Living Solo

I read an article the other day, written by a lady defending the idea of living alone.  She’d been married and was in her fifties, but it was nice to see someone defending the choice to live alone for a change.  Clearly people who can’t appreciate why some chose to live alone do not understand the utopia that your own space can be.

I did my fair share of living with people.  I went from living with my family to sharing a dorm room the size of my parent’s laundry room with another person.  Now, having never shared a bedroom, much less a coat closet, this sucked.  And that was just the first of four completely crazy roommates.  My freshman roommate started dating a guy towards the end of the year.  I’d go off to study and come back to being locked out of my dorm room so they could have sex.   This does not a good roomie make.

My sophomore roomie was utterly depressed.  She had good reasons for being so, however I was looking for someone to live with who was a) interested in getting out of bed and b) opening the blinds to see the rare Oregon sunshine on occasion.  I told the housing director if he didn’t find me my own room I’d pitch a tent in the middle of the quad.  And that I was a champion camper so don’t test me.  He moved me to the top of the list and I got my own room.

One of my junior roomies locked her door after swallowing pills and a boatload of booze.  After breaking up with someone names Harold Haroldson.  I wish I were kidding about the name.  Security had to break down the door but she turned out to be fine.  Just emotionally crazy, no long term damage.

One of my senior roomies loved purple.  I mean LOVED purple.  Her car was painted purple.  Her parents painted their house purple.  Her bedroom liked like Barney threw up in there.   She also repeatedly stole my brown sugar.  This is mostly annoying, but no twenty-something should be that addicted to a color.

So after the sheer volume of crazy roommates, it’s not a stretch to see why I prefer living alone.  I did have one good room mate living experience with a co-worker and we’re actually still friends.  The only person I’ve lived with and we still like each other all these years later.  It probably helped that we had a third, male, roommate.

So I’ve spent the last 7-ish years living alone.  And I love it.  To the point that if I ever decide to get married, I don’t just want side-by-side individual beds, I want side-by-side houses.  Maybe a duplex would be more economical.  There are certainly some good tax implications there. 

Anyway, since I find myself quite entertaining most of the time, living alone doesn’t faze me in the least.  Occasionally I wish the food fairy or laundry fairy would make an appearance, but the good outweighs the bad.   For example, no one (besides Hulu - yes I know how long I've been watching, quit judging me!) could comment on the Revenge marathon I just went through.  I don’t have to explain why I’m addicted to the damn show and just watched 30 episodes in a week.

Whose dirty dishes in the sink?  Mine.  Whose shoes littering my living room?  Mine.  Whose underwear littering the bedroom floor?  I have no idea; I have a laundry basket for that.   Here’s the thing, I can do what I want, when I want and no one is there to pass judgment.  If I want company, I go visit friends.

Personally, I think everyone should live alone at some point in your life.  It’s important to learn how to be just you, how to entertain yourself and how to get through a bottle of wine by yourself before it goes bad.  I still haven’t mastered that one.  Alone doesn’t mean lonely.  Alone means freedom.

The usual definition of alone is separate, apart, isolated from others.  I like the alternate definition . . . unique or unequaled.  

Rain, rain

After about 90 days without rain, a PDX record, we’ve officially entered the rainy season.  Of course after experiencing perhaps the nicest summer PTown has experienced since I’ve lived here, I’m doing my best to take the rain in stride.  My goal is to make it to Thanksgiving before I start complaining about the rain.   

Truth be told, I was ready for fall.  I love summer, but I had a whole closet of fall accessories waiting for their turn in the spotlight.  Or “rainlight,” if you will.  I own at least six different rain coats.  All different weights, fabrics and rain repellant-ness.  No, seven jackets I think.  I have two rain jackets specifically for running in the rain.  And hot pink rain boots.   

The leaves have started to change color, fall off the trees and make a huge mess on my car.  The mornings are brisk and I have to wear a jacket (I told you, I’m a sucker for accessories).  My umbrella is once again a staple in my purse.  Although not so much an accessory as I finally broke down and bought the one with the lifetime warranty (that might be the final step of officially becoming a Portlander).  College football rules Saturday TV and my Beavs are 6-0.   

Best of all, the rain makes it really easy to sleep in.  I wake up, listen to the rain, decide I’m not missing anything outside and roll over and go back to sleep.  After a crazy summer schedule, it’s nice to settle in to the slower pace of fall.

