The Three D’s

Remember two years ago, when I said the 20s were going to roar? 

Well, I didn’t mean a little virus was going to roar over us.  It’s been…quite a year.  No, quite a couple of years.

I love to spend New Years’ Day reflecting on the past year—and planning the next.  As I said in Bill’s This Time Next Year challenge, the lockdowns and furloughs and protocols have worn me down, and now, I am in the worst shape of my life, physically and mentally, since college.  Everything has fallen apart, and I feel completely broken.  And I am far from alone.

Despite all of the awful, I learned some very valuable lessons in 2021.  In February, I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, finally understanding how my brain works.  I realized that all the time I have spent escaping into a dreamland was exactly what prevented me from chasing my dreams.  I wasn’t only using my dreams as an escape—I was using “self care” as an excuse to avoid the long, difficult pathway towards success. 

In these two years of ‘rona, I had forgotten what it was going to take….to live the life of my dreams.

Clearly, I need a reboot, and it starts with developing three qualities that all start with the letter D:

Determination.  Dedication.  Discipline.

Last year, I talked about the Grind, how to keep going when you’re tired or challenged or never believe you will succeed.  I had three goals, and while #blogsandcoffee has been a great success, I struggled to create a daily routine.  (Don’t even ask about the English accent.  I decided to start learning French instead.) 

The reason I failed at creating a daily routine—was that I wasn’t determined enough to be dedicated enough to have the discipline to make it happen.  I chose the instant gratification of dreams and indulgences, rather than working through the challenges from juggling so many balls in the air.

Did you know that people with OCPD struggle with multitasking?  Um, yeah.  I probably also need to learn how to say “no” more often….

Now, there are a lot of people reading this and thinking, “um, Erin, you are the most disciplined, dedicated person I know.  I mean, in high school/college/work/running you are so able to get it done.”

Well, I am…when it’s simple, like training for a marathon, or has triggered my compulsions, like writing this blog post, but once things get complicated, I can’t handle all that’s being thrown at me.  Like what we have to manage as an adult—work, home, finances, health, leisure—add in the stresses of covid, and I have lost my way. 

(I’m also really, really good at hiding my struggles.)

To succeed at this endeavor, I have to start simple, with one project I know I can do if I am determined, I am dedicated, and I am disciplined.  I need to appreciate the baby steps it will take to complete this project and do them, even when I’m tired or anxious or had a bad day.  It will be like filling a rain barrel with an eyedropper, so I have to use these three D’s to stay on track, progressing towards completion.

Once I have reached my goal with that first project, I repeat the process with another project, then another, and another, building my determination, my dedication, and my discipline with each iteration, empowering me to tackle increasingly difficult projects.

If I master these three D’s, perhaps I will have a daily routine by the end of the year, the first step towards the life of my dreams.

My Thank You Letter to my Body

 After reading Lose Weight with Ang’s beautiful thank you note to her body, I felt compelled to write one of my own.  It has been a rough year, and my body has taken a back seat to my mind, a theme that needs to change as my 50^th birthday looms in the near future.  I hope you appreciate, and I hope you are inspired to write a thank you note to your body!

Enjoy!

PR Performance! October, 2018

Dear body,

Thank you for being so strong and healthy. 

It didn’t start that way.  The danger of the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck made my birth scary for a first-time mother and landed me in the high-risk nursery for the first week of my life.  That week was the last time I spent the night in the hospital, thanks to your strength and health.

I would need that strength and health of body, because my mind was often too broken to properly take care of you.  A mind that refused to eat at an age when food was needed to grow.  A mind driven to submit to hour after hour of training in order to excel in running and figure skating, despite having no natural talent or gifts.  A mind that insists on endless showers and hand washings.  A mind needing to be beaten into submission as the outside world triggered it into chaos.

