I’m in Scottsdale for a business trip, staying at the Camelback Inn, which is an incredibly lovely resort. The weather is lovely and sunny so I figured I’d head out for a little run this morning, check out the scenery and get some exercise in before a long day of meetings. As I turned to head back to the hotel, the rising sun was at my back and lo and behold, there was my shadow jogging along in front of me, ponytail swinging rhythmically side to side with every step. And I thought, hey! There’s my running buddy. Me!
I’d been for a long run by myself on Saturday – 9 miles, which was sort of an accident. I only meant to do 8 but I misjudged the loop. It was a good run, nice and cool and overcast with really cool white clouds hovering over the snow-covered mountains. I pushed myself on the time and ran full out up every hill I encountered, including trotting doggedly up a steep pedestrian bridge that I have always walked in the past. I felt really good that day, like after the Salt Lake half last week I’ve overcome some kind of mental hurdle about being “a runner.” Let’s face it, even heading out of the hotel today for a morning run is something I don’t usually do. Sure, I take my shoes and my iPod on almost every trip but I don’t usually make it out the front door…too easy to make excuses, I don’t know where I’m going, I have too much to do, I can sleep in 30 more minutes, blah blah blah.
But something seems to have shifted in my head. And I think it’s my running buddy. My old running buddy looked a lot the same but, man, she was a negative bitch! You’re too slow, too tired, too out of shape. You can stop here, just walk for awhile, you can turn around here, that’s far enough, close enough. Your (stomach/foot/knee/shin/insert body part here) hurts so it’s okay to stop short or skip it altogether. My old running buddy made it easy to be a slacker, and she sure didn’t make me feel very confident. About anything.
My new running buddy is a lot more pushy, but in a good way. She tells me I can do more, go faster, farther. She’s proud of the fact that I got out of bed and out the door and down the street. She encourages me, tells me I’m doing a good job, reminds that this isn’t supposed to be easy – if it was, everyone would do it, kicks my butt into gear if I’m thinking about stopping or taking it easy up a particularly hard hill or last mile. She reminds me to focus on the flowers and blooming trees or the porch decorations of the houses on my route or the lyrics of “Sexy Back” rather than whatever little aches and pains come and go during a run. She says, you can make it to the next block, the end of this song, past that guy ahead of you and when I do she finds a new goal that seems pretty easy and before I know it, I’ve run another mile or two. She’s the one who’s always thinking of the next crazy thing we can do, like when we’re going to start training for the triathlon and getting into Lotoja and doing the Ragnar in the Tetons or Napa or Southern Utah, or even doing a half-marathon in Phoenix so we can come back to this lovely resort and weather in the middle of the next gloomy Utah winter.
She’s a lot more like my sister and Natalie or any of my real 3D, live running buddies who are there to prod me when I need it and give me a big WOO-HOO when I achieve my goals, no matter how small they may seem. Sometimes, it really is just getting out of bed in the morning.
I like my new running buddy. And I’m glad she’s with me all the time, even on cloudy days.
Monday, April 25, 2011
flashback: bye-bye babies
In some ways I think we’re lucky because we didn’t have to go through years of miscarriages or infertility treatments before we found out that adoption would be our path to having a family. We knew before we even got married. I can’t imagine how traumatic it would be to try and try with no success, through no fault of your own. The overburdening financial investment, the emotional investment. It’s just so much.
So we found out pretty quick that we wouldn’t have to deal with k...Here’s how it went down, based on some old journal entries I found recently:
4/25/2001:
I will never have babies of my own. At least that’s what the fertility doctor said yesterday. Am I willing to risk my health, thousands of dollars, for a 20% chance that a few frozen embryos might become our child someday? The answer, today, was “no.” Was it a hard decision? Hell yes. Harder after it was made than making it. I keep thinking of this psychic I went to years ago. She told me that one day I would have two children, including a little dark, curly haired girl who’s been waiting awhile for her second chance. She was one of my guardian angels.
So weird right? Like are psychics for real?! I now have TWO kids and our little girl’s hair is coming in dark and a little curly. Insert Twilight Zone song here…
I’ve been thinking about this dream I had years ago where I had a baby in a crib in this total 1970s ranch house with white shag carpet and a big slate stone fireplace that took up the whole wall of the living room. I put the baby in the freezer until this little insistent voice in my head kept telling me ‘mom’s going to be so pissed that you put the baby in the freezer! That’s not how you take care of them.’ So I took the baby out of the freezer (this is a dream, remember!) and her little pink onesie was all slushy like a half-frozen ice pack for the cooler.
I always wonder if that dream meant that I should have gone for it. Should we have tried to harvest some eggs and freeze them and hope that it would have worked out? Should money and fear have been less important in the decision making than hope? Should we have taken the chance and tried at least?
Maybe I’ll continue to be an anomaly and be one of the few to have a child after chemo-radiation. Maybe not. It was hard to sit at Bunco tonight and act normal listening to the three (count ‘em, three!) pregnant women there talk about baby names. We had some picked out too. They talked about ultrasounds. I saw one of my tumor last week and the frighteningly dark lymph nodes nearby. Like most ultrasounds, you can’t really tell what it is but I know it’s not a boy or a girl. Knowing what I know and they don’t is hard too, to accept that this is my reality. I know I can beat the cancer but at what cost? Financial hardship, losing my job, scars, colostomy bag (which let’s face it, is pretty hideous…a close second to dying in my book), change, alienation, no babies.
