What fuels YOU?

Starting up a running routine again, after years of avoidance, has been interesting.  After training for a marathon when I was in my forties, I seemed to have lost the "joy" of the Run.  I've missed it, the Joy, not the Run...but couldn't seem to pursue it as I've aged.  Now, at nearly 58 years young, I have found my desire to seek my joy again. 

The last couple of years have been hard on my body, making it clear that I am well ensconced in the middle of that tide, pulling me ever to my winter years.  Struggling to learn about my "new" old body, with thyroid disease, Hashimoto's (an auto-immune disease), and just plain simple aging processes, it has not been fun.  Watching my old high school chums turn into grandparents and seeing the reactions of young people all around me deferring to my age, I knew I had to get serious.  Having had a child late in life (I was 42 when giving birth to my youngest) drives me to vindicate myself, to drive myself into staying fit and healthy so I can be the best mom I can be while he is young.... It was a big motivator.  Staying alive.  I mean, really alive... not just living.  There are things we want to do as a family, things we want to see and places we want to go.  I don't want to be unable to climb mountains and forge valleys as needed....So, my journey began in earnest.

I faithfully maintain a wonderful Boot Camp class... doubling up this month so I am Boot Camping every day except Sunday.  Isotolp Fitness has been such good medicine for my body, but more importantly, for my spirit.  I have become strong...not just strong-er, but really strong.  I have become confident... well, more confident... still working on that.  But the work-out has really taken my aging body, and is putting life back into it that I never thought I would see again.  I am very very careful, these days, what I put into my mouth.  There is no magic pill.  It takes a mountain of will power to keep those corn chips, Celtic Nachos, bread, and cheese from entering my body.  It isn't always fun.  But it is always worth it.  And... believe it or not, I am finding my long-lost Joy. 

Everyone in my Boot Camp has inspired me.  Yes, they are all much younger than I am.  But I am just as strong.  I am just as alive.  It is a wonderful feeling.  They have gotten on this "obstacle-mad run-challenge-yourself" crazy train of Spartan races.  And, it pulled me.  I said I would never run again (bad knees, old age...ya da ya da).... Well, never say never.  I signed up for a Spartan Sprint in March.  Taking a deep breath, I donned my running shoes, so I could start preparing.  I know I tell people, "I am doing this just to 'finish' ..just to have fun"  but I know me.  I want to do well.  I don't even think about how old I am, unless it can inspire me. 

I started running at near-by Lake Pine.  It is a very civilized path, hugging the pretty man-made lake.  Paved, of course.  People run it, but mostly people stroll.  With baby carriages, and lots of dogs on leashes.  I have not, as yet, felt the need to upgrade to the National Forest paths that are ruggedly advanced and wild.  Well, okay, I am starting to feel the need to upgrade, but I am deathly afraid of getting lost on the trails.  Hahaha.  I will have to overcome that soon.  But running at Lake Pine has been the first step to my discipline.  And to finding my joy.  That isn't saying that it has been FUN though.  Nope.

I hated the first day out there.  To put it mildly.  I couldn't breathe right; my jogging bra felt too tight and was not letting enough oxygen into my lungs... my knees were starting to give me pains.  And the people.... oh, my Lord.  The people.  My fuel was "pure annoyance."  To this day, I can use the very same annoyance to fuel my runs.  Thank goodness for people.

The path is only so wide.  You would think it wide enough, to look at it, to aptly provide for numbers of people to use it.  But that is not the case.  Too many people, obviously NOT runners (ever), meander in groups of three or more... gaggles of people....spread out across the path so as to easily chat while they meander... apparently unaware that there is a whole world of other people using the path also.  And this happens mostly while on an upward incline, if you can imagine trying to maintain a speed going uphill while having to change direction to go around and off the path into territory uncharted for poor old wobbly ankles.  That would not be such an annoyance if said gaggles would honor the sweaty runners' plea of "to the left, coming to the left" while maybe moving out of a lane with a simple step to the side....but no.  Many people stand their ground, while looking you in the face as if daring you to "steal" their little piece of path.  "I was here first" is not the way to think of public walkways....Boom... there is some fuel for me to speed strongly past them, getting me to my goal much quicker.  Thank you for providing that passionate push for me....

