Till We Are

First off, I’d like to apologize.  What even happened to lofty goal of ‘writing daily’?!?  I can’t believe today is July 1st, and I haven’t written (well, published) in two months.  Tsk tsk.

I have had some cool things happen though!  For starters, I actually landed a job in the economy.  One that pays decently well.  I held off accepting a Starbuckers job for $7 an hour because I knew I could find something better than that for full-time work.  Heck, I realize the economy is a shit-hole, but seriously, I’m in Silicon Valley for crying out loud.  So far so good (knocking on wood as I write…)

Another thing is that my boyfriend and I post-poned any real actions for marriage for at least awhile.  All is a good thing though!  So no worries there.  He’s heading to Oxford in the fall, and I’ll stay here.  At my lovely reception position. ;)  It’ll be an interesting journey, but we are both actually excited for this new growth, whatever it may bring.  I’m sure I’ll have more posts about it…one already comes to mind about some realizations of myself…interesting how relationships seems to bring out areas to grow in…and also, how beautiful that growth can be!

So as you can imagine, after moving around to, on average, one major city/year and a half, I haven’t head consistent doctors.  Heck, I actually think I stopped going because I was never (knocking on wood again) sick with more than the common cold (or the weird ‘common’ cold where you also lose your voice for about 5 days).  So after having starting a great job with great insurance, I have begun to book appointments with doctors for general exams.  Yesterday was with the eye doctor…today with an MD.  The eye exam can be another entry.  Today, I want to focus on one thing from my general check-up that made me run 6+ miles with hills mind you.

We were talking about thryoid stuff, as I just want to see how those levels are doing, and I was mentioning that I was quite surprised I haven’t been losing weight since I’m Miss Active all of a sudden.  I have a 30 minute round-trip daily bike commute+running about three times a week+tennis or good walk/hike here and there.  Granted, in the past couple of months, I probably have done all of that in a week just a handful of times because I was recovering from an injury, so I’m sure when I was speaking to him I was exaggerating slightly.  But still, I felt for some reason it was ‘true’ and ran with it.  Oh, and I also mentioned that I had trained for a marathon in the fall while doing bikram yoga, and dropped weight like no other.  (FYI - wasn’t in it for the weight, just to actually get in shape and push myself!)  Of course, his response made perfect sense:  your body has plateaued.  Mix it up.  Cross train.  Your body has to feel like it’s dying to actually change.  No wonder why I came to love that feeling I had in the fall.  This absolute tremendous feeling of pushing yourself so hard, that you have to eat and sleep, or lie around to recover.  It went perfect with grad studies…

Earlier in the day, I emailed my Jonathan to say I was taking the day off.  I’d run tomorrow to give my body a day of recovery.  I ran Monday about 3.2 miles- enjoyed it while pushing and having negative splits!  (Plus the 30 minute bike commute.)  Tuesday - hiked The Dish (a hilly open area of land) with a friend - 3.7 mile loop + bike commute.  So it was normal for me to want a day of rest.  However, to be honest, my muscles seemed fine, perhaps slightly tired but really okay.  After Mr. Awesome Doctor said I needed to push myself to feel change, something switched in me.  I wanted to keep pushing myself for the mere fact to push myself.  I had come to like that feeling, and just because I wasn’t perhaps ‘training’ for something officially, I still wanted to have it.

So, yours truly after her bike commute, ran 6.5 miles and I am very happily to report there were hills in that course.  Let’s see…1, 2, 3, 4, 5.  Five.  I was so proud of myself.  I only stopped twice - once midway through the first hill for a few seconds.  I psyched myself out…and reminded myself I was passed by a little boy on the way up…so said to myself, “I still have energy to try.”  So I tried.  I made it up.  I stopped at the little flat area for a few seconds looking a head to the steepest hill on the loop.  I made mental notes of markers to look at and run to - a tree, then a bush, then a sign.  Pretty soon I passed each one.  Once I got to the top, I walked for about .3 miles to make sure my heart wasn’t going to pop out of my shirt, and then ran the rest of the way.  Each each hill had their own mental game to play, i.e. reminding myself I actually liked hill #3, pacing myself with hill #4 and #5.  And actually, there are 6 hills now that I replay everything in my mind.  Hill #6 is right at the end, right when you want to be done and yet you’re so close but NOT DONE.  My endurance kicked in, I opened my stride and imagined where I’d be in another couple of miles.  Home.  I was half way…then three-quarters, and finally over that hill.

The run down to the start of the course, and the last 1.5 miles were great.  I actually thought I’d walk mile 6 as I only planned on running between 4 and 5.  When I heard the course was 6+, I thought, “Well, I can still try.”  I tried and accomplished it!  Now my pace wasn’t the greatest…averaged about 10 minute miles, but hey…I tried on a day when I mentally had checked out before…and it was one of my greatest runs in a while!

