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Grief Among the Cherry Blossoms

2 Apr

With racing, it is all or nothing.  It is all nerves and chaos and rushing (the race before the race) when you wake up bleary-eyed from barely sleeping and dress and prepare and head to the race and rush to the bathroom line and the bag check and back to the bathroom line.  Then it is nothing as you stand in the corral and think about how cold you are and how warm that bed was and how pleasant a hot shower and a warm breakfast would be.  And then it is all racing.

I was in the nothing stage, the calm before the storm, huddled in my corral in 3/4 length pants and a thin race shirt and barely there arm warmers. I began to have the conversation I’d had with myself at 2 AM.  And again at 3 AM.  And 3:34 AM.  The one that begins with “you don’t have to do this.  No one is putting you up to it.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s not worth setting your injury recovery back.”  And then transitions into “but you did make it into the lottery, and you paid for it, and for the plane ticket and it is the 100th anniversary of the cherry blossoms and the 40th of the race.  And 2 races in DC in 2 weekends has a nice ring to it.”

It was in the nothing stage that I heard the voices.

The first one came from inside me but in his distinct voice.  ”You know” he said, “We were going to run this together some day.  Either on its own or combined with our own ultra run.  I think you’ve been avoiding thinking about that.  Why?  Do you not like thinking about me?”  And I thought “No, it’s because I miss you.  I know it’s silly, 14 months later, to be angry at someone who isn’t alive but I’m angry with you. This isn’t what I wanted.” I felt a wave of happiness (I remembered his voice, he felt so near) followed by a breaker of grief.

And that’s when I heard the second voice. “Are you going to run the whole way?” he said.  He was 10 years old, Adidas track pants and a long sleeve t-shirt. It was a question that seemed fitting because it was a question that I’ve been pondering for the last few weeks.  ”I don’t know” I said honestly.  ”I have an injured leg so I haven’t trained more than 3 miles at a time and only for the past week. Other than that, I haven’t run since December.  And I have a strained back because I accidentally lifted twice as much weight as I meant to. So I can’t breathe on my left side and breathing is kinda important when running…But I’m going to do my best and run as much as I can and then I am going to walk the rest. The only thing I know for sure, is that I am going to finish.”

“Do you think it’s okay to be happy and sad at the same time?” he asked next. So I told him that it was perfectly normal. I told him about my dead friend – the boy who ran and laughed and ate more food than I’ve ever seen a guy eat – and sometimes all three things at the same time!

“You understand” he said.  ”I lost my Dad last year, he was in the military. And he promised me that we’d run this race together some day so I am running the 10K today (my Mom is waiting at the sign) and next year I am running the 10 miler. I’m happy that I’m running but I’m so angry that he’s not here.”

So I told him that I kinda understand. But I also don’t.  Because losing a Dad is much harder than losing a friend. Especially if the Dad is a good Dad. I told him that his Dad would be so proud of him.  He asked if it got “better” as you got older.  ”Actually,” I said, “I had this conversation on Thursday with a friend and he lost his Dad when he was a kid, too. So he knows what he’s talking about.  And what he said to me is that grief will always be a part of us and it will change us. And some days we will be grateful for that and some days we will be angry. Our past does come with us into the future but it doesn’t have to define who we are.  It doesn’t get “better” and it doesn’t get “easier” but it does become part of us instead of an external force that tosses us around.  We learn to handle that part of us that gets sad and angry and is triggered by all kinds of memories and emotions.  Even happy ones.  And we are stronger and more complex and more mature because of it.”

And then I offered the only thing I had –  that we could run together for as long or as short as he wanted.  Or, I would think about him and his Dad at the 10K mark. He counter-offered.  We could run together as long as I said something at every water stop and mile marker – something that I thought his Dad would have said at that point.

So me and my shadow picked up our burdens of grief and carried them together for 6 miles. And we pointed at memorials and talked about their historical significance. And we each shared one good memory of our lost ones for each mile marker.  Well, his stories were good ones.  Mine were annoying ones.  Like the day he dangled PB&Js in front of me for miles but I couldn’t catch his pace and so I watched him eat them, one by one, as I grew hungrier and more tired and each sandwich made him run faster.  Or the day I finally beat him swimming in the pool and was just about to do a victory dance of some sort when he threw up in a trash can and I realized he had the flu.

And I said things that I thought his Dad would have said. About pacing yourself and running a good race and negative splits and how proud he was of his son, that setting a goal is important, knowing when to back off or quit is important, that failure and success teach different lessons but both are useful.  And that lemon lime Gatorade is gross. But necessary.

We sprinted to the 10K mark and he grinned as he crossed our imaginary finish line.  And I hugged him.  And then I had to keep going.  ”Finishing doesn’t change anything, does it?” he asked a little soberly. “It shows that you’re going to survive” I said.

