Marathons, Heart Break and other Madness...

I've been wondering if perhaps I should give up on this marathon thing.

I've been training since September. I'm 85% sure I can do it. I'm just not sure if I want to.

I can do sixteen miles. Isn't sixteen miles enough? Do I really need to push and pound and bruise my body in pursuit of a goal that I have no real need to achieve?

When do we find the need to stop pushing ourselves? Why do we feel we must do impossible things? Isn't life on its own difficult enough? I've certainly found it a challenge so far.

I know myself well enough to know that I am attracted to impossible causes. There is something about me that enjoys the pain of a stretched out heartbreak. Anyone who has been priviledged enough to bystand my love life knows this.

Is running a marathon like being in a bad love affair?

Am I trying to prove something? If so, to who? Because I can't help feeling that the people I am trying to prove something to in life are ex-loves and ex-friends and people whose opinions shouldn't possibly matter. The people who love me and surround me are the ones I don't need to prove anything to.

Am I trying to prove something to myself? I was convinced of this for awhile. I have a deep and abiding fear of being mediocre. I want to do extraordinary things. And I've never been a very independent person. So if I can run 26.2 miles by myself...that means I can do anything by myself, right?

But I never want to be as alone as I felt today approaching mile fifteen. I took my one minute walk break, and I started to cry. It is not possible to cry after running almost fifteen miles. You don't have the energy, the breath, or the tears. So you walk and heave, walk and heave.

If something is so horrid that you can't even cry through it, isn't it something that you don't want to be doing?

I don't want to be alone at all in life. I want to be surrounded by the people I love forever. There's no shame in that. Independence is overrated.

And I lost my gloves today- the pretty blue and green ones with the embroidered flowers. And I have an irrational fear of bears and a perhaps rational one of being raped. Plus, if you must know (and you really don't need this info), most of the skin underneath my boobs has completely rubbed off.

Only a crazy person with a masochistic streak would run a marathon.

And maybe that's what I am.

It isn't all bad. Miles three through seven are really rather nice.

And I'm so close. I'm a little more than a month away. Next week, I run eighteen miles. The week after that, it's twenty-something. And then I start decreasing the running again, to prepare for the big day.

And once it's done, it's done. I have this accomplishment for the rest of my life. But it won't put food on the table or a writing contract in my hands. It won't bring honor upon my family or pay off my credit card bills.

I'm practically there already. I could do this. But why would I want to?

Words, words, words

I'm obsessed with words.

I always need to say or hear the right ones. And I write them all day and all night. Well, sometimes I sleep or watch television but most of the day/night. When I'm not writing them, I'm speaking them, and often enough I'm doing both.

So I've always been fascinated by the concept that words are not enough.

I know it's true. I've experienced it: you have the right words but they just don't work or someone gives you the same words over and over with nothing to back it up. Sometimes I lose faith in words. But I still adore them. Maybe I'm just not sure where they fall, in the scheme of things.

Show, don't tell.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Actions speak louder than words.
A picture is worth a thousand words.

I love Fall Out Boy and I hate being a woman...

"Joke me something awful just like kisses on the necks of 'just friends'. "

"Strike us like matches, cause everyone deserves the flames
We only do it for the scars and stories, not the fame."

~ Fall Out Boy

If you get a chance, check out my NaNoWriMo, the new love of my life, entitled: The Duchess of Drama.

No, you are not one of the characters. But one of them may share an aspect of your physical appearance/personality/background that I found particularly intriguing...

Patchwork

There are some people we are never meant to patch things up with and there are some people we will patch things up with again and again, because we love them enough. And that's just the way the world works. It's nothing biblical- it's not turning the other cheek. It's just that sometimes people are hard to get along with, and we have to work at relationships.

And there are other people that things go so smoothly with that we take it for granted and ignore the bumps in the road just to make things easier.

And whose to say which is better, really?

Anyway, one of my roommates should do some patchwork with me. I came home last night and the kitchen was a mess, someone had spilled my cat's litter and stuck my undryables in the dryer (living with boys has a price) and broken one of my picture frames. Now there is a panel of glass MIA. Makes walking around my bedroom a rather nerve-wrecking experience. I don't want to be patching up my feet. I need them for running.

I'm going to the running store today, to purchase my fuel belt and perhaps my shoes (depending on how much they cost). This is terribly exciting to me, as I have become a running geek over a very short period of time. What can I say, I have an addictive personality. And I don't think running is fun- I'm not a crazy person. But it is very satisfying, when the day is done.

I like to run, when the day is done- cha cha cha!

Just a little further...

My friend and I are participating in a marathon in February. It is 26.2 miles, to raise money to fight AIDS.

I'll be asking for donations later.

This weekend, I had my first official training session. It was a 3 mile run/walk, and through the course of the...course, I found myself playing the role of the motivator. There was a lot of: 'Let's just run to the next street, then we can walk', 'Let's run to that light post', 'Look how far we've come, we've almost made it' and 'Shut up, you CAN do this, you just don't want to'.

This is how I motivate myself day to day, I think. I set boundaries, small goals, and I meet them one at a time.

I can make it through one more month in this job...I can make it through one more hour without calling him...I can write one more chapter before bed...

And then, when the little goals aren't working so well, I look at the past. If I've made it this far, why should I stop now?

And finally, in those moments of self-pity and abject failure, when I feel like I can't do it anymore, there's the bullying: 'Shut up! You can do this!'

Really, it's dealing with the men in my life that has prepared me the best. Trying to wait until the last possible moment to call a guy, so he doesn't realize how interested I am. Or the long distance process of getting over a man while taking everything one day at a time, one emotion at a time.

So I think in many ways, I'm already very well trained for a marathon. I just have to catch up, physically.