Camping Solo

I love to camp.  I’m not sure why a normal person looks forward to sleeping on the ground, and maybe that isn’t my favorite part, but I’ve always enjoyed camping.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing it since infancy.  Maybe it’s because I can out camp most guys I know these days.  Maybe it’s the happy childhood memories of family camping trips with Oreo’s, tiny boxes of sugar cereal and orange soda.  Whatever it is, I am in my element when camping.

Lately I’ve been wondering if I could handle camping by myself.  It’s hard to coordinate with other friends and their kids now or to find people interested in camping.  In my day-to-day life it’s usually just me, so I don’t have an issue being alone, but at home I have a TV and computer to distract me.  I was worried that camping would be an awful lot of, well, ME time.

I was planning an overnight camping trip with friends, but since it’s just as much work to go camping for one night as it is seven, I decided to make it two nights.  Even if that meant camping alone one night.  I was far more worried about getting bored with myself than I was being attacked in my sleep.  After making promises to my worry wart friends, who WERE worried about me getting attacked, that a) I would text often and b) I had weapons to defend myself, I decided to go for it.

I ended up at Beacon Rock around one and picked out the ideal camp site.  I slowly set up camp, in no rush since it was just me.  I picked up some firewood and used the hatched to cut some kindling.  In addition to needing to be able to start a fire, I figured it would help to know exactly where it was just in case I ended up needing to use it on an axe murderer that my friends were convinced was lurking in the campground.  After a short walk I took a nap.  There is something special about napping in a tent.  The ground doesn’t feel nearly as hard at 4pm as it does at 4am.  Eventually I got up, read a book, cooked dinner and enjoyed a campfire with a glass of wine.  It was a ridiculously peaceful day.

My friends ended up coming right before bedtime that night, so I didn’t get the full experience of attempting to sleep while camping alone. It’s far more relaxing than staying at home because at home there is always something you could be doing.  In the woods, your could be doings are pretty limited to all things relaxing.   Clearly I don’t need to worry too much about being bored. 

Missoula and a Dose of Humility

I woke up at 3:58 am.  Exactly 3 minutes before my alarm went off.  Automatically I shut off the alarm so it wouldn’t wake my mom, even though I knew she’d be up as soon as I took that first step out of bed.  Despite the fact that I was sleeping in a hotel and had only gotten about 4-5 hours of sleep, I felt rested.  Since my brain doesn’t work this early in the morning, I was thankful I’d had the foresight to lay out my clothes the night before and headed to the bathroom to get dressed. 

I still can’t decide which is worse: having to eat at 4:15 am or run 13.1 miles.  It’s seriously a toss-up.   But having just done a race under fueled, the brain kicked in and I shoveled in the oatmeal until I thought I’d be sick.  Then it was back to basics.  Body glide everywhere that chafes.  Tape up my right foot and shin.  Tie up my shoes.  Ipod and Gu?  Check.  Even at 4:30 am, there is something reassuring about the routine.  Doing the things you’ve done hundreds of times before, this time you’re just adding a race bib.

The best mom in the world drove me across town at 4:45 am to drop me off at the busses to be shuttled to the start.  “See you around 8 to 8:10ish” I said as I hopped out of the car.  My brain was finally starting to clear and wake up and get excited as thousands of runners are out and about waiting to catch the shuttle.  I of course picked the open seat on the bus next to the cute guy.  It was his first ever half marathon.  I found myself amazed at how upbeat, cheerful and chatty everyone was this early in the morning.  The sun wasn’t even up yet.  It’s hard not to be excited when surrounded by other runners before a race.  The sane part of my brain was asking what in the hell I was doing on a bus at 5am to go run 13 miles.

The time between getting to the start and the gun, or cannon in this instance, going off is the worst for me.  I killed time by standing in porta potty lines (they have Sweet Peas, not Honey Buckets) and chatting with other runners.  Finally it was time to start lining up.  The cannon and fireworks went off at 6am sharp.  The sun wouldn’t come up for another 15 minutes.  The first three miles were some of the most scenic I’d ever run.  We followed a river and were told to keep our eyes open for moose.  Then the sun started to rise above the mountains.  Despite the pain yet to come, it was worth it simply to be running at dawn in Montana.