You have been my rock, my pillar.  No matter what damage I inflicted upon you, you kept getting up, kept living, kept surviving.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year and a half since you put on a show, negative splitting the last five miles of the New York Marathon and finishing under five hours.  I was a lean, mean, running machine, and the future loomed bright.  There were so many things I could do for you to make you even stronger, even faster, even more beautiful.

But my mind was still healing from another breakdown, one that ended my job and my relationship that year.  Marathon training had to be put on hold as I struggled to stay ahead of the bills.

Again, you rose to the occasion, allowing me to take on several physically intensive jobs that required being in top shape.  As a global pandemic of an unknown virus shut down the world, your immune system kept me from succumbing to disease, allowing me to shuffle and adapt as furloughs loomed.

It was a glance in the mirror on a warm July afternoon that I noticed the damage I had inflicted upon you.  My face, always a source of pride, looked crooked.  My angled jaw was now rounded and chubby.  I looked at my body, the lithe sinew that traveled across the five boroughs of New York City, atrophied into a fluffy marshmallow.

My mind broke again, fearing everything from a possible stroke to a horrible disease.  It was in this fear that I realized how much I had taken your strength and health for granted, how many times I had skipped the basic checkups and maintenance, the things I had done to hurt you instead of care for you.  Inside of a world that could not return to normal and hours of isolation, my mind went into a tailspin, sliding down a spiral of self-pity and self-abuse instead of giving you the love and caring you deserved.

By the time I finally made it to the dentist and the doctor, I learned that once again, you had risen to the occasion.  No cavities, no major health issues, and no serious illnesses.  You gave me the gift of being able to heal my mental illnesses without having to battle physical ones as well.  I cannot thank you enough for that.

It is why I end this letter with a promise.  I promise to care for you, to treat you with love, to do everything in my power to nourish the strength and health you have given me all these years so that we can have many, many more years to come.

With Love,

Erin

 

Welcoming in the Roaring 20s (and Mine Will Roar)

It’s been a year.  Well, it’s been a decade.  It’s hard to believe that when 2010 started, I was so looking forward to a precisely planned, perfect future.  That January, I attended a primary candidate forum….and everything changed.  It’s been a difficult journey, one that is hard to regret taking, but I’m still here, looking at 2020, and trying to figure out a new future.

Planning, planning, planning...for a fabulous future.

We’ve all had that moment when the rug was pulled out from under us.  For me, it was Labor Day, 2011, when the man I wanted to marry….told me our relationship was over.  It broke me, but looking back on it now, it led me to so much more.  The resulting depression led me to a therapist, which led me to understanding why my brain was wired the way it was, which led me to realize that how I was living my life wasn’t in synch with my brain wiring.

However, there was an even bigger revelation.  My mother, trying to maintain order in her own head, emotionally abused me.  It’s interesting, really, how a child sees their reality as “normal,” until they hit a point where they see there are other realities.  For me, it was working with a therapist who pointed out the times my mother, with her endless controlling behavior, crossed the line from being helpful to hurtful.  And hurtful she was.  Not only did I believe that her depiction of me was true, it had made me passive and controllable, which literally ate me up inside.  It’s her words, not mine, that I’ve said to myself in the mirror all these years. 

Due to both nature and nurture, my brain processes things differently than most people, but I’ve spent the last 45 years trying to fit my brain into a “normal” mold.  It hasn’t worked well, leaving me exhausted, frustrated, and feeling like a failure.  Now that I understand all of this, I can spend the 20s creating a life that fits me and my brain, then helping others do the same.  It seems so counter-intuitive that a country whose founding principles are all about accepting and tolerating differences…has so many people suffering from anxiety and depression because they feel too different.  Perhaps I can do something about that, but I can’t from where I am now.

I see where I want to be by 2029, but I am starting at the bottom of the mountain.  This year, my goal is to build a solid foundation from which I can tackle harder things.  It means creating financial security and stability.  It means retooling my house to be a place of relaxation and comfort.  It means cleaning out all the survival anxieties that cloud my decisions and sap my energy.  It means missing the run club’s annual run to Lake Michigan to instead hustle for income.  It means walking away from all the things I do to escape from the challenges and instead face them head-on.  It means working hard towards my goals, even when it’s not easy.

