Tag Archives: running

My Year of Fear

Book Review, Pregnancy or Lack Thereof, Seriously, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Over three years ago, I started Under the Tapestry with a question: What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Over three years since my first post! Hard to believe!
Over three years since my first post! Hard to believe!

I answered the question by sharing my story, by putting my words out there, and engaging (with the internet) in an honest and authentic way.

It’s been stilted lately, though, this little blog-o-mine. And I’ve struggled to figure out why.

 

Last week, I enjoyed my first two days at Leadership Marshfield, a training program put on through the Marshfield Area Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MACCI) focused on enhancing the ability of potential community leaders to function effectively. It was an amazing experience and I’m really excited to continue with the program over the next 7 months… but it’s already had an impact.

Yay, Marshfield! I did this tiny town of mine!! {Source}
Yay, Marshfield! I dig this tiny town of mine!! {Source}

On the second day of the two day retreat, we were instructed to prepare to share our personal leadership hero(es) with the group… with a prop. Naturally, on my way home from day one, I stopped at the (brand spanking new and beautiful) Everett Roehl Marshfield Public Library to check out a copy of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. (Don’t get me wrong, I own it, of course… but a Kindle just doesn’t make a terribly effective prop, in my opinion.) It was actually on the cart behind the circulation desk to be reshelved, which made my heart happy knowing someone else had recently had their hands on it, and I brought it with me the next day.

Still my favorite -- find it on Amazon here.
Still my favorite — find it on Amazon here or check out your local public library!

The next morning, I stood up in front of the group and talked about my two leadership heroes:

(1) Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Lean In, who changed my entire perspective about what it really means to engage in my life, my workplace, and my community. She taught me not to be ashamed or afraid of what and who I am, to value myself for my talents and my passions, and to move forward, with gusto, whenever I’m able.

(2) Ronda Kopelke, Director of the Marshfield Clinic Center for Community Outreach, who showed me what an amazing manager and leader should look like, up close and in practice. She continues to teach me (literally daily) what it means to really care about the people around you and to help them understand that you do. She’s also shown me how to be solution-oriented and engage with people in a positive, respectful, relationship-focused manner.

I sat back down, and then Shelley from Roehl popped up (sharing at Leadership Marshfield is popcorn-style… mmmmm… popcorn) and was mad/glad that I stole her thunder/had the same leadership role model as her. Again, my heart, so glad!

I thought a lot about Sheryl Sandberg that day, chatted with Shelley about her and about Lean In at the ROPES course (yes, I did the mother effing high ropes!! impressed? I am! go me!) and thought about what it was that reading that book had done for me and how it had changed my trajectory in the first place.

Sheryl Sandberg was the one who had asked me (and the millions and millions of other readers of Lean In) that question that started it all: what would you do if you weren’t afraid?

And I did those things. A lot of them. The blog three years ago. The ROPES course three days ago.

But I had never thought about the converse question:

What does it look like when you’re living in fear?

 

I know the answer now. Not on purpose. Not because I want to. But I look back on the last year and I can see, so clearly, what it looks like when I am afraid and I choose to live there.

I run. Literally, metaphorically. All of the above. I ran from my life and from everything that hurt and was scary. I ran and ran and ran. A marathon. Until I broke my foot (not literally, I just pulled a ligament, but it hurts like a b, so there’s that). I ate my way through Festival Foods to run from feelings and stopped vacuuming my floors. I ran from real life. I said yes to everything and anything at work to run from free time and I have ensured that I’ve had none over these past several months. No time to think or dwell, only run. From one assignment to the next. One workout to the next. One bag of chips (or box of candy, carton of ice cream, etc) to the next.

Yeah, I ate a lot... but I ran a lot too. So let's let the photo be of that at this point ;)
Yeah, I ate a lot… but I ran a lot too. So let’s let the photo be of that at this point 😉

I even ran from writing and sharing and speaking and connecting. So much of me was just so tender and everything and anything could be salt in the wound without warning.

I have been afraid.

 

Of what, though, really? Grief after a miscarriage is one thing, but fear? I mean, fear that it would happen again would be rational… but you have to get pregnant first for that to be a possibility… getting pregnant is even less my strong suit than staying pregnant, so what then?

The what, I have to assume, is failure. That infertility wins and this is it. And “it” is failure. A life of settling because I can’t do the thing I want to do. That I felt so strongly I was supposed to do. Meant to do even. Family is the next step — love, (schoooooool), marriage… baby carriage. Even my childhood rhymes said so!

