I wrote a poem earlier (blame it on the Food Network) and then went into the archives. So I figured I would throw a few out there. It's interesting to read old stuff and re-live some old head space. XXXOOO
Untitled
The lasagna could have been
A lovely dinner
Or the perogies I know you love
My hopes ascend over recipes,
I make lists for all the favorites.
Fresh herbs, chicken stock,
Italian sausage, all the cheeses.
“I forgot how good of a cook you are,”
made my night.
We all forget in the fog of accusations
And lies, until the fog clears.
But then the guilt,
the guilt,
the guilt.
“Make me chicken dumplings
Forever.”
The lasagna could have been
A lovely dinner.
The Realization The Things Will Never Be The Same
Paper, like we cement
Grabs my stupid words
Permanently on page.
I stumble on my mind
Where, just to piss me off,
He lives.
Redemption
Rain drops grace
My tired face.
I tilt
My head back,
Slightly to the right
And think
About the words that have come
Out of my mouth.
So I open that mouth,
Just a tad at first,
And let the rain sink in.
I’m in Nebraska,
It is clean and pure.
I smile and walk to my car.
Kitchen Philosophy
Sit in the kitchen and think about
What you’ve done wrong this year.
It’s December,
It will take a long time.
I’ll cook you breakfast
And we can laugh about February
And cry about August.
August Twenty-Something.
The day you left me.
Everything you had entered me
And I struggle to let you go.
I’ll turn the pancakes.
You figure out where we go
When we die.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
3,652 days...
“I had no idea what time I’d left, how I’d gotten home, who’d been up here, and how long he, she, or they had stayed. Another night, added to the hundreds that had gone before, shrouded in mystery. Really, when you thought about it, it was creepy. My own life was a secret to me.” ― Heather King, Parched
It’s the last line that gets me—“My own life was a secret to me.” Addiction is so secretive. We hide our feelings, our actions, and our use. We hide from people who love us. I did a lot of hiding for about a decade of my life. The lies I told myself might have been the worst ones. Like Heather, I was a secret to myself.
10 years. I guess I can now start typing my time in survivor years from addiction using numbers instead of having to spell out the number. Maybe that’s just the English major in me, or maybe it’s the part of me that likes to downplay things. I don’t feel the need to celebrate my wellness time. I try to celebrate my health everyday.
Last week Monday, I was on a plane coming home from Chicago. I’d had an amazing weekend with my mom and two of my aunts. The goal of the trip for me was singular, to finish the Chicago Marathon. I’d run two marathons previously, so I knew I could do it, but Chicago is one of the World Major Marathons. (New York, Boston, Berlin, Paris, and Tokyo are the others.) They are the majors for a reason—they are the races everyone wants to run. The elites are there. The biggest prize monies are awarded. You have to have good qualifying times to get a bib. Or, like me, you have to find a charity team to raise money and run for to secure your bib. They are the premier events of the sport and a chance for someone like me to say I ran a course with Rita Jeptoo, albeit hours behind her. I doubt I will ever play on the same court as Michael Jordan. As I told a friend, I was going for a Sunday morning jog with 45,000 friends.
If you know me, you know I am no speedster and like I said, I secured my bib by running for a charity. My team was the Girls on the Run Solemates. I have been a volunteer coach for the local Girls on the Run program for two seasons, so seeing the positive impact that the program has on little girls made requesting to join that team a no-brainer. To any of you reading who encouraged and supported my fundraising efforts for the Solemates, I thank you. To date, our team has raised almost $285,000 dollars that will provide program scholarships for low-income girls. Shameless plug, if you are still interested in donating, the site will stay live through December.
The Chicago Marathon was an intense experience from start to finish. With 45,000 runners to manage, it’s quite a masterpiece of logistics. Everyone is assigned a corral that corresponds with one’s bib number. For the purposes of that morning, I was H 40845, like something out of a sci-fi novel. The energy was palpable as I entered the corral. H Corral lined up right in front of Buckingham Fountain, in Grant Park. Yes, I thought of Al Bundy. Lots of small talk with strangers—I should say Corral Mates, including one woman who runs with her Husky (three to five miles max, so she was quite impressed with the Bitches) and several who were experiencing their first marathon. One poor girl who was supposed to be in Corral D, but ripped her bib hopping a fence. She was relegated to the second wave with the rest of us 4:00+ runners. She took off like a bat out of hell when we crossed the start line.