I remember that party. It was about the most awkward and lonely feeling I’ve ever had. I literally spent the evening looking at ultrasounds of peoples’ babies while I was carrying around an ultrasound of my cancer in my purse. I thought, what if I busted this out right now and showed them but didn’t tell them what it was. Would the ooo’s and aaaah’s have been the same? How much of an awkward TV moment would that have been?! Who ever thought you’d have a profound moment like that at Bunco.
Scott says it’s good that I’ve already accepted victory over the cancer and have moved on to worrying about the problems generated by survival and the treatments. He also says not to worry about the kids thing. “I don’t care if we don’t have kids. I can live the rest of my life without biological kids. I can live the rest of my life without kids at all. I can not live the rest of my life without you.” I’m so lucky.
Positive thoughts, love will guide me on unfamiliar paths and show me the inner strength I have not yet found.
It’s strange to read these musings 10 years later. We have our family and no matter how they came to us, these are our children. We can’t ever thank enough the people who gifted us with our family enough. I feel so damn lucky to have been there in the worst, darkest, saddest, most hopeless place and to be here now with the children I never thought I’d have and the life I always hoped I would have. There are some gifts for which there will never be thanks enough.
So we found out pretty quick that we wouldn’t have to deal with k...Here’s how it went down, based on some old journal entries I found recently:
4/25/2001:
I will never have babies of my own. At least that’s what the fertility doctor said yesterday. Am I willing to risk my health, thousands of dollars, for a 20% chance that a few frozen embryos might become our child someday? The answer, today, was “no.” Was it a hard decision? Hell yes. Harder after it was made than making it. I keep thinking of this psychic I went to years ago. She told me that one day I would have two children, including a little dark, curly haired girl who’s been waiting awhile for her second chance. She was one of my guardian angels.
So weird right? Like are psychics for real?! I now have TWO kids and our little girl’s hair is coming in dark and a little curly. Insert Twilight Zone song here…
I’ve been thinking about this dream I had years ago where I had a baby in a crib in this total 1970s ranch house with white shag carpet and a big slate stone fireplace that took up the whole wall of the living room. I put the baby in the freezer until this little insistent voice in my head kept telling me ‘mom’s going to be so pissed that you put the baby in the freezer! That’s not how you take care of them.’ So I took the baby out of the freezer (this is a dream, remember!) and her little pink onesie was all slushy like a half-frozen ice pack for the cooler.
I always wonder if that dream meant that I should have gone for it. Should we have tried to harvest some eggs and freeze them and hope that it would have worked out? Should money and fear have been less important in the decision making than hope? Should we have taken the chance and tried at least?
Maybe I’ll continue to be an anomaly and be one of the few to have a child after chemo-radiation. Maybe not. It was hard to sit at Bunco tonight and act normal listening to the three (count ‘em, three!) pregnant women there talk about baby names. We had some picked out too. They talked about ultrasounds. I saw one of my tumor last week and the frighteningly dark lymph nodes nearby. Like most ultrasounds, you can’t really tell what it is but I know it’s not a boy or a girl. Knowing what I know and they don’t is hard too, to accept that this is my reality. I know I can beat the cancer but at what cost? Financial hardship, losing my job, scars, colostomy bag (which let’s face it, is pretty hideous…a close second to dying in my book), change, alienation, no babies.
I remember that party. It was about the most awkward and lonely feeling I’ve ever had. I literally spent the evening looking at ultrasounds of peoples’ babies while I was carrying around an ultrasound of my cancer in my purse. I thought, what if I busted this out right now and showed them but didn’t tell them what it was. Would the ooo’s and aaaah’s have been the same? How much of an awkward TV moment would that have been?! Who ever thought you’d have a profound moment like that at Bunco.
Scott says it’s good that I’ve already accepted victory over the cancer and have moved on to worrying about the problems generated by survival and the treatments. He also says not to worry about the kids thing. “I don’t care if we don’t have kids. I can live the rest of my life without biological kids. I can live the rest of my life without kids at all. I can not live the rest of my life without you.” I’m so lucky.
Positive thoughts, love will guide me on unfamiliar paths and show me the inner strength I have not yet found.
It’s strange to read these musings 10 years later. We have our family and no matter how they came to us, these are our children. We can’t ever thank enough the people who gifted us with our family enough. I feel so damn lucky to have been there in the worst, darkest, saddest, most hopeless place and to be here now with the children I never thought I’d have and the life I always hoped I would have. There are some gifts for which there will never be thanks enough.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
a picture is worth...
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| How beautiful is this. And she never even mentions "photos" in her top 10 blogging tips. |
I'm always a second late so I get the splash and not the jumping flare. A little too much sun in the background which makes all the people shadowed, in a bad way. Or I just don't have my camera when Tagg is playing his guitar naked in the living room while Sloane dances in her diaper with her fist in the air. See! That's the kind of moment I need to capture.
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| How on earth do you make a beignet look this good without a professional photographer?! I'm ready to head to New Orleans to eat one, right now! |
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