Cell Memory

I have this year been losing weight. (This is part of the sticky beginning that I have no idea how to write.) But what I have noticed is as I have journeyed backwards in weight, I seem to be passing thrugh the emotions of the last time I was at that weight.

The first few pounds were no big deal - family drama/the move and all that being the root cause of the weight gain (or at least the handiest excuse) - other than the anxiety caused by weight loss and worrying that I'm going to gain it back or how to make the best choices when I really would rather eat french fries than raw zucchini.

The next set of pounds was harder, being the weight I gained after my mother died. This is when I began to notice a correlation and wonder. The last couple of years have been okay for me; I've been sad when approaching her death day but nothing overwhelming. This year, it started early and was hard, as in weepy all the time hard and beginning to look at people who lost their mother's recently thinking, "Well, they got 5 or 10 or 2 more years than I did," and feeling jealous.

But July 26th passed and I am feeling more grounded and the next few pounds didn't really seem to trigger much - just keep working out and sticking to an improved diet (SO many more vegetables than I've consumed in a very long time!).

But now I'm down to where I was in high school (don't get too excited - I was an obese teen) and the weight loss has stalled.

No doubt part of this is due to having worked at this for the last eight months and just feeling tired of all the work. However, I can't help but remember that this next group of weight was gained when I was an insecure teenager for whom food was a best friend and a solution to everything. I cannot remember how many times I would have a horrible-no-good-very-bad day and solve it by stopping at the convenience store for a package of oreos (the one pound sucker, not just a small candy bar size, of course) and a quart of milk or maybe a pint of Ben and Jerry's (chocolate brownie something or other was my favorite) and then going home and putting a sizable dent in either before I felt complete and happy.

I also can't help but think that food was my rebellion and where I could let go; so many "don'ts" that I really didn't do and food was one that no one could really tell or did tell me I couldn't.

I find myself back in those same shoes now that I am back at that same weight. Food is my best friend; it's always there when I need it and now I'm even better at finding those tasty combinations that are oh so delicious and nourishing to the soul. There are so many other things I stress about, do I really need to stress over food?

Which underscores what I've been feeling about this whole journey and life in general: there is just no avoiding the hard stuff; you can try to go around it but really you're just delaying the inevitable. I avoided accepting and dealing with all my emotions when I was a teenager, preferring to stuff or put things away because they were all just too much and now, at 36, I am having to pick up that gauntlet and figure out how to move through it. I just don't know that it's any easier now than it was 20 years ago.

I Am A Runner

(As an aside: I'm never certain about small words in titles - do they get capitalized or not? 'A' seems like it shouldn't be but then "I Am a Runner" looks kinda stupid.)

And, completely on topic now, I feel like a complete poser for even typing the title.

I started a C25K program back in May...or June thinking that as a good rule of fitness I should be able to run 3 miles.

It was torture.

The torture was made a bit easier by these podcasts and the image of Jesus running alongside me with robes billowing in the wind. Blasphemous? Maybe. But it seems less blasphemous than Jesus running in spandex.

The first time I had to run for 20 continuous minutes I thought the guy on the podcast had made an error and was secretly on crack; it turns out no, I really was supposed to run for 20 continuous minutes. And I did. Apparently I was the one on crack.

Which led to the discovery of the "runner's high."

I don't think my "high" is quite the same as the mythical runner's high which involves a feeling of euphoria like you could run forever. My high is more along the lines of, "I CAN STOP RUNNING!!!! I'M DONE!!!!"

But I DID manage to run my first 5k race (I use the term "race" loosely as there was no way I was coming first....or third....or even 30th so race meaning "getting to run with a bunch of strangers in a public setting" as opposed to "annihilating anyone who dares to compare their running speed to mine.") at the end of August and finished in 33:16 - not bad; slightly less than 11 minute miles which was fabulous for me.

But today.

Today was amazing.

Today was about everything I love about running. It was sunny and there were moments of God touches when I ran through sunbeams filtering through clouds and fog. So beautiful. I run on a hiking trail about 1/2 mile from my house (really so no one sees me because you know THEY ARE ALL STARING AT ME as I run by - it's true. Don't deny it) and I could smell the greenery and all the leaves on the ground and see the water and the mountains and the old pilings and mining ruins and it's just so damn beautiful it's like walking in a post card. And I had my Jesus music on and I ran and aside from the little things like lack of breath, muscle fatigue and tripping twice and almost dying, I finished.

How well did I finish?

Today I managed to run 3.11 miles in less than 30 minutes. 30 HELLO minutes!!! Less than a 10 minute mile! How awesome am I?!?!?!

Why just the approximation? Well - I had some mp3 player problems and had to restart the podcast (after one of those near-death trips) and I'm completely guesstimating that the distance I run is actually 5k (based of off walking the track laid out for a race earlier this year) but I feel that even with all those variables, I CAN say that I ran 3 miles in less than 30 minutes.

And that, my friend, makes me feel *expletive* good.

The Middle

I've missed my blog.

Terribly.

I've missed getting comments (although the lovely birthday message from Kari that was completely unexpected was quite a bonus).