Crossing the start line at a race that big is interesting in and off itself. From the start of the second wave, it took me almost 17 minutes to get stop-go shuffled to the actual starting line. The funny part is that the 17 minutes to get to the start seemed to take longer than the 326 minutes I was out on the course.
I’ve always said that the marathon is a mini-life in that you experience every range of emotion out on the course. I don’t take my phone with me to take pics, Facebook, or Tweet like some runners do. I keep those photos locked away in my brain space, just for myself—the photo wouldn’t be able to describe the feeling of running through the underpass with thousands of others, a mess of neon dry-fit, everyone screaming and whooping. We were like caged animals in the corrals, now free to find our pace and enjoy the beautiful morning. And beautiful it was. Clear skies and perfect temps. The first seven miles were really just a dream, figuring out my pace, crossing the river a few times, and enjoying the city. Of course, I found some beautiful real estate on Sedgwick Street. Everyone there had gorgeous dogs like Whippets and merle Am Staffs. Leave it to me to find the dogs on the route. I did manage to not stop and pet any this time, something I was totally guilty of at the TC Marathon.
When we were crossing the river by Marina City, I remember a woman with a sign pinned to her back that said, “I am running for the love of my life,” with his photo. He’d died on September 28 and was 37. My age. You see those stories through races, of who we are and why we run. I admired her courage and determination.
I got to blow kisses to drag queens and hear my Girls On the Run Cheer Squad hollering in the charity village. I won’t try to describe how sticky the ground was at the halfway point, where the aid station was handing out Gatorade chews and lots of people ate one or two and dropped the rest. Actually, I can tell you—it was worse than the old carpet at the Top Hat. Worse. I was particularly thankful for shoes at that point. I only saw one man running barefoot, which is one of those runner things I have never even tried to understand.
The funniest point of the run was at the 17.5 mark. I was trotting along, when I felt something splash on me, even on my face. Splash might not be the best word, as it had some force behind it. My first thought? Somebody puked on me. Gross. I touched my face and wished I had a photo of my face as I looked down at my hand and saw a red streak. My second thought? It’s blood. Red was also spattered down the side of my pink Girls on the Run singlet. Great, I’ve caught the Ebola. I looked to my right at the woman and man next to me were also splattered. Hell, she looked like she’d been stabbed. Thankfully, this all happened in about three seconds and the logical part of my brain took over and realized she must have stepped on one of the hundreds of packs of GU that people had dropped along the course. Nobody stops to pick anything up, they ditch and go, which was slightly horrifying for a second, but provided a little comic relief for me.
The people of Chicago are amazing. Every neighborhood was playing music, passing out water, and welcoming. There were kids in dragon costumes dancing as we ran through Chinatown. A Black church was out in full force with “You are anointed” and “Run for Jesus” signs.
To be truthful, I really don’t remember looking at my Garmin after mile 21. There was some sort of energy that pushed me on. Sure I made a pit stop and a couple of stretch breaks along the way. This was never about the time. It was always about the feeling. And I let the feelings rule the last few miles.
Once you are going north again, you are running to the skyscrapers and I was just focused on those buildings. I remember seeing this particular woman for the third time along the route, who was holding signs for her daughter, Emma, and the signs were covered in cats, like she was a crazy old cat lady or something. It was sort of perfect. I remember people stopping to hug loved ones and take pics. I remember people who couldn’t run anymore and were walking it in, knowing they had plenty of time to meet the 6.5 hour cap to be an official finisher and receive a medal.
I thought about a lot of things during those 26.2 miles. My life has been out of kilter and slightly chaotic the past few months. I thought about all the people who helped me get to the race. I thought about Man Friend. I thought about a friend who is nearing the end of her life. I thought about Alli and Joey, my beautiful Bitches and the best trainers a girl could have.
The crowds increased during the last mile and as I approached the spectator village, I was still sassy enough to repeat the performance of my first marathon and yell at the crowd for being too quiet. Yes, I did get some cheers.
When I turned the corner and saw the 400 meter sign, I ran as hard as I could. I probably passed two hundred people. What’s a quarter mile at that point, really? And when I crossed the finish line, I wept. I buried my face in my cap and I wept. I heard a woman’s voice say, “You did it, honey. You did it,” and felt a hand on my shoulder. But I couldn’t look at her.