It hurts to fail. And I can do physical pain, but emotional? Nope. I hate it. It feels bad to be jealous, too. And I felt like I had replaced my rose-colored glasses with green ones, everywhere I looked ultrasounds and bumps and even literal baby carriages that weren’t mine. Might very well never be. I don’t like those feelings. I don’t like to fail. So I ran, cowered, stopped vacuuming.

 

This September, the anniversary of all the bad stuff came and went. The missing heartbeat on September 11th. The surgery on the 16th. The black days immediately after when I felt like I couldn’t breath… and didn’t want to. A year later, I’m still here. Still moving. And slowly recognizing a haze of fear. Recognition.

 

I take you back to the scene in Love Actually when Mark confesses his completely unrequited love to Juliet (yes, I’ve literally already said this) and then walks away, saying to himself, “Enough. Enough now.” It’s like that. Just like that.

Enough now.

Time to move on. To stop being afraid. Or, at the very least, to stop running from it. To face fear head on. Like Brene Brown and FDR’s man in the arena (highly recommend Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly). But also like Shana Niequist in Present Over Perfect (my newest and truest literary love affair) — sitting with it, even when it’s uncomfortable. Letting myself feel it and living my life anyway.

We have a lot of moments in life that are before and after type moments. Things that define us. But sometimes the moment is longer than a moment. Sometimes the moment is more like a year. For me, it was a year of fear. A year spent running, but getting nowhere. Except back to life. And that’s ok.

I wear leggings as pants. And other confessions.

depression, , , , , , , , ,

Confession #1: It started with yoga. All the other girls were wearing leggings and it seemed like they were a bit more comfortable than me.

So I bought some.

Sister to sister selfie -- do I look ok???
Sister to sister selfie — do I look ok???

And then it got real cold, so I wore them under my running pants too. Until it got a bit warmer. And I lost the top layer. Leggings for running too.

And then, little by little, leggings on a random snowy Wednesday. I told myself it’s because it’s so much easier to slip on my boots this way, but… but it’s not… it’s…

See? Right into the boots! Easy peasy!
See? Right into the boots! Easy peasy!

I WEAR LEGGINGS AS PANTS!!!

I’m one of those people. Leggings as pants people. Do you hate me?

 

Confession #2: I flew down to Florida the day after my birthday from Central Wisconsin to Ft. Lauderdale via Detroit. That wasn’t the original plan, but a delay resulted in a rebooking and a re-routing and I had a couple hours to kill in Detroit. I hung out at the far end of the A terminal for a couple hours, reading and texting and Facebooking, like I do, until 30 minutes before my flight when I super responsibly got up to use the restroom one final time before boarding. As I walked in the door of the restroom I suddenly noticed the “men” sign on the door and quickly backed out — that was almost awkward! — and I ducked in the next. Crisis averted.

It was an odd restroom though. I needed a wastebasket in the stall (you know), but there wasn’t one. Ugh. Antiquated. No matter though, there was one near the sinks. So I washed my hands and ducked around the corner for a paper towel… at which point, a big long row of urinals came into view. My heart stopped, I whirled around, and in walked a man who looked just as confused as I felt.

Turns out… there are TWO doors to the men’s room. I backed out of the first only to walk right into the second.

 

Confession #3: I’m not a graceful person and falling while I run is kind of my thing. So stupid. And after something like my third fall in the last couple months, I have two seeeeriously bruised and skinned knees. I’m a 32 year old woman who is walking around Wisconsin in February with two skinned knees. For shame.

And it’s not even the ice, really. It’s tripping. Tripping over wonky sidewalks and the like. Even my pretty aqua green shoes are all nicked up at the toe. I want to be PERFECT at the marathon (since lord knows I won’t be fast), and these nicked up shoes and knocked up knees (at least my knees can get knocked up! ha!) are not going to do it for me.

 

And a million other confessable moments: I recently bullied (like, maybe she should tell someone about me…) a 50-year-old woman into reading the entire Harry Potter series and I don’t regret it. I fed my dog handfuls of butter after she swallowed a burr because it seemed like it might make it slide down her throat. I’ve spent way more hours than any adult should reading in the bathtub over the last couple weeks. With bubble bath. When I finally vacuumed my house last weekend, I recovered enough dog hair to make Curly a super personalized sweater and she doesn’t really even shed — that’s how long it had been. But worst of all: I let myself slip back into a dark place.

 

And that dark place, my darlings, is where I’ve been. I’m not sure exactly how it happened. It started the week before I traveled, I think… I got kind of busy and stopped doing the daily mindfulness practice I’d been cultivating. And then when I fell the last time, I stopped going to yoga because it really, really hurt my knees. The dark thoughts started creeping in, piling up, and I latched onto those again. I stopped writing, because I didn’t want to be a downer anymore. I spent an evening, and another, and another, even one particularly ugly weekday morning, sobbing about how much I hated myself. And I meant it.

