Blogging bump in the road

So it's been a while since posting and I am struck by some of the unexpected oddness of blogging that I hadn't anticipated. Matter of fact, it has dampened my initial enthusiasm and caused me serious pause. Turns out there is your blogging public out there who have their thoughts, expectations, feelings etc.. In reading other blogs it's not uncommon to hear the author apologize for being gone too long, maybe offer up some feelings or circumstances that are behind their absence. They are conscious of having some regular readers/commenter's, supporters, even fans who they are conscious of and intentional towards. For many, even most, this is probably just a Duh? but it somehow sets me back on my heels a bit. Why?
I'm embarrassed really to have a dilemma I sense is not particularly common....on one hand I value reading comments and admit to being warmed and uplifted by the kindness of visitors. On the other hand, I find 2 difficulties that really give me the yips...
The first is relatively minor I suppose - in the school of just get over it. That is the maintenance angle of responding to responders. My knee jerk issue is the time it takes to respond but that is false....simple fact is that a quick acknowledgement and comment to a responder just doesn't require much in the way of raw minutes. No, the bigger issue to me is that in order to be intentional about those kind enough to comment requires one to sort of keep track/to be deliberately conscious of a post's comments (..."let's see, did that post have 2 comments last time I checked or was it 3?") to see if anyone new has weighed in lest you unintentionally ignore someone and perhaps add to their life's struggle of diminishment or invisibility or just come off as a rude, unappreciative dolt.
The second and really core issue for me is just the awareness of others, of an audience. And not just some amorphous, non-descript audience. They have names and personalities and profiles and styles and unsurpassable worth and somehow the fact they are there just seems to trip me up a bit. I am aware of a certain editing going on in my head, a kind of a governor on my writing engine. So, if transparency is a goal of mine, I guess this is my way of confessing to the encroachment of that dreaded disease of "people-pleasing", of "not wanting to offend", of "wanting to be liked". Yuk! How did I end up here? Where's the freakin' couch and the Valium when you need it? Medic!!!
My potential solutions range from just setting up this blog so it can receive no comments (not sure you can do this but I've heard you can) to learning to not let this be an issue and just bull full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes! Or, to just blogging without entering the 'community' as a participating member. To forgo being a new applicant for 'community' citizenship. Do I just electronically, unilaterally journal in a public forum or do I attempt to contribute to the community as a bilaterally participating member??
The blogging community I have been made aware of (mainly through the lists that appear on DK and TC's sites) has been amazing and rich. As a non-commenting lurker, I have been blessed by reading such talented writers and their pulling back of the veil that often makes me laugh and cry and sometimes just blush by being present as they offer their transparency. I find myself thinking, "Is it OK for me even being here and reading this?" It many times seems so private and personal. As I expressed to one of you, I'm scared I may be turning into a woman! DC, help! Where are the sticks and balls? Bring em' quick!
All this blabbering on to say that please bear with me. (Who are you talking to here Santiago?) Well, to both myself and any who happen to trip on into this little cup of murky reflection. It's like a little stone in my blogging shoe and it needs to come out so the journey can continue....

Really, this is embarrassing.....but it's there....

