level. I don’t even need one full hand to count them. Yes, I have friends that have watched friends and parents go through what I’m going through. It’s awful and painful, but as with so many things, you can’t truly understand until you’ve been there yourself. Frankly, it’s a crappy club to be in, but I’m grateful I’m not in the club alone.
I don’t know if everyone feels the same way I do about these clubs. I have a friend who sustained a pretty grim injury last year that left her more than a little debilitated for a long time. I’ve been fortunate enough to never have broken anything more than a fingernail so there was really no way for me to understand what she was going through. Not the pain, not the inability to do the easiest things, none of it. All any of us could do was make an effort to empathize and try to be there as much as we could (and I’ll be the first to admit, I did a pretty crappy job of “being there”…I could have done a lot better, frankly).
It’s hard being on one side or the other. Because I’ve never had a major injury, it’s hard for me to understand how, or even why, it takes so long to recover. But I assure you, the last thing anyone wants to be told is to “get over it.” I’ve had people say that to me and I want to punch them in the face repeatedly. There’s no hard and fast rule for “getting over” an injury, be it physical or emotional. We can read books or go to therapy or talk to our friends, but at the end of the day, once you’re in the Club, you’re in it and I just think people should be a little more understanding, especially if they’re not in the Club.
So if you’re in the Club of Whatever, welcome…and I’m sorry you’re here. But there are lots of us and there are lots of Clubs. So do what you gotta do. And if you’re not in the Club, please just be there. The Club members could use a drink or some company or even just a friendly text reminding us that we’re not forgotten and we’re not societal lepers.

On changing of the guard….

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Inhibitions are funny things, aren’t they? I think for all of us, we have and lose them with a great deal of regularity. The frequency of that change is debatable and probably changes quite a bit, but they come and go nonetheless.
Ten years ago, I was 22 years old. Lord knows, I was markedly less inhibited. I was nigh on crazy, if I’m being totally honest. I made stupid choices (resulting in often-painful consequences) and generally lived life as if every day were my last day on earth. I was silly, reckless, out of control, and more often than not, a pretty horrible person. That said, I was also pretty reserved, as far as my emotions were concerned. I did just about everything I could to keep people from getting in. I had things happen to me in my early 20s that kept me from letting people access who I really was. So while I was outwardly a complete headcase, everything the mattered remained hidden. You don’t go through those kinds of things and not wind up a little hardened.
Ten years later, I’m discovering that everything has sort of flipped. I maintain a considerable amount of control over my person (and my wallet, thank God)…well, most of the time. I still have my moments of crazy, but they are just that: moments. It’s not a lifestyle anymore. And when it comes to emotions, hard as it may be, I’m a little more apt to let people see all of it…the good, the bad, and (unfortunately) the ugly. I don’t know how I could have gotten through the last several months without experiencing some semblance of emotion. I think I probably still have a hardened exterior. It’s a select few that get to see the “real” me. I still have a compulsion to maintain a front. I’m working through that and trying to remind myself that perfection, while a nice idea, is unattainable and nobody really likes it anyway. It’s the communism of emotions.
Fully experiencing emotion is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I also think that, at some point, it will be one of the most rewarding. Feeling how I feel right now isn’t easy. Loneliness, abandonment, and fear are horrible places to be. But I know that the flip side of all of that has to be on the horizon, however far away it might be.
And every morning, I get to look east toward what is, can, and probably will be a beautiful horizon…I just have to move toward it.  
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On dressing the part….

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Generally speaking, I avoid dressing how I feel. This is due, in large part, to the fact that I feel exhausted much of the time. If I dressed how I felt, you’d see me bra-less, in a crappy t-shirt, sweatpants, and athletic socks to my knees. It would be ugly. I’d whip my hair up in a sloppy French twist and maybe muster the energy to put on deodorant and mascara. But that would be pushing it.
There’s something to be said for dressing the way you WANT to feel. I’ll admit it: I’ve had some really rough days in the past few months. And nothing can start turning that feeling around faster that putting on a great dress and killer heels. That’s only the beginning, though. I can’t even begin to tell you how great I feel when I buck up and pop contacts in and put on a full face of makeup…we’re talking four shades of eye shadow, liquid liner, curled lashes, the works!
I won’t ever discount the validity of wallowing in a crappy feeling for a while. Sometimes, it just feels good to be in crappy clothes and not give a rip about how you look or who’s judging you for looking that way. Screw ’em. We all deserve to have that day (or those days, because sometimes feeling crappy is a persistent bitch).
But at some point, enough is just enough and it’s time to pull myself up and just pretend that I feel better than I actually do, because more often than not, I end up feeling better just by doing that.
So here’s to party dresses, fancy heels, make-up, and anything else that makes me feel like a million bucks!
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On needing to feel needy….