Cheers to yours!

Running a marathon is something that I always “thought” I would do.  Something I had always desired to do, perhaps on a head level, but something that had never dropped down into my heart to become reality.  That is, until, this past fall.  I had gotten back into running the prior year and had started to do a few 10ks that summer.  I remembered my first one.  I thought every step I wasn’t going to make it.  Jonathan ran with me.  “Open up your stride,” and “embrace the wall…” He often said to me…Who knew that I would take those words into my marathon about eight months later.

It just so happened that at the time of the decision, he and I were having some space.  And literally, too.  I was finishing up a graduate program in Vancouver, and he was getting settled into his new place in San Francisco Bay Area.  We talked occasionally, and usually about lighter things to give our relationship a break.  In one of those conversations, I mentioned that I was researching a half marathon to do, and he invited me to consider a full.  It happened that the very half I was looking at was the very full one he was: The Napa Valley Marathon.  No better time to bring the thought of a marathon into reality than then, so I went for it.

Training was interesting.  Thankfully though, my feet kept putting one foot in front of the other through a “break-up,” Vancouver sun, rain, weird (non-permanent) injuries, “why am I doing this,” the reconciliation, the move to the Bay area, the missing of my Bikram yoga classes…and it all boiled down to making the choice to conquer the mind.  “Mind-over-mattering” my body.  All of these things led to a wonderfully prepared feeling for race day.  Honestly.  I couldn’t remember when I felt that preparedness before.  I had been in karate competitions in my younger years, but because I grew up with it, I never knew I was ever feeling the “preparedness” even though I was. This time, I’ll be honest, I was out of shape.  I trained hard with Bikram and running and felt, dare I say, excited for the marathon.

My alarm clock, a.k.a. my phone, vibrated at 4:15am, signaling our supposed wake-up time.  Soon after, we found ourselves out the door.  It was pouring.  It continued to pour.  At the race site, the lines for the port-a-potties were long.  Jonathan scoped out how things looked behind the gross blue large rectangular bathrooms, and he came back confident and relieved that this was the way to go…So, with five minutes before the race, and a good nine people in front of me, I hopped behind the row of mini-buildings and became friends with nature, sort of in public.

“3…2…1…” and we were off.  We run at different paces, so after the first few minutes, we separated.  This marathon didn’t allow for any music players, so I had a good long while to just run, think, run, run, and run.  For the first 9 miles, I felt good.  I was holding myself back and got excited that with more energy in the reserves, perhaps…just perhaps I could shoot for the Boston qualifying time of an 8:30 mile.  (Of course, I had no intentions of running it, and I never thought about training for that pace, but it’d be a nice way to end a great 4  months of training!)  The marathon was well on its way, and so was I.

Well, that is until mile 10.  That 8:30 dream pace popped like a balloon and the air came out faster than if it was in a real one.  Just prior, my ankle started to hurt for a short bit, which was strange.  Surprisingly, that one wasn’t on my weird injury list.  I actually stopped to retie my left shoe a couple of times at that point.  Mile 10 came and my Lululemon pants felt about 25 pound heavier than their usually featherlight weight.  I looked down to see my shoes squirting water out of the mesh toe lining with every step, and that was when I felt the wind change directions.  I looked down at my garmie to see my average pace increasing.

By mile 12, my leg muscles felt as if they were eating each other, and I shuddered at the thought of 14 more.  So as quickly as I thought of that thought, I pushed it out into the valley of vineyards and wineries I ran through.  “One more mile,” I thought to myself, “and I can walk.”  As I passed the 13 mile marker, I saw an African (you’ll understand why I didn’t add the -American in a second) running the opposite way.  Clearly, he looked as if he was a runner.  Tall, lean, easy, long stride…  He seemed to be looking for someone.  When he was about 20 feet away, I realized it was Karicho!  I couldn’t help but burst out with excitement and joy.  He immediately b-lined it to me and slowed down to meet my pace.

“I finally found you.”  He said in his beautiful Kenyan accent.  I couldn’t help but chuckle from the comment and from the pain that I was still enduring and knew that I’d continue to endure.  I also realized the irony in that particular moment.  Exactly one year ago, I watched him and two other friends, Michael and Emilee, run the Mt. Kili Marathon in Tanzania.  While I wasn’t able to hop on the course and run (logistically, there was really no way to do it), I stood at the start and finish line.  Who knew that 365 days later, I’d be running a marathon, and he’d be living in the States, helping me run mine!  I was humbled by his presence.  He’s fast, and his spirit is full of humility.  He’ll run with anyone and match the pace.  Often times, I looked over and fought back tears.  He probably just thought I was breathing hard.  So we ran together.