The Blob

Worked from home yesterday. Even though there was nothing unauthorized about it, I have a tough time shaking this background feeling of doing something illicit or cheating. It reminds me of feelings from the past experienced when I was a kid home sick from school. If I watched TV I would sit there thinking, "I shouldn't be seeing this program...I should be in school." The vague sense of guilt and illegitimacy would rob me of any enjoyment. Later, as a teen when I could drive, I sometimes pulled into a parking lot and just sat in the car instead of going to church like I was supposed to be doing. I would keep track of the time and would turn the radio to some religious broadcasting in an attempt to assuage the guilt. I would always wince when I came home and had to respond to the inevitable "How was church?" Unfortunately, it would help develop my skills of lying and subterfuge.
Anyway, I had a full day of being by myself, doing some work but also working on our taxes. Didn't choose to pay Dave this year...why spend $270 when you figure you will owe. Another one of those signposts that pop up on the highway of life...we have no more dependents. On a purely mathematical level that means that $6800 that was there last year to reduce income is no longer there. Yep, sure enough, turned out to owe the feds $222 and the state $38 and hey, Jake, don't be late. My fiscal-headed friends might say, "Way to go, that's perfect...you didn't give the government an interest-free loan this year." Whatever, I'm just glad to be done but I'm not quite. Let my work stew overnight and figure I'll giver er' one more look over to see if I am missing anything. But one thing I know, we are at least $270 ahead of where I would be if would have let Dave be the one who figured this out. (Notwithstanding that Sandi is bound to feel like he would have been able to find a pot of secret deduction stuff that only the Rosicrucian's and the cult of CPA's know about!)
Day took an abrupt turn around 5:30PM...Sandi called to report she was at her folks and Dad wasn't doing well...blood sugar of only 40, unresponsive, sweating profusely. Called back in 5 minutes, "I'm scared, would you come over". Hop in the car, there in 12 minutes. Diabetes, scary thing when it seems to have a mind of it's own and sugar levels bounce around despite best efforts to monitor and control with diet and drugs. Such a bite to be 83, have a number of health issues and then end up with the overlay of diabetes as some kind of diabolical parting gift (as Don Pardo used to say).
Things get stabilized but close call nonetheless...didn't like his color and the labored, gurgling breathing. And of course it's a Friday, try getting a Dr on the phone. Home by 8, finish up taxes (the really suspenseful part where you load all the lines on the form and get to look back in the schedule to see the results....scary stuff). Relax a bit, trying to hydrate as a 14 miler is on my schedule, go to bed, put in the ear plugs (greatest invention for light sleepers) and lay there maybe 10 minutes. Phone rings...Dad's not doing well, need to get him to the ER.
Rush over, kind of wondering about getting him transferred into a vehicle...too weak?
Glad he called it...."Call 911". A nanosecond of family panic and with the push of just 3 phone buttons the emergency response system is ignited. Short time later the cul-de-sac is veritably flooded with red and blue lights...2 squads, firetruck and an ambulance with maybe 8 or 10 responders. Into the house like so many welcome invaders, sort out who is driving in what vehicle and off to United.
I end up alone in the 03',sprightly 260 HP, 6 cylinders, dual exhaust, rolled and pleated head gasket and suddenly a relatively perverse, tension-relieving thought enters my mind...."I'm going to beat them to the hospital".
And so, full of concern and frustration at this fallen world and what aging can become, with only flash thoughts of tickets, how I will explain if pulled over, I head out and have to admit some exhilaration at traversing the no-to-very-light traffic with some impressive rates of speed. Bingo, I beat em'! No victory dance but an interesting little vignette embedded in the midst of a mess.
He's going to be OK...pulmonary edema, drugs, treatment, admission to chase out the fluids.
But there it is in the ER, which we have been to twice in the last few months. A lobby full of waiting family members that paints a picture and depicts a health care system that is somehow supposed to be so grand by world standards but is obviously dysfunctional, broken. The crowd I see there never seems to be a representative cross section of our population. Instead, it's sharply skewed towards the more newly arrived citizenry. Are they just more accident prone? Is the white majority just more careful? Or am I just seeing what one often reads about, the ER's have become the hyper-expensive health care delivery portals of the nation's uninsured.
Well, 4 hours of sleep later, I have done what I set out...just a data dump of random stuff that one Friday in history seemed to bring...no real analysis, conclusions, editorializing, just a dump. And so it lays there, quivering in all it's randomness, as an ill-formed mass reminiscent of one of the first movies that really scared me...1958....The Blob.
14 miles is feeling elusive...take care Rafiki...come for me Aslan! Come!