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If someone asked you, “What’s the one thing you need, really NEED, right now?” how would you answer? I think most people would quickly answer with either sleep or money. And really, who doesn’t need either or both of those pretty much every day? Sleep is a huge one for me, especially now, given that I’m running on about five hours, and even that wasn’t uninterrupted. And money? Well, yeah, I definitely would have liked to win that Mega Millions jackpot…didn’t we all? Oh, the places I’d go and things I’d do. If only.
But if we think a little deeper than just the surface of our physical lives, what is it that we really need? For each person, it’s going to be a very different answer. Some need determination. Some might need some rest…not sleep, but rest. Some need to be understood while others need understanding. There are plenty of things we all need.
So what do I need right now? The easy answer is “a vacation.” I can’t even begin to describe how badly I want to get away for a week. Sadly, that just isn’t in the cards this year. But what I think I really need is some peace and some understanding….of myself and of others. I have been feeling very lonely the last few days. Generally speaking, I’ve felt pretty good and mostly normal, but I have moments when the loneliness sets in more heavily than I could have ever expected. It’s often so overwhelming that I’m not sure what to do about it. Do I cry? Do I exercise? Do I call my friends? Which friends do I call? Needing something makes me feel needy, which is not the way I ever want to appear, be, or feel. Sometimes my dogs even seem like they don’t want to hang out with me. I know it’s not true…they just like laying on their bed, which is in the bedroom and not in the living room where I usually hang out alone.
Maybe what I really need is a sense of accomplishment. To know that I started and completed something. Cleaning my house would be a good start. It’s not trashed, it’s just that there are things that could be cleaner. Like the floors. I should polish those…

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On chilling out…

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I’ll be the first to admit: there are times in life when I really need to take a chill pill. Wouldn’t it be nice if those actually existed? If I could get a bottle of chill pills at the grocery store or, heck, while we’re wishing, if I could get a prescription for it, I’d probably be able to manage stress and/or heightened emotions much, much better.
Recently, things around my office have been, shall we say, sheer insanity. At least four times in the last two weeks, I’ve definitely needed a chill pill. I just needed something to help me calm down and take things one step at a time. I’m usually pretty all right in high stress situations, but every now and again, one gets the best of me. And I’ve had two of those situations in as many weeks. It’s exhausting. It drives me to the point of tears. I hate not knowing what to do when sh*t hits the fan. I’m usually the one that has that kind of stuff under control. Take a wedding I did last summer. I have never, in my life, seen one thing after another go so apocalyptically wrong in one day. But for whatever reason, I knew exactly how to handle each situation as it came along. I was able to see the bigger picture (let’s get these crazy kids married) and work some scheduling magic to fit in some pretty key elements for the couple and their parents…all the while, not letting on that I was losing my frickin’ mind over making it happen. The father of the bride came up to me during the reception and asked, “How are you so calm?!” There’s no easy answer for that, but the truth is, there’s no point in me getting worked up. It just makes things worse for the people at a wedding that matter the most (that being, everyone but me).
So why can’t I manage the rest of my life the way I can manage wedding madness? Maybe it’s because I don’t know as much about my day job as I do about weddings. Maybe it’s a lot of reasons. And because of that, I desperatelly wish that drug manufacturers would develop a chill pill.
However, there is another thing that certain people (cough cough Todd Newton) would say I need an even bigger chill pill for: Professional sports…especially regarding basketball…even more especially regarding Carmelo Anthony. I’m getting worked up just thinking about it.

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On taking the first steps….