Danger zone.

 

The truth is, I’m in a bad place. A place much worse than a men’s bathroom. (Granted, it really wasn’t a terrible place to be until I realized where exactly I was.) And I’m going to have to work really stupid hard to get back out again.

Confession #4: I feel really, really tired and I’m not entirely sure that it’s worth it.

I suspect that’s the depression talking, but it feels pretty true to me right now.

 

Interestingly, I know for a fact that there isn’t all that much “worth it” about running a marathon. And yet, I’m absolutely desperate to do that — willing to put in mountains worth of work to get there.

marathon training

So maybe I just need to print out some sort of anti-depression training plan and assume that it will be equivalently worth it. Fake it til I make it. Mile after mile.

 

So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got five miles to go this evening yet — Curls spent last night puking, and I cleaning it up, so when 5:30 am rolled around this morning, I was in desperate need of a bit more sleep. But the treadmill calls and I have faith that crossing the finish line in DC in a couple of weeks will be worth it to me. Faith as well that putting in the work to climb out of the oubliette,* let the light in, and work to not be in such a dark place, will be worth it too.

 

 

*I use Audible to listen to books while I run. I’ve never read any Neil Gaiman before, but I couldn’t really ignore the legions of people I super respect who love him anymore and when I saw that American Gods was nearly 20 hours long (woo hoo! all that bang for the buck!), I jumped on it. Within the first 5 miles (I measure books now in miles rather than chapters), the main character mentions an oubliette. YES.

Fat Girl Walking

Pregnancy or Lack Thereof, , , , , , ,

Walking is super great exercise. I know that, I’d tell you that, and I’d be the first in line to give kudos to anyone who walks regularly. It’s great!

But I’m not a walker. I’m a runner. Granted, I’m a big girl, a clydesdale, Athena, whatever the term du jour, so I’m not a particularly amazing runner. I’m never going to win a race. I’m just happy to finish. But I always take pride in the fact that no matter how slow I go, I can run and run and run forever. (Not actually forever, but for a long time. Slowly.)

True, once upon a time, I used running as a means to punish myself — I binged and then purged via exercise. I ran to be thin. And then, once I was thin, I ran to be thinner. But that’s not why I run now. Now, I run because I like the way it makes me feel. I like to pound the pavement, to hoof it up big hills and fly down the other side, to feel the sun on my face or the wind at my back, to get the miles under my feet. Yes, I’m fat and I’m slow, but I run. I think that’s kind of awesome and it makes me proud.

Turns out, however, that when you’re in the midst of hormone-induced insanity a la IVF, you cannot run. It can cause ovarian torsion, which in addition to sounding horrifying, actually is an emergent medical situation and basically the last thing you want when you’re trying to get your ovaries to cooperate lots-of-eggs-style.

Yoga can do the same thing. And kick boxing. And basically any other rapid movement type exercise. Or heavy lifting, bending, twisting, etc.

So walking is pretty much it. Which is great, like I said, except… I’m having a hard time with that. Being a fat girl walking.

It was tempting for me to keep run run running (slowly) and then to make the change only when I had to, but recognizing that throwing additional changes on top of the uncertainty of a new (and intense) hormonal milieu was probably a bad idea, I decided to get on top of it… to start walking. To be a walker.

On May 30th, I participated in the 14th Annual Marshfield Dairyfest Cheese Chase. I completed my 5 miles, totally rocked the dang thing (in my slow, but steady way) and called it good. Good until all the IVF mumbo jumbo is over and we either have a baby or we don’t.

cheese chase

And now is the time — baby or not time. As I mentioned. Still scary. Still sad. Waaaay harder than I thought it would be. But also easier.

Sort of like running. A lot like walking.

Either way, you put one foot in front of the other. Either way, you’re moving forward. It’s hard to run, physically, but it feels so good emotionally. It’s hard to walk, emotionally, but it’s pretty dang easy, physically.

IVF is hard both emotionally and physically.

I keep crying.

My face is breaking out. Like crazy, pizza face breaking out.

My tummy is so crazy tender.

File that under things you can't un-see. Sorry. I'm a pin cushion.
File that under things you can’t un-see. Sorry. I’m a pin cushion.

I’m bloated to the nth degree.

And it’s all only supposed to get worse. For a while.

 

Amongst it all, I’m a fat girl walking.

Fat Girl Walking
Fat Girl Walking

 

Hard as it all is (see above), there’s some things that make it ok too. Mostly it’s YOU guys. You’re freaking amazing. The support, the love, the encouragement and best wishes. Dang.

