Running The Tree of Peaches

This is it. You are standing in a sea of people staring at the largest American flag you have ever seen. Of course, you have seen it for the past ten years, same place, same bat time, but somehow it feels different. This year, you have something to prove—to you. You started this thing as a challenge, you repeated it to prove to The Kids anything is possible, you ran this whole thing in emotional shambles, you reduced your run to a walk after injury and sadly, was benched by The Cheersquad while carrying new life. But this time…this year….it is about no one, no one but you……..

For the last ten years, I have run the Peachtree Road Race. I stand in a sea of runners at the starting line, stomach gurgling with nervous anticipation. Every year for a decade I have been a ball of nervous energy as I waited for yet another chance to make it to the end. Each time I get the “Congratulations!” notification, I am all too excited to join an area tradition that has somehow become such a huge part of my life. I have muddled around in the mud with my shoes off after it was over, drank beer in the rain at a pit stop, glided up Cardiac Hill and cried when I crossed the finish line knowing inside all would be well. This time around it should be no different….but, for some strange reason, it is. This year, when the acceptance email came, I was afraid.

Any woman will tell you after she gives birth her body just isn’t the same. I dunno about the Beyonce’s of the world who spit out a kid and bounce right back, but us regular chicks do not always bounce back—especially knocking on the door of forty. Eight months later and I can finally walk up and down the steps without feeling like my whole body is about to fall apart. My joints are back to where they should be and my Va Gina bones have finally stopped hurting. The baby blues have subsided and I think the uterus has no longer gone rogue. I am back to myself–finally. However, the thought of trying to make it 6.2 miles in the Georgia July sun with rusty head, shoulders, knees, and toes makes me a little fearful. When will I train? Hell, when will I sleep? What will I eat? Can I actually make it? Better question: What if I can’t?

This will be the first indication if I am the same because, to be honest, nothing about me feels the same. A lot of days the world is fuzzy and focusing is futile. My heart is sort of numb and everything is tasteless. My immediate responses to everything are either boiling hot or extremely cold with nothing in between. ‘I don’t care’ falls from my lips far too often and it seems ignorance really is bliss. This run will be a test of will and mental mind (as YG says). For a decade, this race has been about everything and everyone but me. It has been proof to others I am capable, proof anyone can do anything, proof I was strong enough to pull through, proof no injury could hold me back. This will be the first of many moments when no one and nothing matters except the one walking six miles in these shoes.

…….The buzz of the crowd swirls around like bees. The announcer has the crowd count down and suddenly, the swell moves. Your feet cross the red and blue line and you realize there is no going back. You have been counted. Your time has been started, and no matter how long it takes, even if you are last, quitting is not an option. And you know what? You don’t want to quit. You want to prove to yourself that you are you, this is you and no matter how far you get from home you will always come back.

~SM

Dare to Dream

“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”

~The Doc Who Is Suess

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The Girl roped me into watching Acrimony over the weekend. Not the best movie ever, but there was one part of the storyline that had me thinking (and jealous almost). The basic gist of the moving picture was woman met man, man used woman for twenty years as he worked to get his dream off the ground. At the end of the twenty years, said woman (who had the patience of a saint with him) booted him out. Shortly thereafter, his dream came to fruition and she missed the life he promised her by a hair. Yikes. The part that stuck out was how committed he was to his dream. He was absorbed by his belief he had something that could change not only their lives but the world.  He allowed his wife to work two jobs, quit school, mortgage (and foreclose on) a paid off home, and drain her inheritance. Nothing mattered outside of his dream. It left me wishing I had the balls to abandon all responsibility to work on a dream.

There are things I want to do before it is over, but to accomplish them even a little bit, I will (maybe) get two hours of sleep a day. No joke. Thoughts of spending hours upon hours writing and planning are so filling I could barely contain myself. Oh, how I want it. Need it. But then I am brought back to life, back to reality. As much as I want to be absorbed by the dream, I can not allow myself to get too carried away. Life comes with kids, husbands, and bills and I am not willing to toss them aside. (Well, maybe the bills)

The easy part is dreaming. The hard part is believing. It is tough to believe in something so much that causes tunnel vision. We believe in our vision, but depending on how long it takes, our cheerleaders run out of cheers and get weary in our well doing.  Believing in a dream means work, commitment, and dedication. Belief in the vision is a selfish act, and sadly I am not that selfish. I sure as hell want to be, but the way my spirit works….I just can’t do it.

The scorned ex-wife ended up going crazy and trying to kill the ex-husband. She toiled and troubled for half her life because she gave him the space to believe in the dream, but she also knew survival meant food, power, and water. As much as I  need to dream the dream, I need to not end up with a crazy ex-husband more. I need healthy children more. I need a regular paycheck more. I can chip away at what I want slowly and surely, but what I am not willing to give up for the belief of a thing is everything else. It won’t stop me from thinking left or right. But, it will slow me down a bit, and that is cool. I’ve got nothing but time…I just pray it doesn’t take twenty years.

~SM

 

Hard Head = Soft Arss

Oh, the joy of selfish, self-centered, selfish (did I say that twice?) teenagers. They are truly what makes the world go ‘round. Them and all their ‘Me Me Me’. It makes the world a much better place and it provides parents of said teens a respite from the everyday struggles of Life Life Life. Said no one ever.

Being a parent of a teen makes you question every wrong thing you ever did…EVER. I find myself sitting in the dark going over the boneheaded, disrespectful, annoying, self-centered things I ever did to The Parents. I was often met with general hissed words that went something like ‘as much as your mother/father does for you….the least you could do is…stop being so damn selfish….’ You know, typical parent to teen conversation.

But parents are dumb. They don’t know anything. They have no clue how it feels to be [insert asshole teenage issue here]. They are all old and stuff. What do they know?

Welp, parents know more than you, assclown…is what she doesn’t say to her eighteen-year-old-self-absorbed-know-it-all child. Instead, I stand down. I wave the white flag and snicker behind their back. Know why? Yea, you do. You know why. You know the moment they step foot onto that real-world sidewalk life comes fast. Cars break down, paychecks get sucked up by everything but wants, love hurts, food does not just magically appear in the pantry, and the decision between a gallon of milk or a gallon of gas is life changing. See, they don’t know that. They have no idea what they are about to walk into.

But those are lessons you just simply cannot teach. They just have to cut teeth on ’em, as the old folks say. It is a train wreck hard for us to watch, but for them it is necessary.

When the teenage monster rears its ugly, hormonal, pimply, smelly head, I rarely say a thing. There will come a time when they are sitting in the dark and think back on every idiotic moment and cringe. They may or may not apologize. They may or may not pick up the phone just to hear my voice or come visit just for a hug, but I will know they know. Life isn’t so easy, is it? Can’t always have your way, can you? Pouting doesn’t work out there, does it? Mmmmhm…didn’t think so. It is okay, you needed to figure it out for yourself. No amount of yelling, grounding or PS4/iPhone snatching was going to get through that thick skull. Only life can do that (wink).

~SM