I kept moving so the med folks didn’t swarm in and I looked up at the buildings at the end of Millennium Park. I thought about how cool my life was now. I thought I had myself collected so I went to the line to receive my medal and started bawling again.
“You did it!” said the woman who gave me my medal. I’m sure they thought I was upset about something silly, like my time. But the tears were pure gratitude. I was thinking about how close I was to my recovery birthday and I was thinking about my life 10 years ago. I was thinking about what a Sunday morning was like then. It was trying to piece together the previous day(s). It was a life so secretive, it was a secret to me. That life certainly didn’t include going for a jog with 45,000 friends.
My secret life kept me from discovering who I really am and what I love about life. Discovering running has been one of the greatest gifts of my recovery life and for that I am truly grateful.
It’s the last line that gets me—“My own life was a secret to me.” Addiction is so secretive. We hide our feelings, our actions, and our use. We hide from people who love us. I did a lot of hiding for about a decade of my life. The lies I told myself might have been the worst ones. Like Heather, I was a secret to myself.
10 years. I guess I can now start typing my time in survivor years from addiction using numbers instead of having to spell out the number. Maybe that’s just the English major in me, or maybe it’s the part of me that likes to downplay things. I don’t feel the need to celebrate my wellness time. I try to celebrate my health everyday.
Last week Monday, I was on a plane coming home from Chicago. I’d had an amazing weekend with my mom and two of my aunts. The goal of the trip for me was singular, to finish the Chicago Marathon. I’d run two marathons previously, so I knew I could do it, but Chicago is one of the World Major Marathons. (New York, Boston, Berlin, Paris, and Tokyo are the others.) They are the majors for a reason—they are the races everyone wants to run. The elites are there. The biggest prize monies are awarded. You have to have good qualifying times to get a bib. Or, like me, you have to find a charity team to raise money and run for to secure your bib. They are the premier events of the sport and a chance for someone like me to say I ran a course with Rita Jeptoo, albeit hours behind her. I doubt I will ever play on the same court as Michael Jordan. As I told a friend, I was going for a Sunday morning jog with 45,000 friends.
If you know me, you know I am no speedster and like I said, I secured my bib by running for a charity. My team was the Girls on the Run Solemates. I have been a volunteer coach for the local Girls on the Run program for two seasons, so seeing the positive impact that the program has on little girls made requesting to join that team a no-brainer. To any of you reading who encouraged and supported my fundraising efforts for the Solemates, I thank you. To date, our team has raised almost $285,000 dollars that will provide program scholarships for low-income girls. Shameless plug, if you are still interested in donating, the site will stay live through December.
The Chicago Marathon was an intense experience from start to finish. With 45,000 runners to manage, it’s quite a masterpiece of logistics. Everyone is assigned a corral that corresponds with one’s bib number. For the purposes of that morning, I was H 40845, like something out of a sci-fi novel. The energy was palpable as I entered the corral. H Corral lined up right in front of Buckingham Fountain, in Grant Park. Yes, I thought of Al Bundy. Lots of small talk with strangers—I should say Corral Mates, including one woman who runs with her Husky (three to five miles max, so she was quite impressed with the Bitches) and several who were experiencing their first marathon. One poor girl who was supposed to be in Corral D, but ripped her bib hopping a fence. She was relegated to the second wave with the rest of us 4:00+ runners. She took off like a bat out of hell when we crossed the start line.
Crossing the start line at a race that big is interesting in and off itself. From the start of the second wave, it took me almost 17 minutes to get stop-go shuffled to the actual starting line. The funny part is that the 17 minutes to get to the start seemed to take longer than the 326 minutes I was out on the course.
I’ve always said that the marathon is a mini-life in that you experience every range of emotion out on the course. I don’t take my phone with me to take pics, Facebook, or Tweet like some runners do. I keep those photos locked away in my brain space, just for myself—the photo wouldn’t be able to describe the feeling of running through the underpass with thousands of others, a mess of neon dry-fit, everyone screaming and whooping. We were like caged animals in the corrals, now free to find our pace and enjoy the beautiful morning. And beautiful it was. Clear skies and perfect temps. The first seven miles were really just a dream, figuring out my pace, crossing the river a few times, and enjoying the city. Of course, I found some beautiful real estate on Sedgwick Street. Everyone there had gorgeous dogs like Whippets and merle Am Staffs. Leave it to me to find the dogs on the route. I did manage to not stop and pet any this time, something I was totally guilty of at the TC Marathon.