 

My mom’s coming tomorrow to hang with me as I drive to and from Madison over and over again until surgery.

 

Seth is sending me lots and lots of pics of my baby girl:

baby girl

 

And the Lemas got me everything I needed for a relaxing daily massage in the comfort of my own living room!

massage

Daily, in theory, except I worked up a little bruise on my right shoulder trying to get a knot out. He he. This thing is soooo nice.

 

But even better, was the note that came with it:

fat girl getting a massage

Fat Girl Walking.

 

With this much support… I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

2014: The Ox-Bow Incident (sans rustlers)

Long-Winded Metaphors, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Have you ever run a road race? Now that I have fully embraced the notion that somebody has to be last and it’s not the end of the world if it’s me, I really really enjoy them. The best part is seeing the finish line up ahead. Except seeing it doesn’t always mean that’s the end.

…

One summer when my Uncle Paul and cousin Kirsten were in town and I was home from school, we decided, as a family, to go out and run the Dexter-Ann Arbor 5K. It was a blast. Ab and I putzed along somewhere near the back, but my Uncle Paul is a pretty devoted runner and he was lined up near the front of the pack. My brother Tom lined up with him, but was pretty disgusted when they got going and Paul seemed to him to just be putzing along at a pace hardly better than the one Ab and I had set. Tom could do better, go faster. And he did. As he came around the bend toward the finish line he was thrilled and started sprinting– piece of cake! Except that what he was completing was only the first, and smaller, of two loops. And he was TOAST. Paul passed him up shortly after that and poor Tom had to drag himself another two miles only to cross that same finish line again.

Thank goodness for rachelv.blogspot.com ... the place I kept all my pictures before Facebook was a big deal.
Thank goodness for rachelv.blogspot.com … the place I kept all my pictures before I used Facebook… and Instagram… and Under the Tapestry.

That was a fun day. I couldn’t stop laughing. I laughed so hard my cheeks and my abs hurt.

Oh how I love that story!

…

Fast forward a few years to a St. Patrick’s day while living in the metro DC area and I decided to run a little St. Patrick’s Day 8K through downtown. A super fun run, as any downtown DC run tends to be (for a nerd like me), that ended right at Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Ave. I was rocking it that day. And as I came down the final straightaway, I could hear music and see the balloons arched over the finish line and I was keeping up with a big pack and feeling great and… turning left? away from the finish line? what the?!

Just like Tom, except not quite so bad. There was just a little out and back down a side street to account for the distance we hadn’t quite made. I was fine, I still finished, and still in good time (for me… good time is relative in running, remember), but not quite when I expected or how I expected.

 

Twenty Fourteen

Did you ever have to read The Ox-Bow Incident in school? I did. I only remember it very vaguely. Pretty sure there was a lynching and it was awful, but what really stuck with me was what an oxbow actually was. In the context of a meandering river, anyway. And maybe that’s what 2014 was. An oxbow. A bend in the path. An extra two mile loop or out and back down a side-street that I didn’t see coming.

I expected a positive pregnancy test in 2014. I expected to be a mother. I could see the balloons over the finish line and hear the music. But there was a bend in the road and here I am on December 31st, out of sight of that finish line once again.

 

Twenty Fifteen

I don’t know what the finish line is going to look like when I do get there. I don’t know if the balloons will still be inflated or the music will still be playing. I don’t know how long it’s going to take or how difficult the journey is going to be to get there. Maybe it’ll be a quick out-and-back… maybe it’ll be a two mile slog on tired legs… maybe something else entirely. Maybe the oxbow will cut itself off and form a free-standing lake. It’s impossible to tell at this point.

What I do know, though, is that the course I’m on is not as limiting as I’ve made it out to be. My single minded focus on “I want to have a baby” has really limited the life I’ve allowed myself to live for far too long (flare for the melodramatic, once again). I’ve made small steps outside the lines in the last few months, but I could, and should, go further.

For example, my therapist recently asked me what I hoped to have accomplished one year from now, assuming I still wasn’t pregnant. I had no response, but immediately burst into tears. That was pretty telling. (He keeps kleenexes in his office for moments like those. It’s all good.)

So in 2015, we’re taking a bit of a break. I’m going to give my body and my mind a rest. I’m doing other things… I’m running, meditating, and reading. I just got a new full color, hardcover book full of photographs and amazing text about women healers of the world– so excited. So much learning! And being. And learning to just be.

 

When I announced my non-pregnancy the other day (oh snap, it would have been darkly hilarious to do a photo shoot with the negative test… I can see that now. maybe next time), my Aunt Susan said to me, “I can tell you for sure: life is an interesting line, but rarely a straight one.”

