Tuesday, August 23, 2011

hives

Tuesday, August 23, 2011
2 miles
21:40
90 degrees

Today I added a line to the standard salutation that I write at the start of every entry: temperature. It was 90 degrees when I got back to my house tonight at almost 9 p.m. I feel like writing down the daily temperature might be a helpful ingredient in the narrative of my workout.

Anyway, today's entry is not another one that complains about the temperature. You're welcome.

My thoughts have been centered recently on my future plans. I'm almost a single woman now. I have my own apartment and a good job and now I have a dog, too. Now I wonder: what the heck am I going to do with my life. At one point, this thought was one that I thought with excitement, like, "I can do anything I want. I'm free!" Now it is more like "Oh my gosh I really have no direction. I have no plans. I am having a hard time committing to anything. What is the meaning of this life?"

First there is the question of my relationship status. (Before you aim for my shins per my previous request to kick me if I mention dating, hear me out). I am not talking about getting involved with anyone or dating or anything, but I would be lying if I said that I have not thought at all about what my life is going to look like whenever it comes to be that I actually, gulp, pursue another relationship.

Then there is my work and education. I have kicked around the idea of going back to school. I know that I really want to in order to advance my career, the question is really what degree I get. Masters in Architecture? Communication? Education? Higher Education? I even briefly considered massage therapy as an educational option. The only thing that all of these vocational threads have in common: their ability to illustrate how incredibly lost I am.

So we have my non-existent romantic life, then my completely directionless pursuit of post-graduate education. And finally, we have Levi. Levi is a year and a half old mutt I just adopted from a rescue shelter. He is super cute and fun to play with and a great little running buddy on short workouts. He also nips like a puppy (ouch), he gets really mad at me when I try to crate him during the day, and he jumps on my white couch even though I know he knows what "Levi! Off the couch!" means. All of that is tolerable and I am sure we are capable of growing through this adjustment period. What is not tolerable and pretty much out of my control is the fact that my eyes are watering, my nose is running, my ears are itching, and (this is a first even for my allergy prone self) I am breaking out in HIVES. So unsightly... and itchy.

The point of this entry, the thing I thought most about during those grueling 20 minutes in 90 degree heat after dark, is the fact that this life is kind of not in my control right now. I am considering a lot of different options, many of which I am clearly not ready for, and I may
need to listen to God, my good senses, and my histamines if/when I jump into something and I am not ready for it.

Monday, August 22, 2011

holy moly it is HOT!

Monday, August 22, 2011
4 miles
37:19

Okay. I love Tucson. I love the weather. I love the blazing hot summers and the balmy winters. But I am claiming my reserved right to complain tonight. This heat just might kill me.

I have made a few subtle references to how I feel as though I am aging in Pheidippides, and right now I am going to make one more: I never remember sweating this much in my life. I realize that, yes, I have only lived in this inferno of a desert for three years. And yes, I have never run so intensely throughout the summer any other year. Even so, even after dark, I get utterly soaked in perspiration. Gross. I do not know if this is a sign of aging or of weight gain or both, but it is wholly inconvenient and completely unbecoming.

Anyway... that was just a pointless rant to fill the void of my totally uneventful workout and my subsequently uninspired entry. I ran my usual 4 mile route and did so in decent time. I was totally gassed for about the last .75 miles, but it was still the kind of workout that makes me want to do it again, which is ideal.

Maybe my next entry will be about an awesome run I do at 6 a.m. and the minimal sweat that run produces. Stay tuned to find out. :)

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

what to say? (a lot, i guess)

i won't bore you with the details of every run since my last post. just know that there were several.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011
2 miles
21:21

So I have not posted anything for a while, mainly because I do not think I have anything incredibly profound to write about. Life has been pretty ordinary. Thankfully.

I ran this evening for about 2 miles. There was really nothing special about it. I do not even remember what I thought about. I guess whatever it was, it was not that exciting.

What has been exciting is seeing what happens when you allow God to take care of your life.

I have decided in the past to not go into the intimate details of my divorce on Pheidippides out of respect for my ex's privacy. I also have not said much because the ordeal is really too complicated to squeeze into a small digest and too painful to hash out every detail. What I will say is that the process got much more complicated than I thought it would when some financial matters were disputed. What could have been a clean break that ended about two months after the original paperwork was filed back in April has turned into a long, confusing, and potentially expensive process that will not be over until October of this year.

For the first two months of this revelation, I was beyond devastated. This has collectively been the most heartbreaking, humiliating, and exhausting experience of my life. It was difficult enough to finally make the decision to legally end our relationship, but the thought of hashing it out in court would have been laughably cliché if it didn't infuriate and devastate me all at once. Through many verbal confrontations, heated arguments, and downright nasty emails, both of us got across to one another how unfair they thought the other was being. And through all of that, I was torn. There has never been a single part of me that genuinely wished any harm for him. I do not want to be married to him, but I did not want to hurt him either.

I just wrote two lengthy paragraphs about the pain of the last couple of months, but I erased them because the details are not what is important. What is important is that each day, I lived the day. I got out of bed, and some days this was much, much harder than others. I talked to friends, a therapist, and my pastor. I cried. I prayed. I ran. I wrote. And one day I woke up and realized that it had been four months since I filed and it would be just two months until it is finally over. I filed a ton of trial preparation paperwork yesterday-- something that I had been putting off because it made me so angry that we are even going to trial-- and that is the last thing I need to do until October. Now I just need to keep living my life. Get out of bed. Pray. Run. Write. Occasionally cry. And one day I will wake up and realize that I am moving on.

So today's post is appropriately titled, "what to say? (a lot, i guess)" because so much just came pouring out when I (finally) decided to write a new post. Now, moving forward, I feel excited to live, excited to write, excited to move on.... and very excited to run. :)