Another "fueling device" is to post my goal on facebook, for all the world to see.  When I feel like slowing down, or walking, I picture the words OUT LOUD that I so proudly posted... and Boom.... more fuel.  I cannot go back on my words, and there is the added spirit of motivation.

Visualizing the goal's end in victory... boom, that is another bit of fuel.  I can use that whenever I need it and as often as I need it...sometimes it is needed more than others, but it always works for me.  In my head, I imagine coming into the finish line, BIG, with arms spread wide and crowds cheering... even if I "only" ran two miles.... hey!  It's MY imagination... and whatever works, right?  I might look like I am limping, sweaty, and a mass of old lady tears with pee running down my leg and ready to collapse...but in my head I am a champion.

Yesterday I completed a 6.6 mile run averaging 9.7 minute miles.... this is just a beginning now.  I am almost 58 years old and I am a runner.  What fuels YOU?

Of "Jumping" Times...

Jumping.  How fun is that really?  Jumping rope.  Jumping for joy.  Just plain jumping.  If you are a child, the word jumping fairly calls obligation for you to do it.  Jumping.  Oh, inner child....just wait. 

Jumping overboard.  Jumping Ship. Jumping to conclusions.  Jumping takes a fair amount of trust in ourselves as adults.  Trust in ourselves and in the security of our environment.  Trust that we will land square footedly, without injury to our aging bones.  These days, jumping isn't much fun.  As I have gotten older, ahem...wiser?, my trust in myself and my world has gotten weaker.  It takes more courage to "just jump"....

I remember, as a young girl, springing from the roofs and balconies of homes and cottages out at the beach where I grew up.  Climbing...I was a climber...and prideful of the heights I could reach.  But climbing meant inevitably, jumping... and oh how I loved to jump.  Springing up and off, spreading my arms like wings and landing...always landing.... on my feet, knees bent and letting my body roll with the earth and the sand ...Taadah!  Jumping up with the whole joy of the flight and the edginess of solid earth, as something to be counted on, knowing I wouldn't fall farther than Mother Earth's bed.

Memories now.  "Jumping" has become something respected, and even feared.  NOT jumping has become my aim.  Because nowadays, if I jump, it is usually not on purpose and becomes known as "falling".... Falling ends up with a painful landing, not controlled nor desired. 

Now the worst jumping I do to myself is "jumping to conclusions."  Which can be horribly disabling, and should be considered dangerous.  The latest "jumping to conclusions" has ruined quite a few days in a row for me, ending in nightmares in which I am suffering and out of control...jumping to conclusions is not doing a damn bit of good for me and I must find a way to stop.

I have spent the last year and a half struggling to maintain the beautiful and fortunate good health I have enjoyed previously for so many years.  My body is falling to pieces.  Between thyroid and old broken bones and knees that ache, and eyesight that is failing...now the beautiful golden skin I have been growing on my body since before birth is betraying me.  Everyone said it would.  Skin is the largest organ of the human body.  It is a lovely thing to have, indeed.  Skin covers all the gruesome mechanics and oils and blood and guts, making life pleasurable to ourselves and to everyone else who doesn't want to see the mess underneath. 

I have become aware of how horrid we could look without our skin, by watching a series called "The Walking Dead" in which lovely human people, attractive in their own right, lose bits and pieces of their skin, becoming patchworks of gore.  It doesn't seem to bother them, however, since they are in fact "dead" and only the "walking" part of them seems to be alive.  Oh yeah, and the part where they get hungry to eat living people, also.  But I am digressing.  Skin.  Beautiful skin.  Skin that can have cute freckles, to accentuate innocence, skin that is white and pale and fragile enough to see the pretty blue vein that reminds us of the delicacy of life, skin that is tough as leather and strong and worthy of warriors.  My skin is sort of olive, especially in the summers after the sunshine warms it as I play.  Dark skins, light skins... skin that can measure health by changing colors if we become ill.  Skin that holds temperatures of our soul in place... hot, cold, making us aware of life itself. 

