Tiffy V3

I always talk about the 3 people in my life, the person I used to be, the current me and the woman I see that I want to be.  I used to hate the person I used to be.  Now I feel sorry for her, but also care about her and honestly, want to take her with me wherever I got and give her the life she always deserved.  I see the person that I want to be and there are moments where I am her and I am happy and comfortable, but then she is gone just as quickly as she arrived.  I want 2013 to be the year she stays more often than not.  I want this to be the year of Tiffy V3.  I want to be that person.  I want her to live this life and hold V1 and V2 with her helping them to live the same life.  I have to make some serious changes and I have to fight those scary, horrifying thoughts that creep in my mind through any and every crack they can find.  Only I can work on that, and I know that, but it is hard work.  I need to work really hard.  Tomorrow is a fresh start for everyone.  The question for me is, can I find the strength to do it?  Can I actually do it?  My emotional eating is worse than it has been in years.  Can I learn to control that again?  Can I stop the negative back talk I give myself?  Can I stop being suspicious of everyone and everything including myself?  I do not know.  I just do not know. 

Family

Are we all on a path to make our families nuts as we get older?  Am I going to drive my children crazy as they grow older and move into adulthood?  I often wonder that.  It seems to be the way it always works despite the best of intentions. I know my family is crazy, but my husband's side of the family has gotten crazier and crazier and I am not sure how to deal with it.  I just find the whole thing very confusing personally.
I have not taken care of my body over the last few days.  I have exercised, of course, but the eating has not been good.  Too much crap and candy.  All of that stops tomorrow.  The hubby and I are going to come up with a plan and really get it going. I hope we stick to it.  Losing 10-15 pounds will help me run faster.  I would really like to get faster.  It would be nice.  I ran in sleet yesterday.  That was a new one for me.  I give a lot of credit to my BFF.  I ran in the wet and cold and because we were so engrossed in our conversations, I barely noticed.  Thanks, BFF, for getting me through.  She is a good friend.  I am lucky to have her in my life.  Very lucky and I really feel that these days.  We crossed into new topics that we stayed away from recently.  I finally have a close friend to whom I can talk about anything and I mean anything.  I love it!
Merry Christmas.  I am actually happy to get back to real life tomorrow.  Just been a bit too stressful over the last two days.  Work will be stressful, but it is stress that is constant for me so I think I can deal with it. 

The universe talking to me?

Apparently, I have vicarious traumatic stress disorder.  I love that everything has a name now.  I say that it is BS.  At least for me.  I am not afraid.  Quite the contrary, I feel stronger.  Rather, I just feel heartbroken for 20 moms, two of whom buried children today.  My ability to empathize has always been stronger than most.  I that is what gives people like me the desire to be peace-makers and friends with everyone.  We never want anyone to feel left out or hurt.  When I get upset, I want to eat but eating upsets my stomach so I have taken to walking instead.  After running 10 miles on hills yesterday, I walked another 10k.  (My abs are so sore today.)  I walked a 10k today too.  I wish I had a treadmill at work.  It would certainly eat some of the stress.  It just makes me focus on how I want to quit walking but I am so stubborn I will not so it gives me something else to focus on.  It ultimately makes me feel better to have the quiet peace of just walking.  I am hoping that I feel the same quiet peace working out tomorrow and doing a long run this weekend.  My mind is constantly craving the tiredness I get from working out so hard.  I want to go walk now, but here I am cooking dinner.  Tomorrow I row.  Hopefully the workout will be enough to charge me mentally for the rest of the day.  If not, there will be a short walk during the kids' video after dinner. 
I am sure every runner who plans to run a marathon in 2013 feels like the universe is speaking to them.  26 killed and 26 miles in a full marathon.  I feel the irony of that.  This grief, honestly, is helping me and motivating me to get seriously into shape since my mind and body feel the need to really constantly work in the physical sense now.  So maybe the universe is telling me something.  I remember hearing a long time ago that everything happens for a reason.  Even the bad stuff.  Either that event is to change the person it happens to or a person around them or someone they may not even know.  This event is changing me.  I certainly love my kids more and I do not mean that in that I actually love them more.  I mean that in that I show them that I love them more.  I appreciate them more.  Yes, my daughter is still maddening, but I get that when I drop them off at school that I used to take it for granted that they would come home.  Not so much these days.  When I had kids someone told me that they are loan from God.  I forgot along the way somewhere.  This event has made me remember that.  Courage.  It took courage for those 6 women to protect the children that they could.  I bet they never even thought twice about it.  They just did what was instinctual.  It is what we do best as women.  We protect and that takes courage.  Lots of it.  In that moment, I bet they felt no fear for themselves.  They just knew that they had to protect those children.  Talk about strength.      