Restless leg syndrome

I can only imagine that one day, when I am moved to actually make this blog-o-rama public, that someone is going to read my angst about blogging and just want to yell at me..."For cryin' out loud, get over it dude....it's no big deal." Alas, every time I sit down to click the keyboard "it's" there again....Why are you doing this? You figure you actually have something to say? Go back to your fortress of solitude and journal.
Anyway, to any future reader, sorry for this opening theme in most of my posts but heh, I just can't seem to relax and let it flow. Maybe it isn't meant to be....
But there seems to be a dynamic to all this that draws me back...I just can't articulate it. Something about the way I think when there is a possibility of someone reading over my shoulder that stimulates thought in a manner different than the guaranteed confidentiality of a journal entry. Heh buddy, you're the one who has always valued transparency and being transparent requires another person looking in doesn't it? (If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it does it make a sound?)
OK, enough. This blogging angst moment brought to you by Caribou coffee, your neighborhood purveyor of black adrenaline.
So,life goes through these chapters and the chapters seem to fall into overall sections. By most anyone's measure, I'm certainly in a mature phase chronologically. I remember looking at people my present age when I was younger and thinking that I doubt much is happening in their life anymore...just in an extended wind down phase headed for that spiffy assisted living facility just down the street.
But no, that's not the way it is and I continue to wrestle with being this authentic person who lives out life in conformance with what I say I believe. And so it's like this, I get most of my heart back, get healing (or at least in process) for most of the wounds sustained earlier in life and awake once again to understanding that it is not about me. I, as a friend of Christ, (He said it so I claim it) am motivated by being somehow used in advancing the Kingdom of God. A lofty sounding goal if I've ever heard of one. But that is what makes sense to me, gives me overarching purpose to the daily grind of schlepping out the same ol',same ol'... of slugging out a living 5 days a week, making ends meet. I am an itinerant Kingdom advancer and I am getting quite restless. (The pharmaceutical companies would probably like me to be diagnosed with "restless leg syndrome", the latest disease invention that they just luckily happen to have a product for .)
You see, as a believer in the 'good news', I have spent an inordinate amount of time applying spiritual truths to my life, bringing the old man under the authority of my Creator, participating in sin management, patching my life back together after amazing amounts of self-absorbed idiocy including masterfully assisting in an overall family and life implosion back in 92'. Seven years of my own version of wilderness, then years of getting dusted off, sort of reclothed and regrouped, remarried and generally recalibrated and voila!, I sit here clicking away. (All, I might add, described in a rather cavalier tone which is only a fake mask to hide the soul-wrenching,self-loathing that such historical self-reflection can so easily unleash.)
So the intercessory ministry has been very rich...so good because it has so obviously been choreographed by Him...I certainly would have never even considered it, wouldn't have sought it out....you know, you just can't make this stuff up! Father, thank you for your invitation to participate. As Elizabeth Elliott said, "Next to the incarnation,I know of no more staggering truth than that a Sovereign God has ordained my participation." Thank you Father.
But I am aware of "there is more" , "there are some new next steps" and I have learned that all I really have to do is say yes, bring me into all You have for me!
Somewhere along the line, I let the disparaging term "social gospel" preempt my activist side, my outward focus. The poor, the disenfranchised, the discriminated against, they all somehow didn't seem all that pertinent to me in my personal-spiritual-quest-space.
Too much of my spirituality has been inwardly focused, just dealing with all the "incoming" and the press of circumstances. Emphases too imbalanced...personal salvation, bless me club....community, what's that? Too much focus on fast forwarding to co-reigning for all eternity with Christ on the other side of death. And for now, what about the NOW between right here and cremation? Just hangin' out? Trying to stay out of trouble, keep your nose clean,concentrate on transformation, do the right thing while biding your time til the sweet bye and bye? Little ministry in the local body, throw a few logs on the church fire while being always subtlety conformed to the system of the world? Where is the agenda for NOW! We're burnin' daylight here Hoppy....you have been transformed by enough renewing of your mind to now see that it's time to be more of a change agent for the Kingdom!
Things are really swirling around me, Shane Claiborne and Brian McLaren end up in my hands, Beyond Belief series comes into WH and pow!, it is like I am being awakened out of some kind of coma and I want to sign up for mobilization. I had previously signed up to "toe the line" in joining the invisible war against the powers and principalities...that is right and good for me and that will not be going away, only growing. But there is to be more! Yes, I am excited to find out what that is (and also am sobered at what that will cost). I want to become a more dynamic part of the solution, to resist the insanity that is the very fabric of this fallen world's system and to live in more overt rebellion, to be more active in my revolting.
And so, I am in transition....I feel an impending growth spurt (heh,it's my domain, I call it growth)coming and I want to get it right. Fortunately, there is now some measure of modest wisdom and I am not at all tempted to author this myself. No, that is something I only need to hear and see as Jesus unveils it for me, either suddenly or gradually, my role is just to say Yes at the right time. And so I am looking, I am listening... show me those next steps Abba. And so I practice my response..., "Yes Father", Yes Father" "Thank you Jesus" "Yes, of course"......
Still in process Santiago....still in process....steady as she goes mate.....deep breath....