Well.  As I have enjoyed my skin heartily, through all of my 57 years... starting at a young age appreciating all of its benefits... especially as a teenager when it became apparent that I could actually change my color all by myself by exposing it to the amazing warmth of the sunshine.  Oh, I used the clean smelling baby oil that my mom used for rubbing on my baby brother and sister...I loved the smell.  And when the sun heated it up, I was in heaven.  It gave me a golden color that I got complimented for, over and over again.  My girlfriends and I would have "tanning contests" seeing which of us lucky girls could get the darkest and prettiest tans during our Michigan summers before school started up in the fall.  I added iodine (yes, I did... thought it was a great trick that I learned from fashion magazines) to make my tan deeper and darker.  I basked.  I think I read about a thousand or more books every summer while I "worked" on my tan.  I was a lovely thing.

As you can probably see where this is going... yup.  Addiction.  I felt healthier with my tan, skinnier, prettier.... wearing white and feeling really happy when neon clothing became popular... wow.  Looking at some of my old pictures, I can't help but think I looked like a negative of myself.  My eyebrows and my hair fairly glowed in the dark with the lightness of the sunshine while my skin contrasted like a roasted shadow of youth.  Like a coffee bean with hair.  Pretty attractive stuff, eh?  (I laugh, in jest of youthful ideas...)

I have been lucky as I have grown up, with my skin.  I exercise a lot.  I eat right, most of the time.  I take care of myself as well as the next person.  I don't smoke (never did, never will) and rarely drink alcohol. I am consistent with my dentist appointments, and my ever-increasing doctor appointments, to maintain the health that I've enjoyed.  So what's the problem? 

On my last visit to get my yearly skin check by the dermatologist, there were a few "spots" that concerned me.  Especially with my history and relationship to Mr. Sol... and it proved to be worthy of concern.  I have an area above my right breast that will be burned out due to a cancer.  Luckily THAT spot is "just" a basel cell type, which is fairly superficial, and in early stages.  But it is just the beginning.  Here is where the "jumping to conclusion" comes in. 

I am not sleeping.  I worry all the time now.  I feel desperate to "do" something but am turning circles in my mind as to what and how and when.  It is making me crazy.  And frightened.  I frantically pulled my hair back from my head to see what I would look like bald and even snipped some of my hair off in my impulse to do what Susan Surandon did when she sheared her hair marking a moment in time to reconnect with her soul in The Banger Sisters.  Yeah.  That went badly for me;  luckily I can cover the snipped part with the top longer hair that escaped my panic.  But it better grow back fast.

I guess you could say that my "jumping to conclusions" didn't do any good for me.  And makes my case that it is dangerous.  But in writing this, I have discovered a new thing about myself.  Maybe IT can be used to do good.  Maybe I can get a hold of myself, in the "jumping to conclusions" and just jump.  Maybe it is what I need to wake up and start LIVING again.  Really living, not just doing laundry and cleaning my little world.  I need to use this "jumping to conclusion," to actually JUMP.  As in Jump for Joy.  As in Jumping Rope...for fun.  

I have been thinking about all the things I have wanted to teach my boyz, before I depart.  All the things I want to tell them.  Looking at my life, and realizing I haven't done anything near to the glorious adventures I planned for myself a quarter of a century ago.  This is where the jump comes in.  I have climbed to the top of the roof.  I needn't think about the landing, because we are all gonna land somewhere, somehow.... I am going to reach down to my inner child and find that joy of flight, of jumping, and of controlling my fear to turn it into LIFE.  I'm gonna Jump.