But oh, those last 4 miles, when not texting my parents updates and handling the waves of leg and back pain, all I could think about was last February.  The three of us running and running, away from our demons, trying to make sense of this death before the funeral.  And then stopping.  And me, throwing rocks into the Delaware River and yelling “You made me run 18 miles and he is still dead!” (There may have been a swear in there.)

He is still dead. I ran 10 miles yesterday and he is still dead.  I ran 10 miles yesterday and I am still injured. There is no magic cure for either. But I ran 6.2 miles alongside the future and it was promising. For 6.2 miles I got to be where someone else belonged – someone who died serving his country. For 6.2 miles.

Finishing didn’t change anything. Except my attitude.

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
    (part of a poem by ee cummings)
I was honored to meet a boy who is carrying his Dad’s heart along with him as he begins to run the routes and the races that his Dad once ran.  Just as I continue to run the routes and the races that my friend once ran. And the deepest secret that everybody knows but nobody speaks enough about is that love matters. Love of a parent or a child or a friend. It’s significant.  More so than any finish line I will ever cross.

When Doubt Asks for a Piggyback Ride

12 Mar

We all have those moments, don’t we?  When we’re humming along, keeping our head above water, (even if breathing heavy) and then – wham – doubt jumps on our back.  And treading water with an un-welcomed burden on our backs is impossible.  It’s at that point that we begin to drown.

Unless we can shore ourselves up, shove doubt back into the brackish water, and focus again on our task, not our intruder.  Shoving doubt away is a choice.

My St. Patty’s Day Marathon

Doubt says: You’ll be miserable.  You paid money for this marathon and a plane ticket and now you can’t finish, heck, maybe won’t even be able to run 3 miles of it.  And everyone will say “What is SHE doing here? She doesn’t belong!”

I choose to know: I will enjoy this weekend away because I am going to be relaxing and with my friend and I get to cheer her on.  I get to put myself aside and focus on someone else for a change.

My Physical Therapy

Doubt says: You still are in pain after running 3 miles. All you have to show for it is a lot of copays and some black kinesio tape.

I choose to know: I can climb stairs, do squats and lunges now. Before, I could balance for 30 seconds on one leg on a Bosu ball.  Now I can balance for 3 minutes.  I now know how to build glute and hip and calf strength and how important it is to be able to control my knee wobbling.  My IT band is loose and happy and the scar tissue is gone and we’ve identified the other muscle that needs to be loosened now.

My MBA Semester

Doubt says: This was supposed to be an easy semester.  Yet you’re completely stressed and spending MORE time in the classroom during spring break week than you normally do during the regular semester.

I choose to know: I’m putting more time in so the end of the semester isn’t as stressful. I’m just burnt out and exhausted which is why it’s so good that my MBA is almost over and done with.

How People Perceive Me

Doubt says: You can’t wear shorts to the gym.  Everyone will see your short muscular legs and the funny piece of kinesiology tape running up your IT band. They’ll say “Shouldn’t our Health and Wellness rep be in better shape than that?”

I choose to know: No one cares.  No one is judging me.  In fact, the only comment made to me about me today at the gym was “Hey! Where’s your badass kinesio tape?  We miss seeing it on your leg.”

Doubt says: No one likes you.  He was speaking for others when he said “I’m opting out of your drama.”

I choose to know: The drama he was “opting out of” was me asking to be left alone after he said I was too competitive, too judgmental, too ugly and too naive to be friends with.  If there was any drama, it was of his own making.  I choose to dwell on the email that arrived later that day from a friend. I don’t remember the content. It doesn’t matter.  Because the subject line said it all: Opting In.

Less doubt. More hope. Increased joy.  That’s what I’m choosing to carry on my back.  I’m opting in.

Letting People Dictate Who We Are

3 Mar

I’m not someone you would think of as a people-pleaser or very easily swayed by other people’s opinions.

As a kid, I wasn’t particularly willful and disobedient.  I was, however, very stubborn and independent.  One anecdote shows that very clearly – since my Dad was a pastor when I was growing up, my parents made us memorize Bible verses.  I was 3 or 4 when I was given “Whatever is impossible with man is possible with God” to memorize.  Which I did.  With a slight twist.  I recited the following to my parents: “Whatever is impossible with man is possible with woman!”  I’d like to say it was a memorization glitch but I’ve always had a photographic memory. I think this was a deliberate case of very wrongfully substituting Lizology for theology.

My stubborn, independent, tenacious and competitive streak has stayed with me. Sometimes really helpful, sometimes detrimental. My general disregard for what people thought of me or whether they liked me was the same – sometimes helpful, sometimes detrimental.