The first six miles of my race were great.  I hadn’t felt that good running in a while and was holding 9:15’s.  Unfortunately, the race was not a 10K.  Mile 7 was okay and then all hell broke loose by mile 9.  Here is where I started to feel the under training due to injuries, the injuries themselves and the cold I’d contracted while in Montana.  Here is where the race is more mental than physical, your brain is more important than your legs.  Here is where it hurts.  Here is where its gut check time.  Here is where you realize this isn’t going to be the race you wanted to run.  That instead you’re just going to finish.  Here is where the running gods teach you a lesson in humility.  I expected it to hurt.  But expecting and experiencing are two different things.

Miles 12 and 13 were two of the longest in my life.  To be so close yet not have the ability to go faster to be done.  To just be holding on for dear life.  The last 0.1 mile felt pretty good though.  Nothing feels quite as good after a challenging run to turn that last corner and see the finish line.

Despite the race not being what I imagined it to be when I signed up, I learned a few things.  I fueled much better for this race than the last one.  Since fueling is something I struggle with for long runs, this was some good information to acquire.  I learned that I can run 13 miles undertrained, I can gut out five grueling miles.  There is something to knowing what your body is capable of doing on sheer guts if you ask it to.

It wasn’t my perfect race but I got to run in Montana.  In the sunshine.  My first half that wasn’t in the rain!  And I want a rematch with that course.  Someday when I’m healthy, that course is prime for giving me a PR.

The Bro Hug

It’s not unusual for something out of the ordinary to happen at work.  The subprime mortgage industry blows up.  JPM loses $2 billion on a bad bet.  The Eurozone is in a crisis.  PIMCO makes the wrong bet on Treasurys and I spend months explaining their poor performance.   Having to roll with the punches of the market is nothing new.  But what happened at a recent client meeting was definitely new.  And I’m not just talking about the committee member who referred to a choir as singing “Acapulco.”  Yesterday at a client meeting, I got bro hugged. 

People who know me know that I am not a very outwardly affectionate person.  It takes a long time for me to be comfortable hugging friends.  The rare exception being the friends who would hug a tree upon meeting it and thus don’t give me a choice.  Given the option, I’m more of a high-five person.  I have a very large personal space bubble.  It’s shrinking, but it’s definitely still bigger than the average persons.  And everyone who has met me is aware of this.

Luckily, finance is centered on the firm handshake.  That I can do.  No need to enter anyone’s bubble and only your right hand has to touch.  Brilliant.  What I failed to take into account is that many Trustees do not have finance experience.  This usually just rears its ugly head when you’re trying to explain what the hell a hedge fund is, or some other industry jargon.  Yesterday it resulted in a bro hug.  I went in for the handshake with a new Trustee and found myself bro hugged. 

Besides the obvious fact that I am not a hugger of friends, much less people I don’t know and my abnormally large personal space bubble, I discovered I don’t know what to do with a bro hug.  Girls do not bro (or possibly bra for the female tense) hug.  We shake, high five or hug.  We are all in or all out.  None of this modified hugging that implies manliness because you only have one arm wrapped around the other guy.  The purpose of the bro hug was a bit befuddling to me to being with.  Finding myself in one was completely flummoxing (I was going to with confounding here but then I used the thesaurus and flummoxing just sounds way more intense.).

It’s not all together unheard of for me to be fuddled.  The bro hug though?  I did not see that one coming.

Turkey Instead of Turkey

“Heidi, you’ve been talking about going to Turkey for like five years.  Just go already.”  And with that slightly exasperated comment from my cube mate, I hit the purchase button.  Its official, after about five years of talking about Turkey, I am finally going.  Ironically, for the American Turkey Day holiday.

I’ve always liked history.  Partly because I have a great memory and could regurgitate dates and events easily for history exams, but mostly because I like knowledge.  I like knowing how as a world and civilization we got from point A to point B.  I like knowing how people used to live.  And after visiting Italy last year I realized I really like seeing it up close in person.  It’s one thing to know that the Coliseum was built so that it could be emptied in 10-15 minutes (and amazingly, a better stadium design has yet to be created), but it’s a whole other experience to be standing in it.  So for a history buff, what better place to go than the epicenter of three of the largest/greatest empires in history?

