I miss you.

I miss running.

I mean, really.

I cried about it last night after I got off of the bike.

The bike sucks.

My foot still hurts, sometimes. I am so bored on a bike trainer, doing abs, and feeling like my leg muscles have all but deteriorated. I look outside to see the 'sports-bra-lady' as I call her and wish I could be out running with her, like every summer.

I have not gone this long without running since my freshman year of college when I started to run. I have built a relationship with this sport, this track, this changed, runner body, everything.

my mom keeps commenting on everything I eat, complains that I'm 'limping' around and just doesn't understand. she keeps telling me to quit.

I know she just doesn't understand, but it still stings. 

I know I can come back in good shape. I know if I just keep cross training, resting, and boot-wearing I will be good come mid to late June. I'm ready for some PRs.

the pain, the sweltering heat, the hills. they all sound so much better than the damn bike trainer. the gun, the racing...everything.

Summer.

Home. My junior year of college is all over. It is almost surreal to think about so I'm not really trying to think about it. After some final fights with OIS I think China is as close as it will ever be, just one more letter to get  approved and one more to get mailed if they need it...which knowing them they probably will.

I had to say goodbye to some of the best people I've met in a long time.

I don't usually cry during goodbyes but I was crying when I left Kim. I was sitting in Kat's common room watching her pack with Hadley and Zoe and I just felt like bursting into tears. earlier in the day during yoga I felt so emotional for no reason and just wanted to sob. I don't know what has come over me. I am not even overwhelmed with emotion. I just feel like crying all the time. I think I really miss running, it's what held my emotions in check. without it and now without schoolwork, I feel like a wreck.

being at home is triggering and uncomfortable. I am so afraid it is going to spill into China but I just won't let it. I wish I could be alone; I feel so independent and don't need to hear my mom's opinions on antidepressants and other drugs or her opinions on therapists because they just put negative thoughts in my head that are so hard to get rid of when I'm not surrounded by the people I love. I'm an adult, I guess I could leave whenever I want. I owe everything to my parents, everything, I would be nowhere without them, but I am just not a family person outside of them.

This post was kind of a debbie downer, but sometimes I struggle so much with trying to be okay because I feel like because being sad is not 'okay' because I am 'fine' so whenever I'm upset I just try to mask it. Whatever is better or worse is up for grabs.
breathe breathe breathe. August will be here and cross country will start and Goucher and it will all be back soon.

selling your goat

There is an old Jewish story about a man who lives in a very small house with his wife, many children, no space, and very little money. So the man goes to his rabbi for advice: "Rabbi, you are so wise, and here I am living in a small house, with no light and little space. And I am so poor. What can I do?" The rabbi listens and instructs the man: "Go to the market, buy a goat, and put the goat inside the house with you for a week and then come back to me." The man is shocked: "But, rabbi, as I told you, I have very little space and money. If I buy a goat, I won't have any space and I'll lose all my money." But the rabbi insists: "Get that goat!" So the man buys the goat. He takes it home with him. The goat eats the furniture. It's too big and takes up all the space in the small home. The man's life is miserable. After a week, he goes to the rabbi and cries: "Rabbi, I put a goat inside my house. There is really no space anymore. Please help!" The rabbi responds: "Go to the market, sell your goat, and come back to me in one week." The man sells the goat and returns after a week to the rabbi. "Rabbi, this week my life was great! With no goat in the house, it's really huge now and my family and I have so much space to live in. And after selling the goat, I actually have more money. You are a very wise man, rabbi!" 

 I'm not Jewish nor am I too big on story-telling (though I could read books all day), but my yoga teacher on Sunday morning told us this story. Immediately after when I called my mother for Mother's Day, I was ecstatic about this story. Something about it just really clicked with me. I think I heard Edith (my teacher) say it before during one of the rare occurrences that I am able to attend her classes, but it just sticks with me. You just have to sell your goat when it gets tough. When you don't want something in your life anymore, think about it  -- and just sell your goat. I'm sure it's easier said than done and I certainly haven't tried it yet.

Last night, I spontaneously had the opportunity to go down to the Kennedy Center to see The Sun Also Rises. It's one of my favorite books and no doubt was I going to like it as much as I like the book, but there's something about seeing dancers that I really love. it's just so beautiful. I didn't get to eat dinner before the show, but when I came back at 11:15 I met up with Kim and had a grilled cheese. And afterwards we split frozen yogurt. And it felt so, so normal.

I have been blessed with so much love & light in my life. I can bend over backwards (maybe just with a wall's help, but nevertheless, I did a dropback for the first tie in my life yesterday!), I can run a mile in less than seven minutes, I have access to fresh water whenever I want it, I go to a private college with professors that not only want to help me with schoolwork but also want to know what goes on in my life, and even more. I always forget how blessed I am that I have been presented with all of these opportunities. Life is so, so short. I know a lot of this feels new age-y and trendy and whatever but I don't know how else to make people believe how much I have changed & grown in the past month. I feel like I did midway through my freshman year of college, when I wrote this:

Am I the girl that realized happiness was more important than anything else? That a number on a scale, the color of my hair, how many stray eyebrows I have...really don't matter at all? That I realized how much of my life was wasted by being unhappy, selfish, and sick?

That's not to say I don't have my downfalls.

I get drunk. I hook up with a boy who is obviously in love with me because I can. I self-destruct by forcing friendships, but I let myself go. I talk. I have fun. I dance. I whip my hair back and forth. I eat what I want. I go to hot yoga and engage in conversations with my teacher about everything. I run and laugh and smile and EXIST. I've never existed like this.

