best intentions

Lost and Found

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

I seem to have lost myself.  And my will.  And my motivation.  And I can’t seem to find any of them.

I think back to last summer.  Training for the NYC marathon.  Running almost every day, even in the heat. 50 pounds lighter than I am now (the shame).  Happier kids.  Happier life.  Happier marriage.  I sit here and I wonder…what the fuck happened?

When I think about it, I tend to place the blame on other people and situations.  This person came into my life.  This person left.  Work became harder.  A third baby was added.  Time and money were short, as were tempers and understanding.  All of this things can take the blame for my unhappiness, the lack of motivation, the weigh gain, the drinking gain, the indiscretions.

And none of that blame is actually working to fix the problem.  It’s making me a victim.  And I hate being the victim.

Maybe, instead of placing the blame and over analyzing the past year I can suck it up and move on.  Who cares how I got to this place?  Does it really even matter?  The point is, I’m here.  And I need to find my way out.  I know no one can do this for me.  I have to find my way on my own.  But it’s HARD.

I can say, things seem to be headed in the right direction and my support system, though smaller by a few people, is incredibly mighty.  I’m learning to ask for help.  I’m learning to accept help when it’s offered.  Homelife is becoming more concrete, and sound, and loving.

And now to work on the rest.

I’m not used to baby steps.  I’m not used to slow progress.  I’m not  patient person.  When I want something, I want it now.  But with that, my life seems to be a bunch of random “One step forward, two steps back” mishaps.  So maybe now, I go slow.  Take each day and change at a snails pace. Work to strengthen everything instead of just fixing is for a minute.

Maybe going slow isn’t so bad.  Maybe it’s just what need to find where I’m hiding.

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Complacency, Love, and the Weather

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

As is too often with these posts, I start by saying…it’s been too long since I have written anything new.  I could blame work, school, kids, life,  but really that would only be the icing on a cake too tall to tackle.  The real problem is myself and even that is not enough to explain what has happened to me over the past few months.  As is usually the case I am torn between being happy (complacent) with the life I have and wanting (needing) something more.

While I feel like I say it every year, this one, by far, has been the hardest one to navigate.  Between friendships found, and lost, and found, the bumpy and panic inducing ride that is 11 years of marriage, losing and finding myself over and over again, and simply finding time to breathe through it all, I feel like I’ve been broken and put back together so many times that I wonder if all my pieces have survived.

 

I wonder, sometimes, if my biggest problem is more simple than I realize.  That maybe my expectations for people and their behaviors are simply too high. Mostly, I feel that people will never meet mine and am forever doomed to sit and silence and ponder if it’s them or me.  And yet, why ponder?  I know it’s me. I simply assume everyone puts forth the same amount of everything I do: love, effort, understanding, movement, change.  And when they don’t I am undoubtably dissapointed.  “They” say expectation is the root of all heartache and this is something I wholeheartedly believe.  But do we give up, accept this, and work to assimilate to the “others”; the ones that we feel are disappointing us?  Decide to live in quiet complacency, knowing we could have it worse?  That maybe if we just let things go, decide to give up what we feel we need, that we could live an almost happy life?

Or do we simply wait?  Wait for the changes we are asking for.  Wait for love we know we need and deserve. Wait for a life we know we are not going to simply exist in…but actually live in.

The conundrum exists: do you hope for the hurricane or simply enjoy the calm and still air of almost?  Sometimes, the hurricane is worth it.  It’s beautiful and perfect in its power and destruction, changing the landscape of your life forever, tearing down the extraneous walls you’ve built up to keep things out (or in).  Other times it simply destroys everything, coming and going in meer moments, leaving an empty hole where something stable (maybe not profound or amazing), but stable used to be.

I’m watching people take these leaps and bounds in their lives and am becoming completely envious. Picking up and moving away.  Finding a new and meaningful job.  Leaving behind a mediocre life for a great one. For a while, it was hard to watch their journey because of the jealousy.  What luck to get exactly what you want; what you’ve been hoping for. They made it looked so easy.  But now, I know it is their bravery I covet.  The sheer courage to say “This is what I want and I’m going to go for it.”  They decided take some action instead of sitting around and talking, wondering, or even writing about it.  Taking the risk in the hurricane, even if it destroys everything.

No matter how much back and forth I do in these situations, deep down, I know what it is that I want.

And it’s time to go and buy an umbrella.

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It Comes and Goes

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I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately.