So two days before Thanksgiving I will find myself on a plane headed for Istanbul, where I will then spend 11 days touring Turkey.  In addition to getting to cross a country off my to-do list, this will also be my first solo travel experience.  Oh, I fly all over to meet up with people in the US and Canada, but this time it’s just me.  I did however join up with a tour group to make my life easier. I’m using the same group my mom and I went to Italy with since that was such an amazing experience.  I figure if I’m going to all the trouble and expense of flying half way around the world, I may as well make it an actual vacation.  There is a lot to be said for not having to worry about how the transportation from city to city will work or trying to figure out where you’re going to sleep.

One of the few classic novels I had to read in high school was the Iliad.  I do not recall enjoying the experience.  Despite that, I am really looking forward to seeing the classical city of Troy.  Because while I might not have enjoyed the novel that made the city immortal, how brilliant was the Trojan Horse idea?

Currently my biggest worry is I can’t speak the language.  And because the language isn’t based on Latin, I don’t even have a clue as to how to pronounce the cities I will be vising (Troy aside, obviously).  I didn’t speak Japanese either when I went there, but was in a group with some people who did.  Clearly I need to start studying up on my Turkish.  And happily the Turkish Lira is worth almost half of the US dollar.  So much cheaper than the Euro, which my travel budget and frugal nature appreciates.  

Turkey for Turkey Day.  This is sure to be an unforgettable Thanksgiving.

Camping

I used to drag all of my Portland city friends camping once a year.  We’re talking camping at a state campground with flush toilets and showers, not exactly roughing it.  The first year we went, I went to go cut some kindling and one friend was appalled that I had brought an axe camping.  It was a hatchet and was perfect for both kindling and pounding my tent steaks into the ground.  The next year someone brought a stack of Dura-flame logs for the campfire.  And then couldn’t figure out how to light them after removing the wrappers off of all of the logs.  Amateurs. 

So my camping trip over Memorial Day weekend was a pleasant reprieve.  This is what happens when you go camping with the guys you grew up with and your brother – all Montanans and experienced outdoorsmen.  Or at least experienced campers.  Experienced to the point that when I realized I had forgotten a lighter, 2 lighters and a torch were tossed my direction.  And I never once got to, I mean had to, man the fire (or start it or cut kindling).

Once camp was set up, we rented a small boat and went crabbing in a bay.  And while I don’t eat things from the sea, or have any desire to toss or pull crab traps, I had a delightful time attempting to balance the boat so the guys didn’t fall overboard.  And even though I wasn’t eating them, it was really fun to catch crabs.  We even caught three big enough to keep.

It wasn’t until the next morning that we realized we weren’t quite the perfect campers.  We sat around the fire staring at the coffee pot.  Who knew how to make cowboy coffee on the fire?  My dad always did that part and had coffee ready when I climbed out of the tent.  And since our dads are the epitome of outdoorsmen, and would have laughed at us, we opted to experiment rather than call home.  Seriously, if you looked up outdoorsman in the dictionary, you would see a picture of Roland and Matt.

Sometimes it’s fun to be the experienced camper.  To have all the gear and know what you’re doing.  And sometimes it’s really nice to go camping with other experienced people, sit back and let the guys do all the hard work.

Inspiration

My life lesson of the week is that inspiration is relative.  You don’t have to be Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Michael Jordan or Oprah to inspire people.  Sometimes just being yourself inspires people around you.  Huh.

I was out for a run last week and ran into a classmate from grad school.  After doing that weird dance of thinking you recognize someone, realizing you know who they are but do they recognize you and then acknowledging you do know each other, all while running past each other in the space of about three seconds, I found myself stopped to talk mid-run.  Usually I hope for a bridge lift during runs but this was a much more fun reason to stop for a few minutes.

After doing a brief catch up, she said that she’s starting to really get into running.  I love when people discover the amazingness that is running.  It’s such an exciting journey, especially in that time frame when it’s new and fresh and before you start to experience the annoyance of injuries.  She also mentioned that she found my running updates via Facebook (the good and the complaining) inspiring.  That made me stop mid-sentence.  I run maybe three times a week for a high mileage of twenty miles a week.  And I run slow.  Last week I was passed by a man pushing a stroller and pulling his dog.  Uphill.  I was highly confused as to what inspiration could possibly be found in there.   I found myself stunned and pleased and grateful for this new perspective.

 I have friends who run marathons and ultras.  That is who I look up to in my running life.  I have friends doing Ironman’s.  That is inspiring.  The people I see running who are clearly overweight and trying to make a change in their life?  Those are the runners who are inspiring.  An average Joe who runs to ease stress and so she’s tired enough to sleep at night?  That hardly seems inspiring.  But apparently inspiration is relative.  As I’ve had a difficult couple of running weeks, I’m trying to keep this in mind.  A crappy run is better than no run at all.  And you never know who you’re inadvertently inspiring while celebrating or whining about life to your Facebook friends. 