 Except I am not the 18-year-old who wrote that anymore, but I can sense how bounce-y off the walls I was feeling then, and I definitely feel it again. I hope it lasts, and if it doesn't, I can just let go of the goat.

:)

This is water, this is water.

In my Chinese Philosophy class this semester (class that changed my life, definitely, as silly and cliched as that sounds), we watched David Foster Wallace's commencement speech "This is Water."

The video really struck home with me, especially this quote.

"The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship."

For awhile I was living my life thinking that things in the world -- foods, people, clothes -- had some sort of inherent property that made them either good or bad. I placed judgments on things that did not need to be judged. I never stopped to take a second to think that maybe it was me that was doing the judgments. Take avocados for example. a pretty out-there example but nevertheless, pretty relevant to this topic. For awhile (about two or three months) I wouldn't touch an avocado. I was 'afraid' of the avocado, so to speak. It didn't matter if it was on a sandwich or in a salad, I'd pick around it, consciously not letting myself touch it. Let's get this straight -- avocados are delicious. they are green healthy blobs of delicious. they are also green healthy blobs of (unsaturated) fats.
So I wouldn't touch them.
Fat is the female enemy. But an avocado didn't choose to contain fats and there is nothing wrong with the avocado. The thing that's 'wrong' is the judgments I was making about the avocado. I was convinced it was bad and that the fact that it was bad mattered to me and it drove me crazy. It wasn't just avocados, it was nuts, peanut butter, foods I loved and adored but for some reason just couldnt touch because I associated them with that same 'bad' quality. But it was me making the bad quality. Not the avocado.
Today I ate some of an avocado with chicken at lunch. And you know what? It was freaking delicious.

It is ALL a matter of perception. and realizing that you are perceiving things a certain way takes a lot of practice.

for awhile, I was very caught up in my running and training rituals. I had to know how many miles I ran, how far I went, the average pace per mile, etc. I was automatic about splits, what times I could eat before practice, how many miles I could put on my shoes. Midway through the season I ran an awesome 8x800 workout, mostly by myself, after eating six godiva chocolates earlier in the morning, not running at all during spring break, and not expecting to do a workout at all. My automatic, ritualized overdrive led me nowhere but a big DNF and a stress reaction. I realized it all too late in the game, but my running is not going to be taken over by my silly mind.

One of my favorite (and most idolized) runners is Natosha Rogers of Texas A&M. though she's recently taken a running hiatus, that doesn't mean her accomplishments are less valid.

NCAA 10K champion. and a second place finish at the Olympic Trials (though she didn't have the A standard and couldn't run in the trials)...after this.

That's something that would have ruined my race, not given me a second place finish...in front of Shalane Flanagan. Reading some interviews with her, she said something that really stuck with me and related to everything I've learned in Steve's class this semester. 

Well, to be honest, I don’t run with a watch and I don’t know how long I go every day. It sounds weird but I just do whatever I feel like every single day. It’s just how I am as a person. I’ve found that not being in control of my time or limited by a certain mileage has proven to be a good thing for me. 

and later...

 I don’t like to have a written out goal because I take disappointment really hard. I don’t think it’s good for myself to do that. My only goal for myself is just to do the very best I can while still maintaining a balance and a healthy, happy life.

Anyone who has that kind of approach to running is the kind of approach I want to have. I've recently been reading a book called Zen and the Art of Running which relates Zen Buddhism to running and tries to teach the practice of running with Zen mindset. so far it's been immensely helpful, even though I can't run until around June.
Just take a moment and realize you create your situation. You create what's going on around you. You create your reactions. No one else.
I'll leave you with something my coach emailed me after my DNF (which I don't regret, by the way, but I'm definitely still recovering from it):

You are in charge of you. You only need to run/race in the moment. You are clearly stuck with lots of opinions in your brain. And to successful for you, you need to let them go. You are right, if it isn't fun to race or come to practice then you maybe you shouldn't be doing this. I think we can fix this. You look really strong right now, but you need to trust you

And he's right. and we're going to fix it.

:)

 

beginnings are the hardest.

I have tried many times in the past to write a blog. I've kept my thoughts private on tumblr, I've written about running on wordpress, I've attempted to be a healthy-living-specialist on wordpress...but nothing is me. as someone who wrote for years in a friends-only-locked livejournal, writing online is not new to me. It is always hard and it is always different, but I really want a blog that lasts, not one that fades away because I feel like I have to be something I'm not.

Take running for example. I never used to be a 'runner' until sophomore year of college, and even then, I had trouble deciding if that's really what I was or not. I wasn't ever comfortable in the dance department at college or at my studio at home nor was I ever fully comfortable at any theater but LMP. nowhere ever made me feel at home like running does. running brought me back to a relationship with God, made me realize Goucher was really the place for me, and helped me know what my body can do. I can run for 15 miles and hold a conversation; I can run 25 times around a track without getting bored. recently I have been stuck in a boot on my left foot with a potential stress fracture, and I am about to have not run for 1 week. some people never run in their entire lives...I should be grateful for what I have. as Kara Goucher said in her book, "I am not a runner...I am a person who runs." 

I spent the weekend at home making cookies, doing pilates, and being (comfortable) with my mom. I have come so far since december, when I was struggling more than I have in years. I am not sure what has changed me but I'd really like to keep discovering what it is.

I've become comfortable with being an english major. I love participating in class and I love reading. I'm putting off homework now, but it's not English. I want to go to graduate school and I want to get a PhD, but if that happens, it happens. if it doesn't...so be it. I'm ready to create, I think I'm finally ready to begin. so here goes. let's see what we can do, world.