I’m completely unmotivated to do anything.  I pack my gym bag and then skip out.  I lay out my running clothes and then say forget it.

Why did I let myself get to the starting over point again?  It’s so hard to be here.  To see all my hard work gone.  To have my 3 miles feel like 30.  The numbers on the scale are climbing with my mile time.  I cry way more than I should.  I’m literally at the “what’s the point?” place and I can’t seem to find my way out.

I have a half marathon coming up in 12 weeks and I just don’t care.  I don’t seem to care about a lot of things lately…especially if they take extra effort and energy.  Once I put the kids to bed I am comatose on the couch.

I’ve become mean.  And spiteful.  And judgey.  AND I HATE IT.

I’ve got to be in here somewhere.  I don’t know this person.  I don’t want to know this person.

Fall down seven times, get up eight

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Everything hurts and I’m dying.

I literally don’t think I could get out of this chair if I wanted to.  And I only ran/walked 2.5 miles today.  This summer I was up to over 25 miles a week with my long runs between 10-14.  Today? The idea of running 10 miles at one time makes me want to kill myself.

And yet, I have an alarm set on my phone to sign up for a half marathon when it opens on Thursday.

I’m constantly starting over. And for no other reason than I’m constantly giving up.  Something happens when I get to a certain point in almost every endeavor in my life.  I leave it behind, trying to convince myself I won’t get any better, or that I’m just going to fail, or thatI have something more important that needs my time and attention.

But we all know this is crap.  And then I’m forced to start over again.

I constantly wonder how far along I would be if I simply stopped giving up.  When I first started I was “running” a 16-17 minute mile on a fast day.  And I would get better and faster, but never lower than a 12 minute mile and never for very long.  And now here I am,  not anywhere near where I started, but definitely not where I was.  And after just a day back into it I feel like giving up…again.

My word this year is (was) supposed to be “brave” but I’m not feeling very brave these days. I have all these plans and goals but I’m too scared to follow through.  Mostly it’s fear of judgment.  And a little fear of failure.

I want to do things.  I want to help people.  I want to make the most of this tiny amount of time we are allotted on this earth.  I want to claim my guaranteed entry to to the NYC marathon, but what if I flake out again?  I want to really start using my running to give back, like running with Back on My Feet, working with a population I respect and who needs so much love, but will always feel like I’m too slow. I want to write more, more than just these blog posts, but never feel like it will go anywhere so what’s the point?

I have so much trouble putting myself out there…really out there.

Brave?  Not so much these days…

But I guess the fact that I care at all is something.  I guess the fact that I always try again proves I’m meant for more.

I know who I am.  I know what I want.  I know what is important to me.

But knowing is easy.  Doing is hard.

 

 

There’s something I’m missing

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Today is September 19th.  On September 7th, my littlest one turned 5 months old.  And I didn’t even blink an eye.  As a matter of fact, I didn’t even notice the milestone until today when a friend of mine, who had her baby 2 weeks after me, posted that her son was 5 months old today.  My first thought was “Oh!  How cute!”  My next thought was “Shit!  That means Charlie is already 5 months…and I missed it.”

We could blame this conundrum on the fact that she’s number three in a line of little people.  But that’s not the case at all.  It’s not a case of “these milestones don’t mean as much with #3”.  As a matter of fact, it’s the exact opposite.  I should be cherishing these milestones even more BECAUSE she’s number three, and more likely than not, the last of the littles.

But I didn’t.  Because it passed by me unnoticed.  Because once again, life got in the way.

There’s running practice.  And team meetings.  And leadership duties.  And teaching.  And lesson planning.  And mentoring.  And.  And.  And. The list never stops.

I spend more quality time with the students I teach than my own children.  Maybe that’s why this school year seems to suck so much.  I resent these little five year olds for no fault of there own.  I resent them simply because they get my time and MY little ones do not.

There are currently 50 pictures of running practice on my phone.  There are 37 pictures of my students.  There are 2 of my children.  On average I see my children awake for three hours a day.  Three.  And let’s be honest.  These are not quality hours.  During this time I am also making dinner, answering work related texts and emails, packing lunches, giving baths and showers, and trying to divide my already scattered time between 4 people who want my undivided love and attention the minute I walk through the door.

And there are times, I’m not proud to admit, that I pray for an earlier bedtime simple because I have still MORE work to do and I want to start it as soon as possible so I can go to bed before midnight.