And in that comment, she summed up my 2014 perfectly.

 

Incidentally, I’ve always had something of an affinity for straight lines. Maybe that’s why this whole meandering business is so difficult for me. Once upon a time, I even got intervented on for it. (Intervented is not a word, but I don’t think to say “intervened” really sums up what it’s like to have an intervention in your honor.) My friends Danielle and Stephine teamed up with my mom to ban me from purchasing any more horizontally striped shirts. (In all the colors. From Old Navy.) In retrospect, it was a good call. Still a good call. It was kind of all I wore for most of high school. I had to switch to solid colored polos after that. (Confession: I’m wearing horizontal stripes right now. Not kidding. Relapse.)

 

Man, I’m cool.

 

Anyway… here’s to accepting 2015,  however it may come! Happy New Year!!

 

Unrelated, but awesome, picture of super Curls!
Unrelated, but awesome, picture of super Curls!

Y is for yo-yo, yo-k?

Instructions for Life, Recurring Themes, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m not pregnant. Again. And I’m sad about it. Yesterday was pretty rough. Today I am sad, but my friend Marie made me smile (hugely and genuinely) and my sister has a ridiculously cute new hair color that I’m in love with and my friend Kristin liked the cookies I brought her and my husband and I are taking his parents out for dinner at a (central-Wisconsin-style) fancy place in Point tonight… and overall, I have a million and one reasons to be happy. So I’m not sinking. I’m not drowning. I am dealing.

And that’s a huge step for me. A yo-yo-er.

Next illustrative story…

One afternoon this week, at work, I got prank called by an endocrinologist. He put on a fake accent, called from another physician’s office, and pretended to be someone he was not and then laughed hysterically at himself as I got my footing back underneath me when he told me who he really was. I was literally taking notes for this “new” physician who wanted my help…

It was super weird. And super funny. We both cracked up.

And then we talked for a while for seriously about the importance of perspective when considering clinical data related to false-negative rates for thyroid biopsy in the context of nodules larger than 4 cm in size.

A far cry from the former formality of all my emails that began, “Dear Dr. So and So… lots of professional words… Thank you for your time, Me Me Me, PhD.” Followed by nearly incessant joking with my office mates (I needed an outlet!).

Tuesday’s conversation with the endocrinologist? That’s moderation. Funny. Serious. Everything in between.

Final illustrative story…

The weather this week has been absolutely lovely and sunny and cool and I’ve gone for several (incident free!) jogs. During one such jog this week, I took THREE puppy petting breaks. Three.

I also stopped to take a picture of this sweet bird's nest!
I also stopped to take a picture of this super sweet bird’s nest!

It was wonderful, but not the point.

The point is that I did NOT stop my RunKeeper (it’s my app for distance and time and I love it so much– I love making it map me while I mow the lawn, back and forth and back and forth, it’s hilarious) even once during a puppy petting or photo taking break. It just ran. The clock kept ticking while my feet stopped moving and it made my time slower… and yet. The time and the distance are not the point.

This is what it looks like when I mow the lawn-- hilarious to me.
This is what it looks like when I mow the lawn– hilarious to me.

End illustrative stories… now, the point.

I have generally not tended to live my life that way. I’m usually at one end of the spectrum or the other– filled with hope or in complete and total despair. Too many jokes or too much seriousness. So much running that I crap my pants or no running at all for fear I’ll crap my pants. But this moderation thing, it’s so much better.

With respect to the big things, my mental health, my physical health, my work, these are places where yo-yo-ing from up to down, one end of the spectrum to the other, has never been good for me– yet it’s always been my default. That’s where I find moderation to be most key (key-est???), and where it’s often hardest (most hard???) to find.

Don’t get me wrong, living life on the end of yo-yo, with the ups and downs, fits and spurts, can be awesome for things like canning (pickle/tomato/apple marathon– ready go!) or sewing (it’s almost winter– time to go pick out some new fabric!!). Turning that yo-yo into a gently swaying, much more even keel, pendulum-style instrument is much more valuable in some arenas though. And I’m getting there.

Canning-- a good place to yo-yo. From left to right, top then bottom, apple butter, dill pickles, ketchup, green beans, and tomatoes. 100% of raw material provided by my in-laws!
Canning– a good place to yo-yo. From left to right, top then bottom, apple butter, dill pickles, ketchup, green beans, and tomatoes. 100% of raw material provided by my in-laws!