I'm finding I don't have much time for reading blogs and interacting the way I did a few years ago (hence getting more people to read my posts and more messages - which was always relative anyway as I never had more than single digits (unless I artificially inflated the numbers by leaving pithy comments to myself)) but I am also finding that I miss the writing.

I have been playing games at work of late. I think I kicked the Facebook bug and it's attendant games (too much time having to request items from other people, playing my made-up characters (I had about 8 or 9) so I wouldn't have to interact with REAL people (pity the poor extroverted introvert) and such but occasionally I do get the desire to continually click my mouse and move things about. However, today, I was thinking about this stress release and realized that the time was incredibly repetitive and nothing too exciting and left me with nothing to show for it. So, perhaps, I thought, I should use that time, my break time, to write.

Also, there has been so much to say, so much changing and so much that I need to process. Blogging helps in this aspect. But I have this annoying CDO aspect that makes me want to start at the beginning of this rabbit hole I'm in. But then I have to go back to 2004 and there's so much to say and I end up saying nothing at all.

So, perhaps the solution is to stop caring so much about neat and tidy and sense making and just to start in the middle, to start in the present, and let everyone (the millions reading this and waiting with baited breath for my next post) catch up as they can.

The present: Rafe is camping with his middle school class and I'm terrified of when he goes on his mission; if I miss him so much when he's gone for just a few days, how much worse will two years be? Q and Eliza and I are cleaning vermiculite out of the attic space to make way for modern insulation.

And I have a new laptop.

My old laptop replaced my dad's work laptop (which was antiquated six years ago) and I have been flying without a computer of my own. My dad finally got sick of me borrowing his home computer and bought me own for my birthday. I think I bought a nicer one than he wanted me to buy (read: I spent WAY too much money) but that's what happens when you just open up your wallet and say, "Have at but get. it. done!"

And that could really be the reason for this post - less "I JUST NEED TO WRITE!" and more "I really want to type on this keyboard and here the clickety clack of the keys."

Needing A George Bailey Moment

I really don't like It's A Wonderful Life. I find it to be dark and depressing, for the most part, and have no idea out why it's considered a holiday classic.

However, today, I find myself wishing I could have that "George Bailey glimpse" to see what life would be like (for the worse of course) without me.

For the most part, particularly of late, I have felt that God loves me and that I have worth. But there are days like today when I need to know that I matter, not just to God, but to the people around me and that all this routine and little acts and effort and wheels spinning actually make some difference here in the lives of people I know or even don't know.

Last Day of School!

Ever since Finding Nemo, I can't say the above words without saying them loudly and in a great hurried rush. The great effect of animated film.

Montessori Campout

We went camping overnight (happily in cabins) with Q and Eliza's school (unhappily, we had to share cabins and thus more people are now aware of my snoring problem).

We had a lot of fun. We ate a lot of food that would soo not have been okay had this been a pre-Easter event (And may I say that the camp's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies were so good, I think they were laced with crack. Seriously. I kept waiting for them to set them out at another meal so I could be the fat lady walking out of the eating lodge with two dozen cookies in her pockets because I would have been completely OK with that moniker.) We played miniature golf (rural Alaskan style - small cement pads with large rocks as obstacles), shot BB guns, arrows, played air hockey and walked. And walked.

I felt like a pioneer child.

But the best moments were with my son in the middle of the night. There were a total of 15 people in our cabin, only 2 of which belonged with me. Two of those other 12 had been traveling all night prior to the campout and had thus been awake from 1am until 9pm and were ex.haus.ted. I was hyper aware of the need for my children to be quiet. So imagine my joy when, in the middle of the night, I hear, "ELIZA! GET OUT OF MY BED! EL! I! ZA! GET OUT OF MY BED!" in a piercing whispered voice. Q had sleep walked (?) or something and ended up in the bunk next to his where a little girl (about 5yo and NOT his sister) was sleeping. In his sleep filled delusion, he thought she was Eliza and that she was on her bed.

I managed, after a bit of arguing, to convince him that his bed was the next one over. He finally allowed me to move him and we all settled back down for sleep.

Sort-of.

From behind my eyelids I saw a light flash on and swing around and shut off.

"He's just getting settled," I thought.

It happened again.

And again.

"Q! What are you doing?" I stage whispered.

"I'm afraid of spiders."

"Do you want to come sleep with me?"

He was in my bunk quicker than you can say, "Bob's your uncle," and my back ended up crammed up against the wall for the worst night of sleep I can remember.

The ironic thing is that while we found no spiders on his bunk, when we were putting our sleeping bags away, we DID find one on mine.

I suppose it just matters what one thinks at 1am and not in the light of day.

Not Quite What Was Intended

My dad is a fairly gruff guy, not generally given to spoiling or adoring his grandchildren, so I was pleasantly surprised when he forwarded me this yesterday and expressly told me to share it with my kids.

The tune is catchy and the message is timely so I've been singing it ever since.

Sorta.

The problem I start out thinking, "My name is Jesus" and end up with this.

Not quite what my dad intended I'm sure.