2020 is probably going to be my most challenging year, but I have all the support and resources I need to come out of it successful.  It’s time to make my 20s roar.

Feeling Like a Kid Again

Running-wise, it’s been a great couple of weeks.  I joined Strava, a combination social media and fitness tracking app, which has been great to keep me accountable on my runs.  I was using Nike+, but the app just drained too much of my battery on runs.  Strava has a sleep mode, so it’s not as taxing to the battery.  Of course, I joined the run club group on Strava and enjoy all the kudos, as well as giving my runs clever titles for everyone else to see.

After work on Monday, I did a short five mile run I do all the time.  The end is a short downhill slope, and I sprinted down the hill.  It was like I was back in high school, where our home cross country course ended down a hill and into the chute.

Saturday, the run club had a scavenger hunt as a going away party.  It was Texas-themed, so we had a group of adults, dressed in Western wear, running around all over our town, posting photos and videos on a Facebook event page.  Running around, from clue to clue, I somehow logged six miles, but again, felt silly and childish.

Within all of the good feeling, there has also been some seriously fast runs.  Five miles at sub 10 min pace, 8.5 miles at sub-11 min pace.  It’s like in addition to recapturing my love for the sport, I am recapturing my speed.  Given my goal—a sub 5 hour marathon—I’ll take both!

Happy birthday to me, 

Happy birthday to me, 

Happy 40th birthday dear me, 

Happy birthday to me. 

I turned 40 today. At 20, I dreamed that by 40 I would be married to my college sweetheart, have finished my Ph.D., raising a mess of children, with all the ups and downs and growing love of a long term relationship. However, I also had visions that I would be the quintessential bachelorette who had loved and lost, traveled around the country, owned a home, even had a cat…which was strange because I’m allergic to cats. Well, I have an awesome career, my own home, and even a cat, despite the allergies. I’ve had adventures from California to Boston. What do I not have? A spouse or children, or even that Ph.D. I could be depressed, angry, frustrated….or I could take advantage of the situation and figure out what *I* want to spend the next 10 years doing.

I got into marathon running a few years ago after the man I thought was Mr. Right decided I wasn’t right for him. Living in Chicago, my first marathon was a major, so the question, “what next?” was a bit complicated. That’s when serendipity appeared. I received an email about Abbott becoming the title sponsor for the World Marathon Majors, the six major marathons. Three are in the US: Chicago, Boston, and New York, but the other three are in Toyko, London, and Berlin. I’ve never traveled to Europe or Asia.

I then mentioned the idea to the leader of my local running club, which I joined a few weeks earlier than feeling slower-than-dirt at my second Chicago marathon. He said, “well, do it now before you have kids.” I replied, “Actually, I’m almost 40 and a true bachelorette, so kids will probably not happen.” He said, “then totally go for it.” My fate was sealed.

The challenges are huge. My PR in the marathon is 5 hours, 39 minutes, and Boston requires a time of 3 hours, 55 minutes to qualify. I’d be considered an “international” runner for three, which could mean additional restrictions on entries, never mind the costs involved. Plus there’s juggling five trips with a job where I can’t just take a week off of work whenever I want. However, I see the process of overcoming these challenges more important than actually completing the races.

My birthday present this year is a quest: to complete all six major marathons in my 40s. Why a quest? A quest is just as much as how one grows and changes on the journey towards a goal; Lord of the Rings would have been fairly dull if it had been “Frodo Baggins traveled to Mordor to destroy a ring.” While I have a defined goal, the story will come from my adventures along the way. To keep me accountable, I’ve decided to blog about the experience. Rather than a weekly listing of mileage, I hope to tell the ups and downs of running towards a lofty goal, and the story of my 40s as a result.