I’m getting there with mental health. Yes, part of it is biochemical control (better living through chemistry) and part of it is therapy (with a therapist I didn’t want to like, but do), but honestly, most of it is time and experience and patience with myself…

I’ve spent over two years trying to start a family and every month so far has ended in sadness. Sadness coupled with a headache and cramps and discomfort that all seems so unfair. Life’s not fair though. That’s not part of the terms and conditions. Life is life and it’s weird and circuitous and out of our control for the most part. And that out of control thing is key when it comes to staying off the yo-yo. I can’t be in despair when I have no control. I know that I’m doing everything that I can do, and that’s literally all that I can do (short of illegal things like stealing babies or black-mailing my sister into sending me one of hers– chimps do that, you know, I read about it in National Geographic). I can be sad. I can be hopeful. I can be both simultaneously… a little more of one or the other at times is ok, but I don’t need to go all the way over the top in either direction.

This is the chimp that stole some babies. Not a terrible idea... except a really terrible idea.
This is the chimp that stole some babies. Not a terrible idea… except a really terrible idea.

I’m also getting there professionally. I know more people, I am more comfortable with more people, I am more comfortable with myself…

At work, I was nothing but a ball of nerves for about a year or so… especially around physicians. Turns out, I was basically just being a total Dorothy to the Great and Powerful Oz– it was just a man behind a curtain. Some physicians still seem to prefer the “Dear Dr. So and So” deal, but more often, they seem to prefer when I behave like myself– sometimes silly, sometimes serious. Exclamation points and winky faces and jokes in emails, book recommendations in both directions, hugs at Cattails when I see my most favorite residents, cookies and recipes and Valentine’s day gifts. All of that with good writing, prompt service (as much as possible), and a willingness to be as helpful as I can be. I’m good at my job, and (hopefully) likable and personable at the same time.

And finally, I’m getting there with my physical health…

I’ve been a runner since I was young– maybe sixth grade. My first 5K was maybe the Belleville Strawberry Festival or the Dexter-Ann Arbor Run with my friend Kelly and co. (Where “and co.” = Emily and Danielle and Christin, most likely, but I’m fuzzy on that, so we’re going to go with and co.)

My friend Kelly sent this super old photo on one throwback Thursday. I’m in love with us as baby runners. So cute.

Since then, I’ve always always always stressed over time and distance and intensity and frequency and when I couldn’t live up to my own expectations… I stopped. Stopped entirely. Most recently, I couldn’t run my favorite distance on my favorite route without have GI issues, so I stopped. Turns out, though, if I’m careful about what I eat, run at a comfortable pace without pushing myself too hard, and make planned loops with a quick escape route to my house every three-quarters of a mile or so, I can go pretty far/pretty long… and get this: I can even enjoy it!

And here’s something really crazy: by being patient with myself and super experimental, I have even learned to enjoy many vegetables! No, not onions. But lots of other vegetables… and that’s a big deal. I don’t have to force myself to eat an iceberg lettuce-based salad drenched in ranch dressing (yuck), but I looove pretty much any green preceded by “baby” or “mixed” with some chia seeds and an Asian-style dressing.

My favorite dressing... from the 21-Day Tummy by Liz Vaccariello. I don't dig the premise (at all), but some good recipes.
My favorite dressing… from the 21-Day Tummy by Liz Vaccariello. I don’t dig the premise (at all), but some good recipes. Turns out, I’m not as opposed to rice vinegar as I am to white vinegar. Who’d have thought?

Patience and time, when it really matters. Yo-yo when it’s just for funsies. This is why, for me, I’ll take my thirties over my twenties any day. So much more time, experience, patience. It’s good.

 

Speaking of fun yo-yos… in sewing, yo-yos are these little dealies:

 

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{Source}

Growing up, my cousin Mary, me, my cousin Ashlee, and my sister Abby were all relatively close in age and we passed clothes, especially cute little dresses, down and down and down amongst the four of us. In their infinite wisdom, my mom and Auntie Pam kept all those little dresses thinking they’d be great for making quilts some day. My mom spent last summer making all those little dresses into yo-yos (even the velvet and corduroy ones! dang!) and then turned those yo-yos into four quilts– one for each of us.

Look at how amazing this quilt is:

Specifically, the quilt hanging on the wall. BUT, my amazing mama also made the duvet cover on the bed. And I crocheted the blanket on the end (brag).
Specifically, the quilt hanging on the wall. BUT, my amazing mama also made the duvet cover on the bed. And I crocheted the blanket on the end (brag).