And then, over the past few years, something changed.  Maybe it’s because I let my walls down enough to make good friendships.  And I saw how amazing other people are and wanted them to like me in return.  Maybe it’s because of a series of rejections I experienced in college that finally made me seek approval.  Whatever the linchpin, lately I’ve struggled with who I am – the person I think I am, the person I was brought up to be, or the person I’ve been accusing of becoming.

And I’ve let some people dictate who I am.

An irate employee this week told me quite an earful (I’ll try and relay his sentiments without the use of colorful and scatological language he used to describe me).  He said that I was mean.  That I don’t care about my employees (his example was that he came down on the last day of Open Enrollment and I only had two hours to speak with him.  Because there was a line of 15 other people outside my office…)  That I am the worst communicator he’s ever met (this is quite a travesty considering I work with 1500 engineers).  That my job is meaningless.  That my boss lied to him about some dates (he did not.  The IRS makes that easy for us.)  That NO ONE in the WHOLE building likes me or thinks I am doing a good job.  Then he almost hit me.

Typing it out makes it seem so hilariously wrong, doesn’t it? But at the time, it didn’t feel that way.  I felt hopeless and discouraged and under appreciated.  I started questioning who I am and why I do what I do and whether it matters.  In the past, I would have remained the same tenacious Liz on the surface but I would have begun rebuilding those walls – separating myself from anything that could hurt me.  This week, I chose not to.  The truth, at least part of it, is this: Sometimes I am blunt, but I am not mean.  Two hours helping with one person who didn’t bother to make an appointment or come to the information sessions is a very generous act on my part. If I was the worst communicator, than no one would rate our benefits as the best part of their work experience, my presentations as the most useful of their on-boarding, and my emails as the highlight of their day. If my job was meaningless, I wouldn’t have a job.  (Engineers are efficient and logical this way.) And if no one liked me, I wouldn’t be nominated for Customer Service Awards every year and receive stellar performance appraisals and bonuses.

Just as the hopeless feelings were fading, I had an exchange with an ex-boyfriend along the same lines.  The gist (once again, keeping it semi-appropriate) is that I am a horribly mean person who portrays him as a monster.  That I went to our bike cage (where there are security cameras) with a pocket-knife (would have to be stronger than my little Swiss Army Knife) and slashed his bike tires because I am vindictive because I am upset that I broke up with him years ago.  Yeah, not sure how that makes any logical sense.  Apparently, I am that person who breaks up with people and THEN seeks revenge 2 years later for (what exactly?).  He expressed both concern and delight that I will end up friendless because I am such a vicious person.

I threw up, I was so upset. Why?  I am not exactly sure.  The thought of someone hating me this much?  The thought of someone having twisted things so wrongly that I have to play the villain role to his martyr one (this gets exhausting after 2 years). The thought of having to see him and put up with this charade (I can’t win.  If I ignore him in hallways, I get yelled at for “acting childish” and if I am friendly, I get reminded that I am a monster.)  The thought that maybe there is some truth lodged deep in his statements?

The truth, as I see it, and I may be wrong here, is that all feedback must be analyzed before it is accepted. Take the words, hold them up to the light, don’t stuff them deep inside where they can begin to spread their virus. Take the words, bring them to a trusted friend, ask for their wisdom.  Take the words, sift them and shake them and “pan for gold” to see what settles at the bottom.  Accepting what we are told is both naive and illogical.  The magazines tell me that I’m not skinny enough, tall enough, political enough, wealthy enough, healthy enough.  Enough with the enoughs.  Those magazines don’t know me.  They certainly don’t know you.

Feedback that settles to the bottom as nuggets of gold must be acted upon.  Even if it involves some painful truths about ourselves (we are not always kind and noble and heroic and unselfish).  But the fool’s gold should be discarded.  Just like I’m purging myself of scar tissue, it’s time to purge myself of other people’s truths about me. I can never hope to have everyone like me because I can never stop being a maverick.  I can never hope to have everyone understand me because I can’t always understand myself.  And I can’t hope to have everyone like me because we all have freedom to choose that for ourselves.

But I can live on the Peak of Peace rather than the Depths of Despair.  My truth, rightly or wrongly, is this.  Last night I sat on a friend’s couch in sweats.  We ate spaghetti and meatballs and watched a movie and laughed and shared life.  We discussed struggles and triumphs and awkward moments. This is real.

And two nights ago I sat in a dark cozy bar with good friends.  The kind of moment when time slows down and you forget about schoolwork or your leg injury or that looming to do list and you sit back and relax and revel in watching distinct separate friendships merge as your friends meet each other and find new friendships.  Beer and burgers and banter; a plethora of laughs.