Standing in the gap

Awakened at 1:18AM this morning....do the usual checking....Who is behind this?...friend or foe? Oh, it's you Lord. What is this about? Go through family members one at a time, no, check in with my heart, no, not about me. Ah, it's RH..... And I proceed to intercede for this ministry, different aspects of it, situations that I am aware of and that come to mind. Overall, it feels like an incredibly large, blob-type of darkness that is attempting to ooze it's way in and I find myself turning my back to it all in prayer to resist it, lean into it and generally prevent "it"entrance. This goes on until about 2:30 AM. Were my efforts victorious? Sure didn't feel that way....felt more like putting a finger in the dike in an effort to hold back the entire sea. But regardless, it's one more experience of this ministry of intercession that it seems I've been called to.
So strange for me to say this....called to intercession. I mean for me, in my walk with God over these 30 some years, I must confess I mostly thought of intercessors as the proverbial little old lady shut-in who could do nothing else so she prayed. Mea culpa, mea culpa!
I guess I started to get involved in prayer as part of the altar prayer team over at NH about 10 or so years ago. Why? I think it goes something like this....In a perfect world, if I could just snap my fingers and be anything I wanted to be, I would want to be an ER Dr. at a large trauma center. (I used to say a professional hockey player but evidently my dwindling testosterone levels have kicked that little vision to the curb.)
There's just something about triage type work that makes me come alive! I love the clutch play at home plate, live for it, even dream about it. (And as an old catcher, I so enjoyed having those experiences.) Chronic stuff leaves me limp, sucks the life right out of me..... No, give me the adrenaline pounding job of the STAT types of decisions, the immediate need for action now. Having taken the Strengthfinder, I see that as a classic example of one of my top 3....ACTIVATOR.
Anyhow, when it came time for me to step out into more ministry, when enough of my gaping wounds were healed sufficiently that I felt like perhaps I could move out again, I was attracted to those who prayed for others after the service. Here was a church version of the ER, and you didn't have to go to a cajillion years of school before qualifying. No, just the opposite. My position as one redeemed by the death of Jesus on my behalf gave me the most important certificate in the Kingdom of God...I was blood bought and no longer called myself lord of my life but had given myself into the hands of He who had loved me and pursued me from the beginning. That and a few weeks of training and I was an altar minister. Voila!
Since then, the plot has thickened as they say. Further opportunities outside church have come into play. I have been invited in as a part of a team of 14 who cover a national ministry including on site intercession out in Colorado for events drawing 400 men at a time. And there has been local events and on site opportunities with a similar ministry dedicated to freeing and enlivening the hearts of men for the advancement of the Kingdom. And even at church, now WH, there has been opportunity to branch out from the altar praying into leading intercessory teams for each aspect of the service itself as well as becoming part of the prayer leadership team. And up ahead, there is no end in sight with additional possibilities starting to make themselves known.
I list all this just to self reflect on how all this has expanded for me....again, it seems so unlikely that someone such as me would end up as an intercessor! I guess you would just have to know me like I do to understand the confounding swirl that reflecting on this puts me into.
But let me just say I am thankful, so thankful. Thankful that after giving my life to Christ in 1975, (May 19, dock, Lake Harriet, 2:30AM), after starting so strong at CC, getting married, having two most beautiful, darling, good-hearted daughters and then crashing in 1988, seeing it all obliterated on the shores of separation (1990) and ultimately divorce (1992), and then the long, dry sojourn through 7 or 8 years of personal desert....(attention, attention, this is your personal editor....please bring this sentence to a close as it is getting too long, thank you.).
That little piece of comic relief was needed....reflecting on the pain involved in the above has never ceased to be bad and I'm wondering now if that is just how it will always be?
But then, around 2000, being introduced to Sandi (Jesus, thank you with all my might for bringing her into my life. I do not deserve her and I realize that our union is a living, breathing example of your grace in action.) Getting involved with WH, going out to Bootcamp, launching into a blended family, having my heart come back alive again! And then desiring to take my place on the line and joining in with the worldwide effort to advance the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. And God responds, gives me ministry tasks, gives me some positions to gain, maintain and advance. Love so amazing , so divine! Praise to you my Lord of Hosts!
Man, I'm at this moment lost in the revelry of the joy that has been put in my heart. That coupled with the lack of sleep seems to be bringing this post to an end. I am reminded that my last blog dealt with pessimism vs optimism, and then I spoke about running....you gotta love the juxtaposition of it all. This 500' Flyby is starting to take a form that I like. No particular linear organization to subject matter, permission to ramble, jump easily between the sacred and the secular (it all is starting to feel sacred to me).
As Paul said, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ"
And so, with all synapses trashed albeit with a thin veneer of caffeine, I drift into something called Thursday.
Advance Santiago.....

