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.