Gratitude for friendships – for people who know I am far from perfect but still not a monster – for people willing to experience life’s peaks and depths with me – is what is bringing me joy today.

The Under Eating Journey

27 Feb

Nearly 11 months ago now, I confronted my severe under-eating issues. It was never a case of trying to starve myself, just a case of complete ignorance.  Everything I read said to eat 1200-1500 calories to lose weight. So I ate about 1800 calories to maintain my weight.  But instead, because I burnt an extra 1000-2000 calories daily exercising, I still ended up in starvation mode.  I never realized that I needed to eat my exercise calories back.  So last April 1st, I began the journey of eating enough.

Life is richer and fuller now that I attacked this issue and dealt with it.  There’s always new issues to deal with but putting this one behind me makes me want to celebrate.

April-May I concentrated on eating enough.  This meant religiously counting calories (but to force myself to eat more, not to stop at a certain number).  It meant adjusting my idea of portion sizes.  It meant carrying snacks with me so I never had an excuse to not eat.  The first few months were horribly hard.  It took daily emails from my Mom and a lot of encouragement to feel like I was doing the right thing.

Making yourself eat when you are not hungry feels gross.  And for the first month, I made myself eat 2500 calories each day.  And to eat back 3/5ths of my exercise calories.  It felt like a lot of food.  It also meant that I started gaining weight which is a psychological battlefield all on its own.

And then something happened in late April – my stomach started growling.  I had forgotten that stomachs growl, I don’t remember the last time that mine had.  But once my body was convinced that I wasn’t starving it, it began to test me.  I’d wake up at 2 am or 3 am with my stomach growling and flipping. So I’d eat – an apple, a peanut butter sandwich, a banana and almonds.  I began to say “Ok, stomach.  You don’t believe that I will treat you right. I am going to show you that you can trust me.”  So I’d eat.

It wasn’t until late May that this stopped happening.

June-August Because I don’t think calorie counting is a very healthy thing for me (maybe it works for others), I decided to go cold turkey and stop counting calories.  Now that I had a better idea of a reasonable idea of what my intake should look like, I was ready to start “living the rest of my life.”  I had always known that calorie counting was not a long term plan.  I limited weighing myself to once a week and very quickly settled at a weight that my body was happy at.

I wasn’t happy at that weight.  Most of my pants didn’t fit.  I had to pull out the two size 4′s I had stashed in the back of my closet.  But I also knew that being healthy was more important than wearing a certain size. And I felt stronger and happier.  (But that’s not to say there was not a lot of anguish, once again directed at my Mom, that I looked terrible in my clothes).

September-December I ran an ultra-marathon relay race in the Appalachian mountains.  I trained and completed a marathon in Philadelphia.  And through it all, I lost only a couple of pounds which made me happy – I was learning how to fuel properly.  I began to understand when I need extra protein and what my body craves after runs and bike rides. I also realized that a long run on Saturday and a long bike ride on Sunday meant I had to eat extra food the rest of the week since I couldn’t get enough calories in my body on those days alone (without resorting to unhealthy food that I won’t eat).  I still thought about food a lot – hard not to when you are training for races – but saw it as fuel and a necessary tool, not a hinderance.

January – present I still have occasional struggles with eating enough.  That’s always been an issue of mine since I was little.  And being in class two or three nights a week until 9pm makes it difficult to eat at regular times.  The night after the marathon and on a few other recent occasions, I’ve woken up in the middle of the night hungry.  But I’m now proud that my body has a nifty built in warning system to tell me when I need to eat.

My size 2 and size 0 pants fit again. Nothing like good old weight training and switching up your routine to get in shape. I’m probably the only person who gained weight in the summer and then lost it during the winter holidays.  My weight has now settled between where I was last spring and where I was this summer. My body fat has increased but I know that is a good thing. Skinny is not always healthy.

I no longer count calories.  I hardly even think about them.  I eat healthy whole foods and cook most of my own meals. But I eat cookies now and again like everyone else.  I no longer come home from exercise and find I can’t keep myself from eating handfuls of Cheerios (I used to hate myself for my inability to stop eating them.  First, I probably ate 200 calories worth of them. They’re not exactly a calorie-dense food.  And second, it was clearly my body saying it needed carbs pronto.  Instead, I saw it as my own inability to control myself.  And that made me unhappy.)

Like anything in life, what we need in order to survive can be so easily twisted until it seems it is bad. I thought I was taking care of myself but, in my ignorance, I was really hurting myself.  I had no idea that listening to what other people and magazines and blogs said about what I should be eating and when was silly.  Those people and magazines and blogs weren’t training for the races that I was.  They were catering to the masses, not to me.

Having some time off from running has meant dialing down my intake.  And I’ve been able to do that instinctually – just like more other normal people. It feels good to feel normal.  To feel that eating is no longer a task.  But an enjoyable daily part of life.