Then, there’s the things that I need to do to keep my sanity about all this that I simply haven’t done.  I haven’t run more than once a week since school started.  I just paid for an entire month of the gym without going once.  Ritz crackers are becoming bad habit to break as I snack while I work.  I haven’t read a new book in forever.

I feel like there’s got to be a better way.  There must be something I’m doing wrong.  There HAS to be a way to do it all.

If not, I have no idea what the hell I’m going to do.

Happy 5 month, Charlie bear. Here's hoping I don't miss 6.

Happy 5 months, Charlie bear. Here’s hoping I don’t miss 6.

This is for all the lonely people…

/ Cassie / 1 Comment

“Being alone is very difficult.” ~Yoko Ono

Marathon training is not only hard, but it’s lonely.  I don’t think it’s something you can truly understand until you go through it yourself.  I have friends that have run marathons so I thought I got it.  I most certainly did not.

I remember being out with friends, begging them to have one more drink, one more bite, one more anything, and scoffing when they said they couldn’t.  Of course they can, I thought.   They’re just being (insert word here).  And of course, that’s when you could get them out at night.  Because most times, you can’t. Now I know, though, that you can’t eat one more bite, because it might be the thing that puts you over the edge during your run that evening.  And you can’t always have another drink or go out at all because you have to get up at 4 am to run X number of miles.

I know all this now.  And it sucks.

What I need is someone to say “Let’s stay in and watch a movie tonight because I know you have a long run tomorrow.”  Or “Here, have some water with lemon to hydrate for your run in the morning.” Or how about someone to tell me to put down the fucking cupcake or smack the Ritz crackers out of my hand.

But I don’t have a person like that.  I don’t have a partner in crime for this adventure.

It’s hard to go through this alone and I wish, now, I would have been more understanding of my friends that have gone through it before me.

Balance is key, in all aspects of training, and I have to admit I’m doing a terrible job.  I’m either too serious or not serious enough.  Eating everything in the house or nothing at all.  Running all the miles or hardly any.

And now that I’m injured, I am feeling all of this times 10.  I know I need to rest, but I know I can’t not run.  And no one gets it.

It’s officially 100 days until the marathon.  I just have to make it through and then everything will go back to normal, right?

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In all seriousness

/ Cassie / 2 Comments

“One must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life.” ~Oscar Wilde

I don’t know what it is, but I can’t seem to push myself.  I seem quite content at being complacent these days.

I’m supposed to be running a marathon in 5 months and I’m training for it like it’s a 5k, allowing myself to make excuses to cut runs short.  I’d probably skip them altogether if it weren’t for this run streak.

I think maybe I’m not allowing myself to be serious about it so I have a reason to fail.  That if I’m not ready for it I won’t have to do it.  If I can’t finish it it’s because I wasn’t ready for it.

I think maybe I’m not allowing myself to be serious about this because I’m too concerned about what other people think.  The whole “You’re training for a marathon?  You?” pops into my head quite frequently when I imaginarily tell people about it.

I seem to always allow my life to be dictated by the thought of these “others”, people who I’m sure are judging me because I’ve probably judged them at some point.  I try to be positive, but my thoughts are always so negative, especially the ones that I’ve directed at myself.

I need to remind myself that it’s OK to be serious about this and to take myself seriously.  Even if no one else thinks so, I have to believe that I can do this.

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The unbalance between teaching and parenting

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” ~James Baldwin

Every day as a teacher (a kindergarten teacher in a fairly unsafe area of Baltimore, to be exact) there are so many things I wish I could tell the parents of my students.  While I am teaching, I always think that I know better and wish that I could impart my amazing parental wisdom on the parents of my students.  I want to tell them to let their kindergarteners be more autonomous.  Don’t walk them to the classroom.  Let them put away their own stuff.  Don’t hover.  Step back.  Listen to them, but don’t believe everything they say.  Let them be who they are.  And many times, if I have a good relationship with them, I do say these things.

But flash forward to today.  It is my first day of maternity leave and one of the few chances I have ever had to take my child to school.  We live in a “nice” neighborhood.  My kids go to “nice” public schools.  Nothing at all like where I teach.  I feel like I have absolutely nothing to worry about.  And yet, when I had to drop my kindergartener off in the carpool line today, and watch him walk the less than 100 feet to the front of the building, blind panic set in.  He had to turn a corner where I wouldn’t see him.  There are literally 12 teachers at their morning posts.  And all I can think is “what if?”  What if he trips and no one is there to help him? What if someone in line teases him and he gets sad?  What if he gets distracted, doesn’t follow directions, and therefor gets in trouble?  It took every ounce of restraint I had not to park the car and walk to the front of the building to check on him…to wait and hold his hand for the two minutes he was going to be in line before entering the school building.  To give him one more kiss and hug so he knows someone on this planet thinks he’s amazing.