"That's a negative Blueleader" (Pt.2)

OK, good to be back. I'll return to the thoughts about pessimism that were left to marinate in just a minute but first...... Feeling compelled to also continue my inner dialogue re: blogging, my motivations, my hesitations etc. So yes, 500' Flyby will go public or there just seems little sense in blogging vs. personally journaling. The journal is the private venue...blogging is for putting stuff out there and maybe finding like-minded folks, to be known for who I am, to risk showing up at the nudist camp in all my ordinary glory....
However, now that I've been reading various blogs I am concerned with the whole sub-community thing that can go on. On one hand it's cool but on the other the back and forth comments, my anticipated internal pressure to acknowledge comments is not something I am excited about...seems like a sinkhole of time and effort and yet another "thing" requiring maintenance. And there is the addictive quality that seems to swirl around the blog universe and fighting a new addiction is another item would rather avoid. So, not sure about how to handle that...wonder if there is such a thing as to just blog away and if there are any comments to just leave them sit there with only silence in return? Etiquette check in aisle 3 please!
Having given myself to more noodling time to this whole subject of being more optimistic, of daring to believe and to attempting to see more things as half-full has not felt particularly productive. I do seem to have a built-in abhorrence to naivete, to being perceived as a rube who blissfully struts around in the midst of his narrow-minded ignorance. Distinctly desire to avoid that whole syndrome seen on that phase of American Idol where truly deluded contestants, who actually believe they have talent, sing for the judges who then trip over themselves grasping for words to express just how horrible each performed (well, at least Simon does). Somehow this seems to fuel my propensity to see the half-emptiness of life. Perhaps reading this type of admission/insight someday will lead me to further conclusions but for now it seems relevant (although not admirable).
Came across a quote by an old Italian thinker who said "....pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will".....the one a spur to action the other the resilience to believe that such action will have a meaningful outcome , despite adversity. Yeah, that feels right for me. It feels better to not have it be an either or type of deal....either a pessimist or an optimist but doses of both in differing amounts in light of the circumstances at hand. Is this a cop out? Just another example of relativism? I'm sure it is from some perspectives but, for now, it is my choice to go this way, the more complex, nuanced way of grey instead of the artificiality of pushing it into either black or white.
So, for me, the glass is neither half-full nor half-empty. It appears to have varying degrees of fullness depending on where I stand and from which perspective I happen to view it. So yes, I have been too mono, too much from the half-empty school of naysayers. But for me the alteration I seek is not to be found in trying to leap to the opposite side, to positivism. Instead, I feel right about going more stereophonic by adding, seeking, illuminating the positive, the half-full aspects of each scenario with which confronted and combining those views with the up-to-now chronically available negativity. Now that is something that feels achievable, honest, stretching and worthy of effort.
If nothing else, this blogging can serve to temporarily fix discussions in time. Better to try on certain thinking's like a new pair of pants in the dressing room. One day, when I return to check out how they look in the mirror, if they make me look fat then out they will go for something more fitting. Ah, isn't life just grand!?
Luego, Santiago (Note to self: this post just didn't bring that certain sumpin'- sumpin' of satisfaction that comes with dead-on expression.....keep at it Skipper)