It’s so ridiculously and unbelievably beautiful and meaningful and I love it so much. My mom is incredible. This is the kind of thing that makes me continue to hope for that family– so that someday I can do something like this for my sister’s girls and their cousins, my kids. My someday babies 🙂

Rach and the Dino Hat

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It’s so sad for me to sit down at my computer and to log in to Under the Tapestry only to realize that all those ingenious blog posts I wrote in my head never actually made it onto the computer. Fevers’ll do that to you, I suppose. I don’t know what I had and I feel terrible for spreading it (so sorry, my darling, Michele!!) (not sorry for licking the door handle), but I’m finally feeling considerably better. With the exception of the bits of liquefied brain that are clearly trying to leak out of my head through my sinuses, I’m feeling pretty good and my grossness is significantly diminished (P < 0.05).

So onward and upword! First things first: you guys are SO freaking awesome for giving me such a positive response to my STD news. I mean… STDs, right? Ew and stuff. But you totally clapped for the clap anyway and it was awesome! Thanks for that!

But today, what I’d really like to talk about is dinosaurs.

I don’t have enough material for a real dino-focused post at the moment, but I did see a seriously sweet dinosaur hat on a little boy last week and it got me thinking…

At what age do you become “too old” to dance in and out of buildings wearing a dinosaur hat?

I passed a family headed into a building one day last week. It was a family of three. A mom and two sons– one a sullen teen or pre-teen, tall, gangly, peach-fuzz mustache, and permanent scowl. The mom looked beat. But the younger boy? He was grinning and spinning! He was dancing and flailing his arms and having a good old time on his way to the building.

He’s the one who made me light up. It was adorable!

But then I came to my question above. Because had the older boy been doing the same thing, I probably would have affixed my scowl and thought something rude about his immaturity or whatevs. Could he have done anything right? I mean, I was annoyed with him for his scowl in the face of his brother busting a move… but I’d have been annoyed if he’d busted a move himself. He couldn’t win! I was being too much a judge-y jerk!

YOUTHS!

And I thought about how that made me a total Rachel… like Rachel from Friends. And not in a good way. Rather, in the way she was in the episode where she and Phoebe go running together– Rachel taking little perfect strides, breathing in time, while Phoebe ran all arms and legs akimbo, just having fun with it.

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I’m such a Rachel sometimes! (Not in the enviable hairstyle kind of way, more the stick up her backside kind of way.) It would probably suit me to loosen up a bit (I know you’ve been saying that since I was like 8, mom, I know)… perhaps to drop the -el… yes, I think it’s the -el that’s weighing me down.

 

More Rach! More dinosaur hats! More fun! Less judgement!

 

But baby steps. Because I am not ready to rock a dinosaur hat on my head any more than I’m ready to bust a move on the skywalk between the Lawton and the Laird. (Busting a move in the office hallway? Maybe… so long as I’m not doing it alone.) It is something important to think about though.

Because, clearly, there’s no doing right by me when you’re an awkward teen. The thing that should probably change? My attitude. Less -el.  More blog posts 🙂

 

Fun fact: I went through a brief period from approximately consciousness through about 8 or so where I hated, hated, hated anyone calling me Rach. And I would totally correct people. Now I totally love it and consider it a sign of natural and unforced intimacy. My sister calls me Rach. My big in grad school (because I sometimes pretend grad school is like a really effed-up sorority) calls me Rach. Some of my super sweet new Marshfield friends call me Rach. I just love it! Granted, I cannot fault those who have known me much longer for not as, to be fair, I would have ripped their heads off over it once upon a time. But now you know.

 

Not-so-fun fact: I had the same two teachers for sixth and seventh grade– Ms. Fisher and Mrs. Johnson. I adored those two and they had nicknames for everybody, probably because they were absolutely brilliant at making you feeling like you were welcome and loved in their classrooms. They used to call me “Ra-cha-cha” (got to admit, I didn’t love it) and sometimes it would get shortened to just “Cha” (better because my friend Em always called me Racha from the time we were like 2 and 3). One day in science class, we were reading from the textbook out loud in class and Mrs. Johnson was announcing the next reader by name. I heard her say “Chaaaaaa” so I started reading. Loudly. Confidently. Like the nerd I was then and am now.

And it was awkward… super, crazy awkward… because she said “Chaaaaaaad”, which is not even kind of my name, and rather, the name of the boy I’d been crushing on since the moment I’d walked into the Miss Dimitroff’s fourth grade. The horror! I remember the mortification distinctly, the desperation of my hurried explanations in a tiny voice (I thought you said Cha…?) and the extreme desire to disappear.

 

Fun-ny fact: Chad was not worth the crush. The more you know 😉

Gratitude for a Gentle Reminder

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While it is true that people in the Midwest tend to be exceptionally friendly, it’s also true that they are quite reserved and that it can be hard to build a relationship with people you only interact with peripherally.  As such, it’s taken me quite a long time to get to know the people I work near, but not directly with.  But two-and-a-half years later, I’m finally on friendly terms with lots of the people at the clinic and it is good.

