It's MY Journey, and I'm Taking My Time

Have you ever felt like changing things in your life requires a precarious walk across a tightrope, and one step in the wrong direction can throw you off course, tumbling to the ground?    I feel like I have been walking that tightrope for SO LONG, and today....I think I stepped off.....and nothing happened.   Perhaps this tightrope is just an illusion and the path to change is simply wider and a little easier to navigate than that. I tend to work well in very tight parameters with very clear rules.   If you move more and eat less...you will change your body.   If you eat healthier and make better choices, you will lose weight.   And the list goes on....   I like these rules.    They work.   They get me moving in the direction that I want to go.     But the problem is...when I set rules.....I inevitably end up straying from them....and then find myself tumbling to the ground.   And honestly....no one can live by the rule...

So...as you have read in previous posts....I kind of feel like this journey isn't over.   Finishing the race and meeting my goal sort of feels like the first step rather than the end, so I've decided to keep this little pet project of mine going.   The name felt wrong now...so notice the new blog title.   "I'm Wearing the Crown....Now What Do I Do?"   I guess the journey continues. One things I have realized is that I work well with a goal in mind, so I'm noodling on a couple of options that will be revealed soon.  I hope that you will continue to follow the path with me.   It has been an enormous inspiration to know that people are so supportive and that I am so blessed with so many great people in my life.  Thanks again. I am in the process of starting some new and somewhat scary (for me) things.   I am no longer working with my old trainer Mandy.   (sniff.)    She is back from her maternity leave and her schedule isn't jiving...

I have had a few weeks since the race to look back at this journey and to reflect on where I have come from, the roads I have taken, and the landing spot that I have found.   I went on a WONDERFUL vacation with my family, and in the relaxation and peace that only comes with sitting by a vast ocean, do I feel that I have found a little clarity. When I started out to make this half marathon experience happen, I think that I thought it would be life changing.   I'm not sure WHY I thought this exactly, but I think on some level I thought that perhaps I would end up with all the answers to all the questions that have plagued me for the past several years.   But really, that didn't happen.   I started this journey with big grand gestures and feelings of pride and happiness, and I wanted to declare to the entire world that I was going to DO this.   It was fireworks.   Big. Loud.   Showy.   Grand. After the race was over I found myself in a quiet plac...

Well...I did it!   It wasn't fast, or graceful,  but it was mine.   I finished the Disney World Princess Half Marathon on Sunday February 27, at approximately 9:30 in the morning.  I limped across the finish line with my foot KILLING me and very very tired, but I did it and I finished under the time frame that the race allotted.   I have so many feelings about the experience that I don't know quite what to say.   I set out on this leg of my journey a year ago, and honestly there were many times when I questioned whether or not I would be writing this entry.   I broke my foot AND my toe.   I had bronchitis and the flu.   I had questions of loyalty. Questions of will.   Questions of determination, and questions of ability.   But guess what folks.   I DID IT! I crossed the finish line with a re-injured foot, and a very tired spirit, but when it was over I was completely overwhelmed with the emotion of the experience.   Thi...

This one step - choosing a goal and sticking to it - changes everything.              -Scott Reed- I am 5 days from the race.   Five days from accomplishing this goal.   I’m proud of myself for keeping my focus, for overcoming injury, and for giving myself enough credit to do this.  Five days from taking the first step across the starting line. I’m scared.   Nervous.   Anxious.   Excited.   All of these things.     I’m not sure if nerves are something I will overcome in these sorts of scenarios, it may just not be in my nature.   I feel a little nauseas a lot of the time when I think about it.  But I do know one thing....I am different.   I still wish when I looked in the mirror that I could just be happy with what I see.   I wish I could be better at forgiving myself.   I wish that I could judge myself by the same standards I use for others.   (I am realizing I’m often easier ...

"It's very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit." ~ George Sheehan My friend Carey sent me this the other day.   I have re-read it every day since she sent it and intend to read it every day for the next 27.    I remember doing my first 5k.   I was so excited.   It was the 35th year of the Hospital Hill, and I was so proud of myself for doing it.   I wasn't in great shape, and walking 3.12 miles seemed like a huge feat.   I felt just the same facing that race that I do facing the 13.1 miles of the Princess Half.   That was a challenge for my body, just as this half is for me now.  The only difference is in who I have become on the inside in the years since then. Hospital hill ended up being a really bad experience for me.    When I should have been reveling in the accom...

"Just keep swimming.   Just keep swimming.   Just keep swimming swimming swimming.  What do we do we swim...swim....."  -Dorie from Finding Nemo This saying is really important to me.   When Andy was having his spinal cord surgery and when he was hospitalized a lot, all he wanted to watch was Nemo.   Over and over again we watched this movie.   In fact, when he is sick to this day...he will ask for it.  He found comfort in it.   And I guess in my own way....so did I.   When things were hard with him....there was Dorie.   "Just keep swimming......"  When I wanted to give up.... there was Dorie.   It's a pretty profound life lesson if you really stop and think about it.   The only thing we can do is keep moving....Keep plugging through.    Just keep swimming. That's not to say that we don't have days that are stagnant.   Today was that day for me.   Lots of doubt crept in.   Lots of negativit...