"That's a negative, Blueleader" (Pt.1)

Wow, sitting down to another attempt at this Blog thing and surprised at the inner conflict that continues regarding the very essence of blogging. Several have asked for my blog address and I have been unwilling to give it, instead desiring anonymity. So what's with that? I thought you wanted to be Mr Transparent? To beam some of your thoughts out into the cosmos and see what happens? Just journal this stuff idiot! Bloggin's for chumps! OK, OK settle down ya'll. Yeah, I do want to speak to the public, but not so eager to do so with that part of the public who already know me. I seem to be more comfortable with being transparent to the "bartender" who doesn't really know me but is a good listener and safe in that you don't have to worry much about being challenged or criticized. For those who already know me, it feels like giving them entrance to my underwear drawer.
So there you go, just sharing this pathetic little take on how I talk a big transparent game but deliver just a veiled, cloaked access to those I know is pretty telling in itself. Hey, it's almost a transparent confession!.... calling myself out onto the carpet and drawing a line in the sand and shouting a last call to board the authentic self bus before it pulls away from the station.
Anyway, this isn't what I came here to write about today. Wanted to wade through some different waters....the whole area of negativism vs positivism in my life. I've always admired positive people.....have wanted to be like them. But for me, to do so, comes off as just an inauthentic act. No sooner than I say yes, I believe that this will all work out well, or that this or that will surely come to pass than my internal alarms start beeping and I find myself merely a poser. What in the world is that all about? (At this point, it would be nice to have a shrink on hand to help me think about this, to be honest about the real roots that feed it....not sure that just a brave desire and a bootstrap approach is going to be sufficient).
Well regardless of the above negative caveat (at least you're consistent Santiago) I have a thought as to why this seems to be my mode of operation. Let's just throw it out and see if it seems to hold up in the light of day......
It seems that I really hate, maybe even fear?, to be disappointed. So, my pragmatic approach, which really just so often seems a mere euphemism for negative, glass-half-full thinking, is my way of inoculating myself against disappointment. There it is, my take on a coping mechanism that I have honed to a fine edge over these 60 years of bumbling through life. Emotional cushioning..... OK, let's see how this chunk of self-analysis looks to me as it lies quivering under the hot lights of the microscope......
First of all, I wonder if this is really it, if this is really the cause of my negativity or just a related symptom, just a referred type of deal that is actually coming from somewhere else? I'll keep this in mind but for now all I can do is ask the question and let it simmer in the background of my brain....
So what's the problem with this strategy Santiago? It has kind of worked for you for these many years, why not just flow with it? Aha, that good question elicits some emotion in me....BECAUSE I AM NOT SATISFIED WITH THIS STRATEGY! IT SEEMS TOO MUCH LIKE A DEFAULT, LESS-THAN-THE-BEST, UN-REDEEMED, UN-BELIEVING APPROACH TO LIFE!
OK, OK settle down and no one needs to get hurt here. So much for the 'all caps' emotional venting of anger and even threads of self-loathing that a quick mouth swish of this brew brings out.
That's enough for this post....subject is thrown out there and time to walk away and let it marinate in the ol' fridge for awhile before coming back to take it from here.
Hasta luego Cisco...