I went to school for child development.  I teach small children how to read and write and complete math problems every day.  I try to instill in them a sense of purpose, a sense of kindness, and the ability to stand up for themselves and the things they know to be right.  I am with them for 7 hours a day, 180 days a year.  And I see how able and capable they are and what wonderful little people and citizens they have become.  I let them run and grow and engage without hovering over them all day.

And yet, that is what I do to my own child.  I hover.  ALL. THE. TIME. Maybe it stems from bad early school experiences for him.  Maybe it stems from him being slightly weird or awkward.  Maybe it stems from me being slightly weird and awkward as a child or not having very close relationships with my parents.  I don’t know.  But what I do know is that I am constantly yelling at my husband for hovering and I do the same thing.  At the park.  At home.  In public.  I know what I should be doing.  I know I should stand back and let him just be “him”.  And yet I don’t.

Within the next few days, baby 3 will be joining us.  There will be less time and attention for my other little ones and I keep having this panicking feeling that I didn’t teach them enough on how to be independent.  On learning to engage with other children.  On what to do if someone teases you.  On how to stick up for yourself.  I worry and worry and worry constantly that I hovered too much and tried to control too much.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s time for me to let go…so they can just be.

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Clarity

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“The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality.” ~Conan O’Brien

Do you have have those moments of clarity, you know, the ones where you are pretty sure you understand everything within the universe in an uncomplicated way?

Very rarely do these creep up on me, but today one did.  And what my moment of clarity brought me is the realization that I pretty much suck in all aspects of my world these days.  I’m a horrible wife, an exasperated mother, a bored teacher, and an unmotivated runner.  All I seem to want to do these days is eat, read, watch TV, and sleep and I rarely get the time to do any of these things.

I realize I’m causing a great disservice to most of the people around me.  I know what I should be doing, how I should be reacting, the effort I should be making and yet, I don’t (or I can’t).

Every night I make these grandiose plans and promises to myself that I’m going to do better, be better.  I’m not going to reply to every word spoken to me with sarcasm and contempt.  I’m not going to yell.  I am going to try my hardest.  I am going to put forth at least a little effort.  I’m going to put down the <insert food here> and get up and MOVE.

And yet, no matter how many times I have made these promises to myself, I have yet to keep them.  I wake up in a mood because of sheer exhaustion or because I simply don’t want to go to work and I immediately take it out on those around me.  No one is safe.  I always want it to be different, but it never is.

But the miracle is that every night I get to make that promise to myself and every morning I get to try and keep it.

Here we go…

The Best Intentions

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

“Good intentions never change anything.  They only become a deeper and deeper rut.” ~Joyce Meyer

I’ve just turned 34 and I’m no better at this than I was at 24.  I make lists.  I make plans.  I identify things that need changing.  I’m proud of myself.  I’m able to take the first step.  Sometimes I’m even able to take the second step. I stick with it, for a day, maybe a week.

And then nothing.

I don’t know what it is.  I decided just one day off is ok.  I decide I need a break. I decide, for whatever arbitrary reason, that I deserve a break. Or I lose my cool. Or I break my promise.  And my one day turns into two, or three, and then, inevitably forever.

Why is it sometimes I can do it and sometimes I can’t?  Where in my brain is the motivation cortex?  The place that is supposed to help me keep going and reach my goals even when I want to quit.

I could blame the pregnancy right now and it would be so easy.  I’m exhausted and uncomfortable and will be for the next 2 months.  But that would be taking the easy way out because in reality, I was like this long before I became pregnant and long before I had two rambunctious boys to take care of.  I feel like I’ve always been of the “lazier” variety, of the “blame everyone but me” variety, of the “let’s make excuses” variety.  And as much as I make the conscious effort NOT  be like this, I always end up right back here at the starting line.

But I can’t stop, right?  As I do at the beginning of every month I have to believe that this month will be different, that this is the month where everything will finally stick and I will emerge victorious and transformed.  No more excuses.

The first step, no matter how many times you have taken it in the past, is always the hardest.