Two days later

Two day later I sit here and watch my son who is in first grade, my son who made me a mother and is the sweetest child in the world.  I sit here and know that 20 mothers a few states away are grieving for loss of their first grade children.  I do not know how to process it.  I just cannot fathom how you move on in the face of this kind of tragedy.  How do you get up and get dressed.  How do you face the world?  I sit here and think about 20 mothers I do not even know and think about how scared their children were in that moment.  I do not understand.  When my son is afraid, he wants me.  Keep in mind that my husband outweighs me by a good 80 pounds and is 7 inches taller than I am and most assuredly much stronger, but my son wants me as if I can protect him in a way that his father cannot.  In the last moments of those children, who did they want and who did they think of immediately.  I know it was their moms.  That thought just tears me to shreds.  I do not understand why he did what he did.  We are all searching for understanding and I am not sure that understanding will ever come.  How can one ever truly understand hurting a child?
A report this am was talking about one of the teachers who told her students to shut themselves in their cubbies ad she distracted the shooter and was, as a result, killed.  In her last moment of terror, she thought of her students.  It is what we do for children.  We do not shoot them.  We protect and save and do whatever we can to help them.  We do not hurt them.  I am not sure that it will ever make sense.  I pray for peace for those families, peace that I know cannot come this Christmas.  I pray for those mothers I will never know.   

Grief

Mothers all over the country are grieving today for those mothers who lost children yesterday.  It is horrifying, and words will never truly express the grief and pain that is the result of yesterday's event.  Every mother identifies with those mothers who lost children.  I just cannot understand.  The weight is too much to bear.  I do not know how those mothers are getting through at this moment.  I think it has to be lots of sedatives and Xanax.  Children.  Small children and a whole room full of them.  My daughter is 5.  My son is 7.  I just do not understand.  The grief is too much.  I watch the reporter some of whom are main anchors on morning shows on major news networks, and they are visibly upset.  It is just so sad.  For all of my problems with my daughter and all of my worries about my son and the kind of mother I am by working, I still have both of them here with me.  They sleep upstairs, and I am thankful for that. 
This tragedy led my mother and I into a discussion that gave me another piece of the puzzle.  My mother mentioned that many of these parents have bought holiday presents for those children.  She said that after Paul died, at the next Christmas, she thought about the Christmas presents she would have bought for him, and after that she always hated Christmas and never found joy in it again.  Paul died when my mother was 23.  This December 25th will mark her 68th holiday.  For 45 years she has hated Christmas and found no joy in it.  She raised 3 kids during those 45 years.   Why did we not deserve her joy at the holidays?  How was it possible that a child who never really lived took so much from the 5 of us.  How does that happen.  Many would say that I never felt the pain of losing a child so I do not understand.  That is true, but I have seen another way.  I have friends who tragically lost a child.  I see them and am amazed because they have grown in the last 7 years.  They still live life and still live life for their kids.  I am positive the feel the pain of their loss each and every day but they have pushed through and in essence unlike my mother, they did not die with their daughter.  I am sure part of them died, but pieces have still lived and remained and moved on.  My mother emotionally when Paul died.  It is another piece of the puzzle for me.  I try to hide emotions.  I try to act unemotional even in times of great pain.  That is not normal.  I do not want to live in fear or wallow in loss, and I believe that is what happens when you hide or ignore emotions.  It leads to bitterness and fear, and the constant comparison of what you have lost compared to others.  It becomes a contest which is exhausting.
A guy on Fox News was interviewed on how to deal with the tragedy.  He is a safety expert and he said that courage comes from the same place in the brain that fear does.  How powerful is that?     