Which is why I am ending this here so I can go eat a cookie.

 

Digging Out Old Scar Tissue

26 Feb

I keep myself pretty busy.  So the 15 minutes twice a week that I spent laying on my side pretending that my physical therapist is not digging out 5 years worth of old running scar tissue is a rarity.

Thank God.

Because 15 minutes might seem like nothing. It always depends on how the 15 minutes are spent. 15 minutes jumping rope is hard.  A 15 minute plank would just about kill me, seeing as how I can barely breathe at the end of minute 2.  15 minutes of pain is a lot of pain.

And a lot of time to think.  And to dig through metaphorical scar tissue.  Because it’s starting to get cluttered and I hate clutter (except, apparently, right around my left knee where I store it thick and deep and stacked in just such a way that I can walk and bike pain-free but cannot run a mile.)

We all have scar tissue – mostly the things people say to us that we hate and disagree with and know are untrue but still let fester for a time.  Which is why we always feel blindsided when these slights that we thought we’d “moved on from” and “let go” come back to haunt us.  Because instead of dismissing them, we’ve turned them into scar tissue.  We thought burying them was appropriate. But scar tissue eventually reemerges – it can go quite a long time before it makes its presence known and causes problems.

The scar tissue I focused on this week (and will be focusing on again next week) are the things people have said that have shaken my view of myself. My grandfather stating how ugly I looked in my new glasses when I was 9. The birthday card stating “whether you’re in the bleachers or the ski lodge” (because I didn’t belong with the athletic people, I was dismissed as a spectator). The ex telling me that I was “good enough for now but he wanted to keep his options open, although would it be okay if I didn’t keep my options open?” The “it’s too bad you don’t look like one of them” carelessness tossed my way by people viewing pictures of my adorable sisters in my office.  Overhearing someone describe my siblings as “the smart/witty one, the quiet one, the compassionate one and the ballerina.”  Apparently, I am the quiet one.  Which may explain why a Christmas card was once addressed to “Matt, Maresy and Tiny Debs”  Although my parents tried to convince me that “tiny” and “Liz” aren’t that far apart (they both share an i) I think the truth is that I was the quiet one.

Scar tissue if left alone, always builds up.  Whether statements were said in jealousy or frustration or whether they were intended to even be hurtful, we don’t always know.  But we can control our reactions to them.  We can control whether we let them change how we see ourselves.

And we can dig them out.  If its not truth, it doesn’t stay. If it causes pain, it’s time to let it go.  There may be some digging (rather than burying) involved.  Maybe seeking friends to ask them to speak truth to you. Maybe forgiving people for things that were said. Maybe writing down the true positive things that people have encouraged you with and repeating those back every time the negative crops up.  The digging out of old scar tissue is always an active process.  Even when a PT is the one doing the digging, you’re still very much involved.

Trust me.

 

I Was Never Just a Runner

23 Feb

I like to think that the real me is the me that emerges when I’m joyful and relaxed and healthy and content in who I am.

And I like to think that the me that emerges when I’m stressed and unhappy and injured is the fake me.  And it really doesn’t count.  Because everyone knows that this is not me.  That this is just an evil version that has come down in a UFO and taken me prisoner for a few hours/days/weeks/months.  Right?

But I don’t think there is a real me or a fake me.  Just me.  Lots of good, lots of bad, lots of gray areas.  And the people who have never known me in a good time have no way of knowing what good I am capable of.  And the people who have never known me in a bad time have no way of knowing what evil I am capable of.  And most people have seen both and know that I’m capable of quite the gamut of emotions and personalities.

And no, I am not special. We’re all that way.

But I’ve been realizing it more and more.  It’s been two months since I ran without pain (and the two times I ran were so unpleasant, it’s best to forget they ever happened).  Two months feels like a long time.  I am passionate about running, it fits me in a way that I needed a hobby to.  It makes me feel athletic and strong and it gives me a much needed break from work drama and school reading and life.

I miss changing into running gear for lunch runs with my coworker. I miss catching up on life with my coworker.  I never really appreciated just how much time we spent together training for my marathon. I feel guilty that I’m not logging all those miles with her while training for her marathon.  I miss the river.  I love the river.  My life has revolved around the river these past few years – biking, running, races, suicide, walks, the journey from work to class to gym to school that I have made umpteen times, the bridge between my home city and my work city.  I miss the sweat and how freezing cold you are for the first wintery mile and how quickly you warm up. I miss Sport Beans and power gels and electrolytes.  I miss the running jargon. I even miss all the runners who would smile and nod at my Reach the Beach and Ragnar shirts.  I miss feeling athletic.