When we came to mile 15, I saw Emilee and Michael!  Em jogged through the runners and said, “Could I run with you the next three?” with a big smile on her face.  Again, in one breath I was excited while simultaneously realizing this meant I had to keep going.  The pain loomed over me as if they were the heavy gray clouds in the sky, yet their encouragement nourished me as I felt the rain continue to drench me.  We did walk that afternoon.  The moment I’d stop, I’d fight with myself and say, “This is the RACE!!”  So 10 steps after, we’d pick it up again.  A few tenths later, and the cycle repeated itself.  We finally got into some type of groove before mile 18 where Michael was waiting.  He updated me with how Jonathan was doing (running in spite of an injury), Em stayed there, and I kept going.

“I’m going to go find Jonathan,”  Karicho enunciated, and with that, he sped off.  Literally.  I just remember seeing his black, lean legs go and bright white shoes kick his bum.  In five seconds, I swear he was 100 yards in front of me.  It turned out that he did catch up to Jonathan before he crossed the finish line!  He ended up running about 13 miles that day, going back and forth between Jonathan and me.  Meanwhile, I continued on…I had worked too long and hard to be discouraged, distraught, and let nature get the best of me.  I knew I couldn’t control the day, but I was not going to let it win over me.

I kept on, sometimes repeating the walk-run cycle.  As time continued, my endurance reserves depleted as they were combating Mr. Extreme Pain waging war in my thighs and hamstrings.  My knees hurt because muscles were in another battle: playing tug-a-war (my knee was the knot).  At one point, I stopped.  I walked for probably close to a full mile.  I cried.  I couldn’t tell where the tears met the rain and where the rain became my tears.  Thoughts began to run through my mind all jumbled up and crazy.

“I’m not a runner…(then why am I finding myself currently running this!?!)…Why aren’t I in a jazz class?  I love dance.  Why aren’t I a dancer?…How can this be the worst run of my entire training??…I am running this thing to let go of things (and yet, when I finish I’m still faced with those things…!)…Running this marathon won’t let go of them on their own.”  This sudden realization, though obvious, really helped me process some things.  “It’s a choice Jessica.  You get to choose.  And here you’re choosing to put one foot forward each time…And why does everything have to be so meaningful??  Why can’t I just feel my body run!”  So I made that choice too.  The feeling of the abs work in synchronicity with the legs and arms, the pushing off the ground…moving forward each moment… “Don’t have discouraging thoughts.  You are doing this.  You ARE doing this…6 more miles…It’s okay to have meaning and to live in lightness…okay, stop having deeper thoughts!”

Then it was mile 21, then 23.  I was determined to run 23 through the end.  I had one long run in training where my muscles felt as if they were eating each other, and while I ended up walked a good third of it, I ran the last three.  I brought myself back to that day, and then felt further discouraged when I just couldn’t pick up my feet to run.  I breathed hard to fight back the tears.  I started to look at the runners passing me, old, injured, young, all different sizes…and here I was in good health, relatively speaking, and walking.  One man passed me in his plastic poncho and who had a wrapped shin.  He took little steps.  I mustered up the mind to gets the gears of my legs working again.  It took a few steps before the legs followed, but I stared at his feet and matched the rhythm with mine.  That got me through 23.  I stopped again.  I walked.  I thought.  I cried.  I hurt.

At mile 24, I heard a woman coming up behind me talking to someone.  She was setting her personal PR.  As she passed me, I attempted to match her feet with mine.  Let them be friends in the rhythm of life’s moment.  I tried to distract myself, so I struck up a conversation with her.  I soon learned that this was her fourth marathon, and she got started with her first one because she wanted to do something radical for her 50th.  Each time, she set a PR.  Granted, the time on my garmie was now pushing 5 hours, so we’re not talking fast on the level of elite running athletes, but we’re talking about genuine inspiration that could fuel anybody to run.  It did for me.  Soon mile 25 came.  She decided to walk for a few minutes and wished me the best of a strong finish.

I pushed.  I cried more because I was actually doing this.  I was doing this for me and no one else.  So what about my time, let alone the dream time I thought at one point I could (maybe) make.  The wind changed that day, and I had to push through.  Isn’t that what life is really about anyways?  Choice?  We get to choose.  That was the biggest realization I came across with that day.  I knew about it before in my head, but it really dropped down into my heart.  With 4 blocks to go, and people cheering on the sidelines, I started to take off my plastic poncho, my polar fleece vest…  My bib showed.