After several friendly chats in the bathroom and hallway, I’ve found a lovely friend in one of the well-established and brilliant research scientists in the National Farm Medicine Center named Barbara.  Barbara loves to walk (seriously, like 8 miles a day), but recently fractured her foot and is slowly working toward recovery.  Likewise, I loved to run, but had tummy troubles that pretty much put a halt to that in recent months.  We really bonded over that… our shared loss of beloved physical activities.  (And yes, I did tell her all the gory details of my intestinal troubles— this is a good example of that overly quick intimacy I talked about yesterday.  Barbara is someone I really like!)

Hmmm… I like where this is going, but I’m going to have to back up just a touch to give you some context.  Get ready… I am about to spill my guts.

…

I am a binge eater.  I have a binge eating disorder.

You’re probably thinking, right, I know– I was pretty sure you said you were a woman.  But no, not just over-eating, not just an inability to resist something delicious.  We are talking about a truly life disrupting disorder of ongoing and epic proportions.  It’s not a pretty thing and something I have taken great pains to hide for most of my life.  (Literally, most of my life… like since I was 8 or 9.  This is a kind of big deal to me.)

One of the biggest triggers of my binge eating is, paradoxically, restriction.  And when I spend a lot of time restricting what I eat, either in the amount of food or the type of food, I tend to make a wild swing the other way and binge, binge, binge.  Sometimes for a day… sometimes for a month.

My second biggest trigger is, kind of pathetically, self-pity.  And sometimes I really spiral out of control when it comes to feeling sorry for myself.  Boo hoo, poor me, life is rough, and all that.

Unfortunately, all of my gastrointestinal issues and the lengthy process toward diagnosis has led to something of a perfect storm with respect to binge eating.

Following a series of rather unpleasant tests (see that poor me thing?  clearly I have a flair for the over-dramatic), I was diagnosed with EXTREME (!) lactose intolerance.  (Literally, the diagnosing doc used capital letters and exclamation points in my chart, Dr. Roy showed me… I’ve always been good at taking tests.  I blew this one out of the water!)  I’ve always known that milk and ice cream were off limits without lots of lactaid, but nothing wrong with a sprinkle of cheese, a pat of butter, a cup of yogurt, right?  Wrong.  In fact, even my allergy medication contained lactose!  What the what?!  (Yeah, I’m definitely the one that taught that age-inappropriate phrase to Emily… sorry!)

So, for an entire 1.5 weeks I was crazy careful about lactose– either none whatsoever or precautionary lactaid anytime there was so much of a chance.  And my stomach was awesome.  AWESOME!  For the first time in MONTHS.  I went for a couple of runs, my stomach felt great, no emergency trips to the bathroom, no awkwardness.

BUT– I felt super sorry for myself.  And I felt like I was being super restrictive.

So.  I came back from Mexico and went completely off the rails.  The result has not been pretty.  Lactose is definitely the culprit.

…

So, back to the story at hand.

I spent the better part of today binging.  On lactose-containing things, naturally.  Because that’s just how I roll.  My stomach hurt, my confidence in my ability to get past this binge was waning, and I was ready to head home and continue the vicious cycle with more food and more self-pity.  But, on my way out the door, I bumped in to no other than Barbara and we walked to the parking lot together– chit chatting the whole way.

Barbara was so thrilled that I had a diagnosis and that a simple avoidance of lactose was enough to allow me to run again.  She reminded me that running is something I love to do.  And she pointed out the gorgeousness of the season and the perfectness of the temperature for running.  And she was so right.

So.  Right.

So instead of going home and sitting on the couch with a big bowl of lactose-laced anything, I came home, laced up my running shoes, and headed out to pound the pavement for 20 minutes.

It was a brief run, but it was a good start.  The temperature was in the upper 40s and perfect and the skies were a bubbly, cloudy gray.  I ran past bright red leaves and a sweet puppy that wanted to play.  I ran past pumpkins on porches and jammed to Seth’s Road Trip Mix.

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Yep, I do love running.

Thank goodness for Barbara and her gentle reminder.  For her kind words and genuine interest in my life.  She gave me exactly what I need today in such a subtle way.  And for that, I am incredibly grateful.

 

PS: I make jokes… even about serious things.  It’s just what I do.  But binge eating disorder and any other eating disorder is a serious thing and professional help is required.  Don’t worry, I’m getting some.  And if you ever feel like you might need help, you should absolutely reach out.  For realsies.