When we were crossing the river by Marina City, I remember a woman with a sign pinned to her back that said, “I am running for the love of my life,” with his photo. He’d died on September 28 and was 37. My age. You see those stories through races, of who we are and why we run. I admired her courage and determination.
I got to blow kisses to drag queens and hear my Girls On the Run Cheer Squad hollering in the charity village. I won’t try to describe how sticky the ground was at the halfway point, where the aid station was handing out Gatorade chews and lots of people ate one or two and dropped the rest. Actually, I can tell you—it was worse than the old carpet at the Top Hat. Worse. I was particularly thankful for shoes at that point. I only saw one man running barefoot, which is one of those runner things I have never even tried to understand.
The funniest point of the run was at the 17.5 mark. I was trotting along, when I felt something splash on me, even on my face. Splash might not be the best word, as it had some force behind it. My first thought? Somebody puked on me. Gross. I touched my face and wished I had a photo of my face as I looked down at my hand and saw a red streak. My second thought? It’s blood. Red was also spattered down the side of my pink Girls on the Run singlet. Great, I’ve caught the Ebola. I looked to my right at the woman and man next to me were also splattered. Hell, she looked like she’d been stabbed. Thankfully, this all happened in about three seconds and the logical part of my brain took over and realized she must have stepped on one of the hundreds of packs of GU that people had dropped along the course. Nobody stops to pick anything up, they ditch and go, which was slightly horrifying for a second, but provided a little comic relief for me.
The people of Chicago are amazing. Every neighborhood was playing music, passing out water, and welcoming. There were kids in dragon costumes dancing as we ran through Chinatown. A Black church was out in full force with “You are anointed” and “Run for Jesus” signs.
To be truthful, I really don’t remember looking at my Garmin after mile 21. There was some sort of energy that pushed me on. Sure I made a pit stop and a couple of stretch breaks along the way. This was never about the time. It was always about the feeling. And I let the feelings rule the last few miles.
Once you are going north again, you are running to the skyscrapers and I was just focused on those buildings. I remember seeing this particular woman for the third time along the route, who was holding signs for her daughter, Emma, and the signs were covered in cats, like she was a crazy old cat lady or something. It was sort of perfect. I remember people stopping to hug loved ones and take pics. I remember people who couldn’t run anymore and were walking it in, knowing they had plenty of time to meet the 6.5 hour cap to be an official finisher and receive a medal.
I thought about a lot of things during those 26.2 miles. My life has been out of kilter and slightly chaotic the past few months. I thought about all the people who helped me get to the race. I thought about Man Friend. I thought about a friend who is nearing the end of her life. I thought about Alli and Joey, my beautiful Bitches and the best trainers a girl could have.
The crowds increased during the last mile and as I approached the spectator village, I was still sassy enough to repeat the performance of my first marathon and yell at the crowd for being too quiet. Yes, I did get some cheers.
When I turned the corner and saw the 400 meter sign, I ran as hard as I could. I probably passed two hundred people. What’s a quarter mile at that point, really? And when I crossed the finish line, I wept. I buried my face in my cap and I wept. I heard a woman’s voice say, “You did it, honey. You did it,” and felt a hand on my shoulder. But I couldn’t look at her.
I kept moving so the med folks didn’t swarm in and I looked up at the buildings at the end of Millennium Park. I thought about how cool my life was now. I thought I had myself collected so I went to the line to receive my medal and started bawling again.
“You did it!” said the woman who gave me my medal. I’m sure they thought I was upset about something silly, like my time. But the tears were pure gratitude. I was thinking about how close I was to my recovery birthday and I was thinking about my life 10 years ago. I was thinking about what a Sunday morning was like then. It was trying to piece together the previous day(s). It was a life so secretive, it was a secret to me. That life certainly didn’t include going for a jog with 45,000 friends.
My secret life kept me from discovering who I really am and what I love about life. Discovering running has been one of the greatest gifts of my recovery life and for that I am truly grateful.
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