“Open up your stride…blast through the wall!” I found myself saying as I was getting an amazing second wind.  I was sprinting!  I passed two people and crossed the finish line!  I had heard, “Go Jess!” from the sidelines.  I was humbled and proud.  I made a choice that day.  A choice to keep going…

Yesterday, I finally decided that for the next 30 mornings, I would get up and pray between 8 -8:30am.  I don’t think I’ve ever been that consistent since high school…Why have I decided to be intentional for the next 30 days?  Well, the 30 days is arbitrary, it just seemed like a nice month-like number.  Good amount of consecutive days that I feel I could commit to daily.  Why daily?  Well, I feel for myself that I need structure right now, and so it seems best to do that every day rather than sprinkled throughout my week.  Why the morning?  I feel like that will help me be more disciplined…

So, today was Day One.  I straightened my living room, faced all the couch pillows, lit a candle, grabbed my b-i-b-l-e (even though to be honest, I didn’t really have any intention of reading it…) and started the contemplative half hour.  I noticed as my body started to relax, and slow itself down (even though it just was sleeping…), my mind seemed like it was racing all the more.  Then my mind turned to the question…how can I even pray?  Can I pray?  Does God really listen?  I loved studying theology as a student and look forward to studying it more on my own, but these are questions I still wrestle with even though I “know the answers.”  So the loop that usually goes on in my head is something like: prayer is mysterious to me…I don’t understand it…does God really listen…i.e. really care?…He’s somehow made this crazy universe…our universe is so big, so grand…I’m so small…if I were zoomed out all the way out to the farthest star in our galaxy (or beyond for that matter), and tried to see Earth, let alone me on that Earth…praying about some small happening in my life…why on Earth would He care???  Then I go back to the other part of God’s existence that I believe in…his love and care…and that in the beautiful existence of the entire creations…he created us to be loved.  This isn’t something I just believe because it gets past down from generation to generation, being twisted and manipulated to form certain ideologies…., but because if my heart is honest, my heart has experienced that love.  I love God.  My heart knows that it is loved.  My mind is just trying to grasp this infinite concept which it can’t…so the loop then finishes with that.  With that humility in my heart.  At that point, I’m usually so humbled about the whole situation that I don’t have words to pray, and I enjoy the being with God.

This time around, I didn’t necessarily feel close to God, but then why should I?  I confess that I haven’t really oriented myself to him in a very intentional way in a while.  Not that I haven’t tried to live my life according to what I feel Jesus teaches, but I haven’t been intentional about communicating in a while.  I guess in any relationship, if communication is more just via one person and not two, it doesn’t really work…so anyways, I sat there, talking to God about a few different ‘big’ items and enjoyed just the slowing down of my mind.

Z.

[Just kidding...]

Dear Reader,

I hope you do something creative each day.  It really feeds the soul!  Unfortunately, this soul is a little tired tonight…but will be awake tomorrow to write you (and post it :).

Zzzzzz.

[Okay.  So I realize it's not kosher to talk about financial things, but to keep things honest and genuine, I'm going to.  At one point or another, we've all experienced financial stress, and no doubt in current times.  So here goes.]

Recently, I’ve experienced some financial strain as I transition from studenty life to professional life and as I watch my savings unravel like a thread, that is now splitting into smithereens…which is now splitting into nonexistenceens.  Yesterday morning and early afternoon was a hard day, especially after hardly sleeping from discovering this fact the night before.  So I thought about how people responded to these types of experiences.  Laugh?  Cry?  Break into survival mode?  Hoard?  I’m certainly not a hoarder, and I’d like to think I could cope with cleverness like my writer friend T, but in these types of situations I’m afraid I don’t.  The wittiness well had dried up.  No tool in the toolbox.  So I realized I had two options: to continue in this stressful mode until my hair turned prematurely grey or realize that I’ve always been provided for and keep the brown.  (Note: when I say “provided for,” I realize it’s via humans, but somehow on a metaphysical level, I have always felt a deeper, stronger, somehow divine providence caring for me.)

So what happened to the second part of the day you might ask?  Well, friend.  I’ll tell you.  After choosing to keep the brown, I decided to do a little work from home (day three of a part-timer).  I went to my bf’s place, who I’ll refer to him in cryptic code as Shmamapan.  I had chosen to keep the inner workers of my heart to myself that day and tried to focus on the perspectival choice I had made.  Apparently, that didn’t work too well as when I was engrossed with work, he whimsically commented, “It’s always better with a positive attitude.  That’s what my parents always told me…”  I must have had a grimace.  He proceeded to change that face into laughter through tickling.  It worked.  Those comments refocused the choice to keep the brown hair.  He had no idea that the hug he then gave me felt so good.  So cared for.  Even if I had nothing, I felt I had everything.

It was wonderful then to rejoice in a great moment for him just a few minutes later as we opened up an acceptance letter to the graduate school of his dreams.  He had gotten in a year prior but wasn’t able to go due to logistics.  So, he had applied again this year hoping all would work out.  It was wonderful to be a part of that moment with him, with a joy in my heart knowing that all things truly do work out.  I was reminded of it in that exciting time.  We went out for coffee after and enjoyed a light, celebratory afternoon!

[Note: today I was provided for...That's another story for another day, but one I'll tell soon.  For now, I hope you're all sleeping tight.  I'm about to.  Good night!]