Mental

I know running is part mental and part physical but for me running is truly based on the mental part.  I would say it is as high as 75-80%....maybe even more.  I was great today.  I was on fire.  I am sore now and will be sore tomorrow too, but I do not care.  It was worth it.  I knew going into the first few miles that I was feeling it, and it would be a good run. I freaking ran to the mall and back.  14.5 miles.  If I ran like this in races, I would kill it and beat every hope I have in running.  When the mental is right, I can fight back any pain that hits.  I can go and go and go despite pains.  The only pain I listen to in that state is the IT band because I know that will affect the running long term, but I had no IT band pain today.  Just calf tightness and muscle pains around the knees.  I had fun today.  I enjoyed it.  I got excited clicking off each mile rather than thinking, "Oh God...how do I keep going?"  That is what I think when I am fighting back the mental pain.  None of that entered my mind today.  I just kept going and going.  I wish I had more days like this.  I was happy that the fun in running today was back.  It was stressful during the period that it left.  I just wondered where it went and why I lost it and worried I would never get it back.  I am so glad that I got it back.  I feel ready to move into this next phase again, and I really want to move into this phase.  I hope this run I did today propels me into that time when it is all about the running and all about eating to help the running and all about just enjoying the running.  If I had been another mile from home today, I would have run it.  This is good. In order to get to the next level, I need to master the half marathon without feeling dead tired after.  I have to get to the next level. I signed up for the next level in Nov 2013.  I downloaded Whitney Houston's "One Moment in Time."  I love that it is on my playlist for running.  It totally fits.  As I listened to it running today, I imagined how it will feel to finish the marathon next Nov.  Talk about being something more than I ever thought I could be.  I never thought I would be a runner girl.  I would have bet someone a million dollars that would never have happened.  Here I am two halfs down and a half in June, a half in August, an 8 mile trail race in September and a full in November.  I typically run about 20-30 miles a week.  Who would ever think!  I am considering a 35k trail race.  I would love to work up to it.  Trail racing is where it is at!  It is the best feeling in the world.  So fun and enjoyable and so much satisfaction from the difficulty factor of it, but the best part is that you get the difficulty factor while you are totally distracted so it never really occurs to you how difficult it really is.  I just love it!  You get a serious runner's high. 
I feel like I am finally working on merging the person I am with the person I want to be.  That is a major part of the next phase I want to move into.  I want to be that woman.  Sometimes it is tough to remember that particularly when I am stressed or unhappy or feel like the world is falling apart, but today I am in touch with her. 

Messages from an overstressed working mom....

One down...329 to go.  I have one major hurdle down yesterday thanks to Papa Neal.  Only 329 more problems to resolve some of which are personal and some of which are professional.  Seems like the problems just keep stacking up.  I am always amazed at my ability to deal with more stress.  I always think of myself as super stressed out and not sure what to do, but in reality, I deal with a lot of stress and have the gift of compartmentalization with so it does not completely affect my life every moment.  Sure it comes in waves, but for the most part, I can ignore some.  Thankfully. 
I rowed this am.  I have started a new series of jumping exercises to help strengthen the hips and thighs.  So far so good.  Yesterday's run with my BFF was faster than our normal pace and it felt pretty effortless.  The funny thing about yesterday is that the temp was around 39/40 and it really did not bother me.  I keep telling her that she is toughening me up!  I am trying to ignore the numbers on the scale.  As long as I am eating right which I feel like I am for the most part (Ok, I had a cupcake yesterday but it was our holiday party at work...) and working out well 6 days a week, I am happy and doing what I should be doing.  It makes it hard to ignore the #'s on the scale not going down, but it is what it is.  So I was a bit depressed yesterday.  The Granny Smith apples I bought were on the sweeter side.  I like them super tart.  What the heck?
I am sitting here at 8:20am with the TV off.  I have to say, it is so nice.  The kids are entertained and the hubby is occupying himself with his iPod.  The constant sound coming from the TV tends to make me crazy so it is a nice change to have it off in the am.  Just peaceful.  We tend to rely too much on the TV as most folks do.  May sound weird coming from someone in TV, but it is true. 
Tomorrow is a long run.  I feel ready to tackle one again.  I am always fearful of wimping out, but I am hopeful that I will not do so tomorrow.  I just have to remember to keep on pushing.  If the sun is out, I find that I do better so fingers crossed that today's clouds disperse.  I am trying to stay in half marathon shape so the transition to full marathon training next fall goes well.  I know that I have a lot of time, but I have a lot of pride in doing the long runs, and it is not pride of how others see me.  It is very internal.  It makes me happy. 

Time is passing me by

Time is passing me by.  I realized that today.  I am losing time.  I want back the years that I lost and I spend so much time worrying about them that I fail to see that in some way, I am wasting these years too.  Do not get me wrong, I am definitely making progress, but I am not doing the things that I know I need to do to get where I want to be.  Professionally, I am great.  My job is ever changing which is fun in its own way and is very fulfilling.  That means that the changes I want are personal.  I taking small steps.  Too small.  I need to take much bigger steps if I want to make the progress that I want to make.  I feel like in some ways I have missed that step or I am lacking the drive to take those bigger steps.  Where is my drive.  It seems like it is failing me in some ways.  Where is my focus?  I am so focused in some ways, but not in this regard.  Something needs to change.  I have a lot of soul searching to do.  I need to figure out if I can really push myself.  I wonder if I really can push like that?  Why am I afraid and what am I afraid of?  What is the fear?  I do not want to be afraid.  Fear is causing me to lose time, something I cannot afford to lose.  Time...goes by so quickly....