Rock N Roll Half Marathon

It took me a couple days, but I finally figured out why I was disappointed with my run on Sunday.  I truly believe I ran the best race I could have on that particular day.  It’s the knowing I can do better that is eating at me days later.  I have to keep reminding myself that my time was perfectly respectable, faster actually than I anticipated.  And I finished in the top 20% of my age group and females and the top third of all 11,000+ participants.  But it’s the knowing I can do better that makes me glad I’m only 6 weeks out from my next half marathon. 

The course was more challenging than I anticipated.  While the net elevation change was only 50 feet, the entire course was hilly.  Now anyone who has been to Portland knows the town is built on a hill, but it was the constant up and down that got to me.  More so the up than down.  The up sections were filled with lots of f-bombs going through my head.  The downs with sincere thanks to God.

Perhaps the thing I enjoyed most about the race was the road support from complete strangers.  The entire 13.1 mile course was lined with people cheering for the runners.  People out to breakfast on Hawthorne sat outside cheering while drinking their coffee and eating their pancakes.  Little kids stood in the rain trying to get high-fives.  One man stood at the end of his driveway playing the banjo on a particularly steep uphill climb.  Of all the races I’ve done this one by far had the most people cheering.  As someone who does the entire race alone and doesn’t come with my own cheering squad, it’s nice to have strangers lining the course cheering you up a hill.

The hardest part for me wasn’t getting through 13 miles.  It was the fact that I felt tired starting at mile three.  My legs and lungs were fine, but my body and mind were tired.  Typically at the 10 mile marker I start to pick up the pace.  At that point, there is only a 5k left and it’s time to get moving.  At mile 12 I was completely shot.  Everyone like to race into the finish, but I was done.  Instead of going balls out the last mile like everyone else, I was hanging on for dear life.  Instead of sprinting into the finish, I was telling myself you can’t walk into the finish with all these people watching.  Instead of finishing strong, I felt beat to hell.  Never before have I had absolutely zero kick at the end of a race.  My mind wanted to go faster.  My body gave my brain a giant middle finger.

So what was the problem?  Probably a combination of things.  First of all I shouldn’t expect to be at peak racing performance after only 3 months of running after having taken the previous six months off.  I also think nutrition played a big part.  Somehow I had just enough calories to run but not as many as I need to race.  At least not the way I would like. 

I have to keep reminding myself how far I’ve come.  No, I didn’t PR, but I ran a solid race, quicker than I anticipated and best of all, I’m not broken.  I have the usual post-race aches and pains but not the debilitating injuries I’m used to having after training of this sort. 

Right now I’m really glad I signed up for another half.  With another 100 miles of training under my belt and some dietary revisions, I’m excited to see what is possible in Missoula in six weeks.

Running Smarter

One thing that stands out in my memory of the 2008 Summer Olympics, aside from Michael Phelps taking home 8 gold medals, is the story of Dara Torres. She was making a comeback after taking years off from swimming, the Olympics and having a kid. In addition to that, I believe she was the oldest swimmer in attendance. I think she only swam the 50 Free, but what I remember most is her talking about how her training had needed to change as she aged. She didn’t just bring a coach to the Olympics, she brought a masseuse and a personal stretcher and a trainer and any number of other specialized people to help her perform at her best.

I hadn’t given that much thought until recently, when I decided to train for a half marathon. Somewhere along the way, I realized that while I wasn’t old, my body was aging. It’s no longer effortless to go out and race a 5k with no training. My body can’t handle running 7 days a week anymore. Hell, my body doesn’t even like running two days in a row at this point. Somewhere along the line, cross training became not only important, but necessary.

But even the cross training has changed. I used to spend time on the elliptical instead of running, which is really stupid because 1) it’s the same motion and 2) I hate the elliptical. So this time around I’m trying to be smarter about training. And part of being smarter means realizing that I probably won’t run low 8’s anymore. Right now I’m struggling to get under 10’s consistently, but the good news is I’m healthy. I’ve added weights and yoga to my cross training. Who would have ever thought I would be doing yoga? But it actually helps, and not just with my flexibility. Yoga gives my mind a chance to recover as well. Running alone gives a person an awful lot of time to be inside your own head! I’m also trying to work on adding swimming to the mix consistently, anything to mix it up to keep me interested in the training process.