And rather than settling into my new identity – the girl learning to live through IT band pain and focusing on strength and core and lifting weights and keeping my knee from buckling during squats – I’ve been grasping for the old one.  And failing.  And being a little miserable git who has no doubt annoyed a fair number of people.

“It’s not me,” I say, as an excuse.

And coworkers ask about my training and tell me that they’ve taken up running because of me (5!  5 people this month!) and HomeSlice asks what crazy event I am doing next.  And I feel boring and dull because I have nothing to talk about but this only-fascinating-to-me world of balancing and muscles and tendons and kinesio tape (I wear the black stuff but lately, it starts unsticking from my skin.  Apparently even my skin is defective.)  I crave early Saturday morning long runs.

Maybe this would make sense if I was a good runner.  Technically, I am. I run straight and true without kicking up limbs behind me or running knock-kneed.  But I am not a fast runner, I am not an especially talented runner, I’m just a girl who loves running.  And biking.  And boxing.  And soccer.  And lifting.  And apparently, even balancing.  But for some reason, my frustration over not being able to run outweighs the rest.

It really comes down to identity.  If I can’t run, can I call myself a runner?  Can I still consider myself athletic? Am I athletic?  Even after all these years, I still feel like I’m the childhood me who was never athletic, let’s be honest.  Maybe because I never tried.  Maybe because I didn’t have confidence in myself. Or  maybe because I am just not an athlete.

If I can’t run, can I call myself a runner?  Can I still read my running magazines and make my fruit smoothies and get excited over planning future races?

And if I am this sad about running, can I trust that liking things and losing them is still better than being apathetic to everything in general?  Is my love of running more important than other people’s needs for me to be happy and focused and independent when I feel moody and distracted and needy?

Unfortunately, no, it’s not.

I’m learning to let go of who I used to be and embrace this time of stumbling towards what I will be in the future.  Maybe a runner again.  I hope so.  But also, just a person with so much more to offer than miles per hour and foam rolling techniques.

I am a runner.  But I was never just a runner.  Just as you are _____.  But you were never just a _____.

We are more than the things we do.  Today, more than ever, I’m grateful for that truth.

The Power of Functional Reserve

20 Feb

Reading Sports Illustrated is my guilty pleasure.  It’s time to be honest about it. Not only do I like the stats and the sports discussion but I like the stories about real people beating the odds, conquering their demons, becoming someone new.  It’s very inspiring stuff.

“Consider a scientific phenomenon called functional reserve. The human heart has a reservoir of unused ability, like a powerful car that can go 150 mph but never gets pushed above 75. A normal heart will pump about 60% of its blood volume with each beat. But one cardiologist tells the story of a bodybuilder who thrived for nearly a decade with a heart that could pump only about 10% per beat…The body finds a way to compensate, at least for a while.  Functional reserve is not just for the heart.  Every organ has this hidden power, this ability to outperform its perceived limits when the need is desperate.”  (From February 20, 2012 issue)

The human body is an amazing creation.  If I were more scientifically inclined, I could probably elaborate on what I read in a not-very-scientific-article.

Instead, let’s substitute the word organ for person and move into a realm I am more comfortable with:

Every person has this hidden power, this ability to outperform its perceived limits when the need is desperate.

We’ve heard the stories and seen the YouTube videos of women lifting entire cars off of their toddler’s legs. Of people running 72 hour races (if you really want to feel sick, go read about the TripleIronMan events – 7.2 miles of swimming, 336 miles of cycling, 78.6 miles of running all done back to back).  And we all know about Aron Ralston, having to cut his own arm off with a pocketknife.

Some of us believe it is the grace of God who gives people their functional reserve.  Others believe it is purely a scientific result.  Some of us believe those two aren’t incompatible.

Regardless, people do amazing things when they need to.  People outperform their own perceived limits and the perceived limits we put on them (in the sports realm, think Brady, Lin, Tebow, etc.)  But so does the woman juggling a household and three toddlers and the unceasing demands of it all.  So does the man working long hours at his career but still showing up at all of his son’s sporting events.  The woman scared of traveling who goes on a missions trip. The man scared of public speaking who agrees to talk about his entrepreneur successes at a local non-profit.

If I spent less time judging people’s limits and more time encouraging those I see who are surpassing theirs, I think I’d be a more joyful person. It’s time to expect great things from those we know and cheer for, to not admit defeat before the clock runs out, to stay in the bleachers until the last second and see the game to its completion good or bad.

Because, as Theodore Roosevelt put it so eloquently:

In the battle of life, it is not the critic who counts; nor the one who points out how the strong person stumbled, or where the doer of a deed could have done better.

The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually strive to do deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends oneself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he or she fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

I Hate When You Apologize

9 Feb

1.