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Let’s talk baby steps. I seem to be surrounded by them lately. My friend’s son just took his first steps the other day (and really, is there anything cuter than that?); my best friend’s son will likely be toddling about in the next few months. A co-worker’s daughter is getting very close to walking.
It’s interesting thinking about baby steps and watching them happen. I remember a picture of little Eli, nearly hysterical trying to pull himself to a standing position inside his crib. My best friend is, in every sense of the word, a wonderful mother…proven by the fact that she took the picture of Eli before calming him down. HA! But that little nugget was not going to quit until he was standing. Nope, he was going to do whatever it took and boy, did he!
We adults could learn a lot from these little ones. They just won’t give up until they get it right. “I can’t do it” is a phrase that simply doesn’t exist for them (yet). They stumble and wobble and fall down, but no matter what, they get right back up and try it again until they finally get the hang of it.
I’m starting my own baby steps…again. With running. I want to run (I think). Well, the reality is that I *need* to run. I love cupcakes so I’ll tolerate running in order to eat the cupcakes without guilt. I used to run. Well, I trained for one race and I thought I did all right with it. Then I just quit. It hurts. It gets hot. My lungs burn. I hate all those feelings, mostly the burning lungs.
But I’m going to give it another go. And maybe this time, I’ll get it right. Maybe this time, I won’t give up five weeks into training. Maybe this time, I’ll convince myself to push harder and go longer. I’m not going to give myself a goal other than that. I won’t say “I’m going to run a marathon” because the fact is, I don’t know if I want to.
That’s what my baby steps look like right now. Just get back on the treadmill a few times a week and not give up…and maybe read a book or two…

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On life’s abnormalities….

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I think we all have moments in life when we think, about ourselves, “Well, that’s not normal!” I can think of plenty of things, situations, attributes about my life that have made me think that. Certainly there are some life changes that have taken place that make me feel extremely abnormal. There’s the fact that it took me 11 years to get a bachelor’s degree…that’s not really normal. I could probably come up with an endless list of things that don’t seem “normal,” but if there’s one thing I’d really like to change, it’s this:
My perpetually chapped lips. I HATE that I can never seem to get my lips as soft and smooth as everyone else’s appear to be. I have a remarkable supply of chapstick at my disposal and still, nothing seems to work. I’ve tried just about everything. I do masks (yes, I have a lip mask) and scrubs. I keep chapstick and moisturizing lipstick on hand and in every purse or bag I carry. I have it in my car and at my desk. It’s ridiculous!
And apparently I’m about the only person I know that actually hates running. I wish I liked it. I see so many of my friends running and how much they love it and think, “I wish I had more normal knees and shins and could do that,” but I don’t, so whatever.
Sure, there are plenty of things about me that I’d like to change in order to seem more “normal,” but without our (seeming) abnormalities, we’d be a pretty boring bunch, don’t you think?

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On choosing the right tools….

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When I was about 22 years old, I decided to buy myself a really nice set to Craftsman tools for Christmas. It was one of the most useful things I’ve ever given myself. And there’s nothing quite as fun, at least for me, as the first time you buy a really good tool.
I grew up around tools. My dad is a master with them and always had the best of the best for everything from hammers to tablesaws. It helps to have a garage filled with nothing but Craftsman and Ryobi when you’re building and remodeling entire portions of a house. Generally speaking, I know my way around a hardware store and can usually sound well-informed when asking about products and tools.
I’ll never forget the first time I got a power drill. Oh….m’gawd. There was so much I wanted to reinforce just because I could! My dad taught me how to use one when I was probably 8 or 10 years old. It’s a very empowering feeling for a little girl to have control over such a massive tool!
Yet, despite all those amazing home improvement tools, the best tool I have ever gotten (as a gift, nonetheless) is my apple slicer/corer/peeler. During the summer and fall, I use the crap out of that thing! I could make 10 pies a day, just because I have that magical tool. And BONUS! I was recently schooled on how to get the thing to *actually* suction to the counter, making it infinitely more enjoyable to use! 
It’s really kitchen tools that make my heart skip beats. I’m a champ with things like hammers, drills, tape measures, and the like (I’ve even been known, on more than one occasion, to request a pink toolbelt for Christmases and/or birthdays *cough cough wink wink*), but there’s little else that excites me the way a new KitchenAid attachment, spatula, or veggie slicer does.
And let’s not get started on cookie presses and cutters…