The Comeback Kid

I'm pretty sure there's a movie with that title: The Comeback Kid, or maybe I'm thinking of The Karate Kid. Who knows?! I could surely do a quick google search to put an end to this unknowing and remove any possibility that I'm making no sense at all, but, alas, no desire. To err is human, or so they say.

So, I'm making a comeback. In fact I'm making multiple comebacks right now.

Numero uno: come back to the blogoshere. (Why? Well, because it was fun and fruitful while it was going on and why give up something fun and fruitful for the reason of "I just got busy"--that's lame)

dos: come back to HEALTH. define it how you want but this is what I'm talking about...
                 honesty-truthfulness, especially with myself
                 equality-daily recognition of every single person's egual worth regardless of health, accomplishments,  or material/social status.
                 accountability-being responsible for my own actions and feelings. I must acknowledge that I make my life and the universe is not just going to plop happiness and joy in my lap. I must make a life worth living.
                love-compassion and acceptance--for myself and others.
                trust-reliance on god.
                humility-the desire to seek and do god's will.

tres: come back to living my life. sounds simple, sure, but I promise it's not.
            I realized this summer that I spend time with some people who I call friends but really only because they are the friends of another friend. And there has been a lot of stress amongst those friendships. I'm done fighting for their friendship--if it's there, it will continue naturally but if its not there I'm not going to try to make it happen any longer.
           I'm learning confrontation skills and I am making decisions. I went through this phase of apparent ambivalence. I said 'I don't care' when asked where or what I wanted to eat or do but only because I was afraid of voicing my true opinion and offending or not meshing with someone else. I'm tired of living the life I imagine other people want me to live. I get this one life and I don't want to continue wasting it.

Clearly, I'm in a you-go-girl type of mood right now, but I swear, this is happening. It's happening slowly but with the encouragement and challenge of those around me and a hell of a lot of perfectionistic determination, I'm beginning to choose to make my experience in this world into some life I feel is worth living.

TTFN.

Roadblock #1

This isn't good.

My alarm went off this morning at 7 a.m. (despite it being my day off because of the holiday) and I wanted to stay in bed. Still, I got out of bed and began my morning like I always do--with a trip to the bathroom--but as soon as I took my first step, I felt foggy and lightheaded. I began mentally going through a checklist of possible reasons why I was feeling this way:
dehydrated?
not enough sleep?
weird food last night?
body tired from yesterday's activities?
No, none of that felt like it was right. I don't know what it could be other than my sleeping medication hitting me extra hard and not wanting to work its way out of my system in a timely manner.

Needless to say, I was not about to tie on my trainers [does that make me sound British? I'll post some time about how I very seriously wish I was British, perhaps.] and scoot through the city feeling unstable. Instead, I practiced some awesome self-care--made gluten-free, dairy-free banana pancakes [GF bisquick mixing in soy-milk and applesauce and 1/4 c. pureed banana and topped with 1/2 tsp peanut butter and banana slices] and indulged in watching some Grey's Anatomy on Netflix.

But, what now? I'm still feeling foggy and as it gets later in the day, it gets hotter, and therefore, more dangerous to go running. The high is 103 today and I am most certainly not putting my body through that torture...but I'm not ready to abdicate control of my training and get off track. I've got 5 miles to run today and I don't care if I can't get out there until 8 p.m. I'm going running today. Now, I'm a little more motivated. Perhaps all I needed was a little pep-talk and a source of accountability (yall knowing this is my plan for today and me promising not only myself but also you that I will do it.)

Not giving in to this roadblock.

Not getting off track.

Not yet.

I pinky promise. 

I'll let you know what happens.

Join me on another journey

SAVANNAH, GA

Whoot. Whoot.

"for what?" you ask.

26.2 miles

Yep! That's right. I'm running my first marathon...in Savannah, GA..in exactly 4 months. My friend Nathan kinda talked me into it and I kinda let him a few weeks ago. We signed up on June 6th--national running day--and booked our hotel last week and began training on Sunday.

I'm scared shitless but so so so excited. I LOVED training for the Go! St. Louis half marathon I ran in April and all my running didn't stop after the race. Running connects me to my existance in a way I've never really felt before. I'm breathing and sweating and pounding and squinting and telling myself "don't stop. just [insert distance here] more." 

I remember watching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants way back when and at the end of the scene where Bridget and the hott soccer coach race on the beach, he says "ahh, there's nothing like a good run" and she replies, "yeah, it's like you're running and all the bad stuff in the world can't catch you if you just keep going." I didn't understand how that made any sense because you always have to stop sometime and so all your running [if you're doing it for Bridget's reasons] was pointless. Well, I get it now. Even when you stop, you're on a high and you know you can always start up again. When I run, I win. I am strong and centered and in touch with myself and my world. 

I've got 4 months of that greatness up ahead all in preperation for a solid 26.2 miles of glory. 

You'll be hearing a lot about it, I'm sure. :)

Dry but proud

As a swim coach, my swimmers know they have the opportunity to push me in the water (yes, with all my clothes on) when they win a meet. They've put in hours and hours of practice and walked around deck sopping wet for hours that night and they want to let me share in their joy in a very special way. Driving home soaking wet the way I did many times last summer was uncomfortable but I was beaming with pride the entire time because I knew exactly what went into winning that meet that resulted in pushing me in.

I've got a different team this summer--a total 180 from last years 5-year no-loss streak, this team hasn't won in quite some time. Granted, they've had some terrible coaching and less than stellar parental involvement. But things are looking up, we didn't win on Monday but we came darn close. In fact, we were winning for about 3/4 of the meet, then we just got super tired.

Although I drove home completely dry, I drove home happy and even more proud than any week last summer. I had dried tears. I had given dozens of high fives. I had screamed my face off and had shuffled up and down the deck supporting my swimmers. Mary swam 2 legs on a relay and then gotten back behind the block to swim the last leg on the following relay. Megan won 1st in the 100 back right after telling me she wasn't sure she was going to be able to do it and if she did, it would take her 5 minutes. Chase took over some spots for kids that didn't show up. Cindy (one of the moms) gave me a sippy cup of wine. Ashley promised me she'd swim up in two weeks if she could practice longer races at practice. Jackson swam some of the best butterfly I've ever seen from a 10 year-old and, more importantly, he was proud of how he did.

When I was younger, I never understood how people could say "it's not about winning" and really mean it. In my mind, that's all there was. You won or you lost. If you won you did well and if you lost, well, you didn't do enough. Now I see what it is though. I came into this summer season with the goal of transforming the team--morale, competency, responsibility, etc. That can and probably will still happen, but it is not my goal any longer. My goal is simple to say, hard to do: get kids to believe in themselves.

I want the answer to any question about their abilities to always be: YES I CAN.