And thinking along the lines of Dara Torres, I’m also getting regular massages. Not as regular as I’d like, but regular enough to beat back the major issues that spring up when I run. I still get shin splints and my hips are still tight, but I’m nowhere needing MRI’s, cortisone shots and physical therapy. I consider that serious progress.

I’m five weeks out from the first of two planned half marathons. And for the first time in a long time, I’m more concerned with staying healthy and injury free than I am with my finish time. I’m not getting any quicker as I age, but I’m getting smarter about how I do the things I can enjoy so I can do them for a long time to come.

Backpacking 101

Every now and then I get a bee in my bonnet about doing some event or visiting some place. For example, I must go to Alaska and see Denali. Once I decided I needed to run a half marathon (this year I decided I might need to run two). I also really need to go to Switzerland – my name is Heidi for crying out loud. And I need to see Machu Picchu and Angkor Wat. Recently I decided that I need to hike the West Coast Trail on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

To be completely honest, I’ve never really been backpacking. I went once with my dad and another father/son pair when I was barely old enough to carry my own pack and sleeping bag. While it seemed quite impressive at the time, I have a feeling all I was carrying was my clothes and sleeping bag while my dad carried the tent, food and anything else we would need. Then a couple years ago I backpacked into a cabin in Juneau with some friends. Although it was only about two miles and since the kids were 4 and 3 at the time, it’s not like we were moving very fast. And once again, the guy carried all the really heavy stuff (often in addition to a kid).

But I love to camp, love the outdoors, love to walk and am an excellent packer and organizer. It seemed like this was an adventure made for me. I’ve been slowly stockpiling supplies over the years. I no longer have to borrow my brothers JetBoil, SteriPen. And he even bought me a ¾ size sleeping pad for backpacking. Okay, I thought it as for backpacking, he said it was because I was ¾ the size of a normal person.

I recently attended a “Backpacking 101” class at REI. Whereupon I realized for the first time that I have to carry everything. EVERYTHING. Not just clothes and water, but gear and food and anything else I might need. The idea of a multi-day backpacking trip is much more daunting than it was previously. I knew I would have to pack all my own stuff, but suddenly seeing all the gear laid out, and thinking about organizing food and water and all the other logistics made this venture a bit more daunting than it had been in my mind.

I still need to major items – a backpack and hiking boots. Once I have those things I am ready to go. I think I’ll start with an overnighter and see how that goes first, and then work my way up to a multi-day trip. And then maybe next year I’ll be ready for the West Coast Trail. Once I learn how to pack and am sure I can survive carrying a 50 lb. pack. This should be an interesting adventure.

Welcome Home, Little Brother!

After missing three ceremonies in a row, two deployment and one return, I finally got to shed my worst sister in the world title. After being deployed for a year in Kuwait, again, my little brother finally came home mid-February. And this time I planned no trips for the months surrounding the supposed return date because I’ve learned the hard way that if you’ve scheduled a trip around a ceremony date, it’s practically guaranteed that the Army will change the ceremony date to when you’re scheduled to be on a plane.

This time I was around and able to make it to Ft. Lewis, despite being given only 48 hours notice. Since I live 2.5 hours from Ft. Lewis, this shouldn’t have been an issue at all, except I had decided to make an elaborate welcome home sign to help make up for the fact that I’d never been to a ceremony before. I knew exactly what I wanted the sign to look like and spared no expense. It took going to 3 craft stores before I had all the right materials. Since I couldn’t find a machine that cut out letters, I did it the old fashioned way: printing a stencil template, cutting the stencils out, tracing letters onto the camo paper, cutting out the final letters and retracing and cutting letters L, G, P and R when I learned the hard way that those have to be traced backwards. By the end I was cursing the absurdly long last name we share as my scissor fingers felt permanently dented from overuse. It was a serious process and took over two hours to cut everything out. It was totally worth it though when we got to the ceremony and I had the best looking sign there. My sign kicked all those kids’ “welcome home daddy” signs’ butts. Although to be fair, those were the ones that make a person choke up – not so much the case with my scrapbooked sign. The one thing I was missing was lights. Next time . . . Everyone in the family, and some ceremony attendees, were quite impressed with my sign. I suspect my brother was more impressed and pleased with the two six packs of his favorite beer that came with the sign.