“I hate when you apologize. It makes you look weak.”

I’m not sure if I ever spoke those words to my brother or if I just thought them. I was predisposed to be proud of my brother. To want everyone to know that we shared a last name. But I was also competitive.  And those two factions were at war during the years we played on the same soccer team.  We rarely won a soccer game.  And I’m still proud of my brother.  So I guess we know which side won.

But the audacity at the time was galling.  My brother, a useful midfielder, was forever apologizing to the opposing team when he took the ball from them.  Me, a less than useful but determined forward, was embarrassed.

2.

“I hate when you apologize. It makes you look weak.”

My boyfriend spat these words at me. Since I was forever being accused of running faster than him, walking faster than him, having to be better than everyone else at things, I’m not sure if the real issue was that I looked weak.  Wouldn’t he have enjoyed that?  Or if it made him look weak by association?  Since I never apologized for things in front of other people, I’m not exactly sure what the problem was.

And yes, I did consider apologizing for apologizing too much.

Which just shows that maybe he had a point.

The irony, forever lost on him, is that I was actually in the wrong.  I was forever apologizing for doing the right thing, for being the adult, for thinking about others.  I never should have apologized in the first place.  I wish I could apologize to myself now – that younger, wishful, innocent self – for ever being led to believe that I was bad and not good enough and second rate.

3.

“I hate when you apologize. Because then I have to, want to, will always forgive you” he said.
“I hate when I apologize. But I have to, want to, need to know that I’m forgiven” I said.

And my love for being forgiven always trumps.

The Man Who Lived on His Bike

6 Feb

If you want to see a man living on his bike for 382 days, go here:

The Man Who Lived on His Bike

Showering. Shaving. Eating. Checking his email. You name it, he did it while biking. It was a grand gesture in support of a cause. The sort of big gesture that gets a lot of publicity and followers and “Likes” on Facebook.

There’s nothing wrong with big gestures.  They can be pretty important in garnering support or proving allegiance or proposing marriage.  (Which are all basically the same thing, now that I think about it…)

But this year I am finding joy in the small gestures.

The security guard who doesn’t treat me like a nameless employee but greets me by name with a smile every single day.

The coworker who manages to work Dumb and Dumber and The Office Space quotes into a Monday lunch.  Laughing at a Monday is highly underrated.

The busboy who patiently explains some of the hidden rules of expensive restaurant waitstaff etiquette.

The engineer who accepts it good-naturedly when he asks what “his” chapter will be titled when I write a book about engineers someday.  It’s going to be called “The Engineer who couldn’t close a deal.”  It basically explains his entire life.

The handwritten card in the mail with a photo from a fun December memory.

Ibuprofen being hand-delivered to my desk when I put out an SOS.

My Tuesday-night-house-guest keeping me fed with Panera salads and Mexican burritos and Thai dishes (I eat well on Tuesdays!)

The emails.  The texts.  Even the boys who, in their attempt to make me laugh, go a tad too far.  The woman who held our apartment door open as I carried my bike in. The race official who decided I deserved entrance to the beer tent without an official bib. The friend who stayed up watching the Super Bowl with me even though he’d worked a double-shift and neither team was his. The maintenance worker who kicked my bathroom door down to rescue the Southern-damsel-in-distress.  A Mom who drives the getaway car after I commit a murder (ok, that was only in my dreams).

None of these moments will be featured on YouTube.  Probably very few are even remembered by those involved. Except me.  Small gestures need to be acknowledged because if I had to choose, say, 1 big gesture a year or a myriad of small gestures every single day, I’d want the latter.

So if you don’t have the time or energy or desire to live on your bike or your roof or your toilet seat or the top of a very tall pillar, don’t despair.  Keep it simple.  Keep it small. It still counts.

 

Catching a Train in Ukraine

4 Feb

“The only way of catching a train I ever discovered is to miss the train before.”  ~G.K. Chesterton

I have always loved trains.  Even after I ran along train tracks as a small child (completely absorbed in my own little world, as only a child can be) never hearing the train whistle alerting me that it was chasing me down the track, it’s powerful wheels churning faster than my little legs.  I love to run. But I also love trains.

And my love for trains wasn’t dimmed by the incident on Amtrak headed to Boston when we hit and killed a person.  And we sat there in the darkening train for hours on end, after seeing the train conductor stumble past on, with tears in his eyes, no doubt being questioned over and over by the police.

But the Ukrainian train that brought so many emotions to the surface almost killed my train passion.  I’ve always loved the thought of riding the TransSiberian Railroad.  I’m not immune to the delightful train scenes whisking kids to the countryside (think The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe).  And the delightful intrigue and spy scenes that take place in trains with sleeping berths (think Mission Impossible, Indiana Jones, Sherlock Holmes).