Long run

For years, Saturday mornings have become the day of the week when it's time for my "long run". I figure that running has been around for me since the late 70's. For many years it was running around the lakes in Mpls., with Lake Harriet being my favorite. For years I was a slave to the watch, always trying to improve my time, which in those days was between a 7:00 -7:30 minute/mile pace. It wasn't until the early 80's that I ran my first 10k race...actually an Aquatennial run that was more like a 7k...I managed a 7:00 pace and almost died after I ran the 1st mile with a neophyte's foolishness in 6:00 minutes. First marathon was Grandma's in June of 1993 (3:59). Twin Cities came right on it's heels in October of 1993 (4:08) New York in 2000 on a dare from Raymo (4:45) and again the Twin Cities in 2001 (4:20) Certainly never threatened to qualify for the Olympics!
So anyways, the long run....sometimes it has disappeared from my routine for months, sometimes it only means 4,5 or 6 miles but now I have gone and done it again...I registered for Grandma's marathon to be run on 6/21/08. Why oh why did you do it Mr? I have had this conversation between my head and heart many times.....it goes something like this:
"How about taking on the challenge of running another marathon?"(heart)
"Yeah, it's tempting...would give us a goal and ultimately another accomplishment BUT you must recall that the increase in training demands so often lead to injury and then you can't even run for aerobic exercise" (head)
This kind of back and forth goes on virtually every year as I read about upcoming marathons, hear of people registering. It's been 6+ years since I ran my last marathon, the Twin Cities in 2001 which I dedicated to my ailing father who ultimately died the following month. Actually, the memory of that grueling affair should have been enough to convince me of not succumbing to the allure of trying it all again at what will be my 61st year of life. I just can't erase the agony produced by once again falling for the 'going out too fast' trap, running with the 345 guys, not understanding that that was their pace, 3:45, and keeping with them for the 1st 10 miles before the grim reaper showed up to collect his dues. Remember praying that Sandi would be at the 13 mile mark like she had hoped to be if she could break away from the hospital where her Dad appeared to be in his last days. And then seeing her, breaking into tears, "I can't do this" "I'm broken, empty, only half way" but not having any other choice because I was wearing a t-shirt that said "This marathon dedicated to my Dad: Art XXXXX". Can't d.n.f. with that kind of commitment on your back....finally getting to Summit Ave, limping along, arm in my windbreaker as a sling, grinding it out, no pleasure, no sense of any particular victory but to get it over with. Yeah, how do like these details Mr.? Gonna do it again eh sucker?
OK, OK, so it maybe wasn't a good idea to run that old film clip. Let's segue from that to the present with only a sore left knee so far, and still taken up with the concept of running another one. It's not racking up the 5th one that draws me this time around....nothing particularly magical about the number 5....4 has served me well. So what in the "sam hill" (by the way, who is sam hill and why do we use his name?) caused me to get online and register and even spend $80 bucks for this dubious privilege?
As usual, understanding my motivations is a foggy enterprise at best. As I look through my personal crystal ball, I see lots of swirling stuff and therein lies my first clue....
Stage of life stuff going on. In my early 60's, kind of almost disoriented about what that even sounds like or feels like. Inside I'm still feeling the same as 30 years ago but AARP keeps knocking on my freak'in door with all kinds of sunset offerings. Sheesh, what's a fella to do?
In-laws needing help, amputation, ramps, elevated toilet seats and shower chairs and grab rails and transfers. And my Mom, bless her 91-year-old- heart, bears deliberate monitoring. Even though she continues to be very independent for her age, still driving, volunteering, pumping her own gas....(well done Mom), still must be intentional with keeping her little 4'10" blip clearly tracked on the radar screen of life.
And work, losing heart about carrying on at H&A. Ten years, longest I've ever worked anywhere with modest returns and limited ability to compete in the accumulation of toys contests that seem all the rage. Not feeling like I have a grip on my 'end game'.
And then there's the ongoing launch, from what is now a distance, of the kids...all in 20's (Inga, sorry you're no longer a kid), all kind of scrapping and clawing through the muddle best they know how
I've heard it call the "sandwich" time of life....caught between the ongoing concerns of your own children and your parents.
Well, regardless, it's amidst the swirl of all of this that my heart and head somehow seemed to conspire and reach agreement that I could use something that's big, that is for me, that will give me a break from the above cycles, and that may even provide, if I'm lucky, some weight control over the 300 lb. monster that continues to gnaw at it's thinning restraints.
So, it's time to quit the traditional Saturday procrastinating. (Oh great, so now blogging can provide yet another source of delaying the inevitable). Time to suit up and go for 10 but better it be 11 this time around in the interest of building up the base.
So good to chat about this....
Just do it!