You get used to someone being gone and don’t necessarily recognize all the little things you miss until they’re back. We were able to text and email while he was gone, but with a 10 hour time difference, it wasn’t always easy or timely. Now that he’s back, we’ve been playing “words with friends” and arguing constantly over who stole who’s letters and who is the smarter sibling (me, obviously). I missed going running with him and being able to pick up the phone and call him when something reminded me of him or an inside joke we shared. Perhaps most of all, I missed him bickering with me. We bicker out of love, but nobody can do a verbal sparring match like a Goertzen. I also missed using him for his big screen TV and cable, him yelling at me while trying to play video games because I’m terrible at them and his movie collection, which I used as my own movie library. I even missed being able to see his “you’re an idiot” look when I say something he deems as stupid (I can sense from a distance when I’m getting this look, but it’s just not the same as having it directed to your face).

So welcome home, Bert. I’m so very glad you’re back.

The Break-Up

You know that point of a relationship when you know in your gut it’s not working anymore? It used to be so easy and fun and you just want to get back to good. That point where you know it’s not going to get better, but you still fight it, still try to make it work. You need to pull the plug, but knowing that is what’s best and doing it are two different things? That was how I spent much of 2011. Then in September of 2011, I finally pulled the plug, and broke-up with running.

I used to love to run. It was easy and fun and took very little effort. And somewhere along the road, that all changed. Running became work. I resented the miles I was putting in. And just like anything, person or sport, nobody likes to resent something or someone they once loved. So I took a break. I wasn’t sure how long the break would last, but I needed a serious break. I’ve been running pretty consistently since college. I wasn’t running ultras or even marathons, but I logged miles every single week. With such a dramatic change in my life, I thought I’d feel a little lost. Instead all I felt was relief.

I spent about five months doing anything but running. I didn’t even have a pair of running shoes. Instead I went for walks, lifted weights and did a little of nothing. For once in my life I wasn’t worried about logging miles or working out every single day. My body and my psyche started to heal and running was no longer an enemy.

And just like when you end a relationship with a person, eventually you’re ready to try again. My legs started to get twitchy, like they were ready for more than just a walk. I finally felt ready to give running a try again. I started just running a little bit, a couple miles. And it didn’t suck. And then I found myself putting on my running shoes on a Saturday afternoon for the first time in a long time. I updated my running ipod and set off into the sunshine. Sunshine in February, how could I resist? Perhaps most important was what I didn’t take. I left my Garmin at home. All I wanted to do was enjoy a run. It didn’t matter how far I went or how fast (or slow) my pace was. It didn’t matter that I walked up a hill that I usually run up. All that mattered was that I was running. And it was fun again.

Once again I felt relief. Relief that maybe my relationship with running wasn’t over after all. Maybe, like Ross and Rachel, all we needed was a break. In effort to preserve the enjoyment of running, I have a new goal. Not to run a marathon or a sub-7 mile. No, this goal is a little more simple and enjoyable. To leave the Garmin at home a little more often and just run for the sheer joy of it.

The Wingwoman

After years of searching, I have finally found what I’ve always been looking for . . . the perfect wingman. Or in this case, wingwoman.

One of my goals this year is to get out of my comfort zone and try new things. Which is how I found myself at a networking event on a Tuesday night. Knowing that I need to meet some new people and also knowing that I’m not great at small talk and starting conversations with strangers, I made friends come with me. Friends who are good at small talk and talking to strangers. Friends like Jen.
Upon our arrival, Jen managed to strike up a conversation with a cute guy before we even put our coats down. Brilliant. Best of all, Jen is married and noticeably pregnant (by noticeably, I do not mean large, I mean very cutely pregnant looking with a sweet little volleyball in front) in addition to being great at talking to people.

To my great delight, the same cute guy found us later in the evening, with additional cute guy friends in tow. Besides being unavailable to cute single boys, Jen is also a great wingwoman because she doesn’t try to steal the stage. She helps carry on the conversation, but isn’t overwhelming, and makes sure I can be involved in the conversation too so that it’s not assumed I’m a mute. And when one cute boy says he’s from Montana, the response is, “Oh my gosh, Heidi is from Montana too!”

So now that I’ve found her, or not so much her but this untapped skill of wingwoman, we have a lot of networking to do before this baby comes.