But this train.  This train came at the end of a very intense 2 weeks of staying with a Ukrainian family (the kind that want to practice their English and cook you 9 course meals which is incredibly sweet but also frustrating when those practice sessions and meals take place at 2 or 3 am and you know you have to be awake at 6 am and dealing with 100+ kids who all speak a different language than you).  A very intense 2 weeks that involved being chased down the street, performing minor surgery on a lacerated bloody foot, dealing with difficult personalities.

So here we were, all this energy and excitement and exhaustion crammed into this train berths.  And I lay on a top bunk and tried to sleep, to find relaxation in the clacking of the train wheels, to ignore the swearing and very-drunk-on-vodka singing of the Russian in the next berth.  And sleep was impossible.  Because we were on a Soviet era train with tiny bathrooms and when would we ever experience this again?

Because we had been warned that the train would stop, but not really, at our stop at 3:15 am.  Yes, the stop was listed on the train.  Yes, we could get off there.  But no, the train would not physically stand still and let us off.  In order to conserve fuel, the train would merely slow down and we could jump from it onto a platform.  We would have ~60 seconds to get all 30+ of us and our luggage off the train.  They even agreed to open 2 doors.  We would gather in the hallways at 3 am, line up the suitcase, us girls would jump first, a bag in each hand, the guys would follow, tossing the larger duffel bags containing our sports gear.   It is a testament to how long we’d been in Ukraine that I didn’t find this entire plan ridiculous.   No one blinked an eye.  We knew that somehow, somewhere, to some person this “stopping but not stopping” made sense.

That probably explains why I found myself in the dining car, surrounded by drunk Russians singing traditional songs, staring out at the very-unchanging scenery, watching the light disappear, discouraged.  Our team had fulfilled our mission: 150 Ukrainian students versus 3 British, 1 German, 1 American and 1 South African.  We’d managed to teach some drama, some art, some sport, and most surprisingly, some English.  We’d met the local town officials and, on an hour’s notice, put together a very entertaining evening for a large part of the town.

Our team succeeded but despite being splintered.  Despite a lot of sarcasm and surface discussions from one individual in particular.  And I was the one mostly singled out for his frustration and annoyance.  As the oldest, we were lumped together haphazardly, expected to get along and be good role models and we were not.  Now, all these years later, I wonder if I should have just addressed him on the first day – laid out the ground rules – questioned why he was acting this way – tried to negotiate some friendly agreement.  But I didn’t.  And I, the one who thrives on sarcasm and biting wit, let his comments get to me.  Once you let something under your skin, it burrows deep.  In this case, very deep.  Our team viewed the trip as a success, I viewed it as a personal failure.  I’d failed to get him to open up, to shed light onto why he was being so difficult, and why I was the one being personally chosen to be bullied.

And then he came into the dining car.  And we sat together, on opposite sides of the table, and I wanted to be home.  Not home to England where I was living but home to New Hampshire – to the house with the wooden beams and ice cream cones in summer and laundry on the clothesline.  Instead, I was on a dirty train stuck talking to someone who I wanted to hate but couldn’t.  I’d even failed at that.

He surprised me then with a present.  A present that was 2 weeks too late and useless.  But he opened up.  He talked about his life growing up. His family.  His achievements (there were several award-winning record-setting ones) and his failures (mostly relational).  He didn’t draw conclusions and I didn’t either.  I just listened.  And instead of being grateful for finally understanding him a little, seeing that curtain of self cinched back just a tad, dipping below the layers of apparent unconcern for our feelings that he’d worn for weeks, I felt angry.  Angry that he was a real person who only opened up when he wanted to.  Angry that he wanted someone to really know him and he’d picked me.  Angry that I couldn’t say or do anything to change how he interacted with people.

“Why me?”  (I’ll never know exactly what I was asking.  Why did you pick on me so much? Why did you put me down and appear to hate me? Why are you choosing to open up to me?)

“Because you cared. Because I don’t think anyone gets under your skin and I did.  It was a challenge and I won.”

“A lousy challenge.  A worthless challenge.  You  made me feel like nothing.”

“Only people who are something feel like that.”

There was never an apology.  We got up at 3:00 AM from the still-singing dining car and walked to the sleeping berth to collect our bags and prepare for our stopping/unstopping exit from the train.  And for once, I was glad to leave.  To pretend that I got on the wrong train and somewhere there is another train where things make sense.  Where trains stop and start like they say they will.  Where people act how they really feel.  And where a simple “Why me?” leaves a satisfactory answer.

Maybe the train I missed, the one where life makes sense and every story has a tidy ending, doesn’t exist.  Maybe the train I caught, where life is crazy and strange and stories don’t begin and end, is the one I am still traveling on.

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