The Game of ….

(hands rest quietly on the keyboard)

I’ve been a little more than absent these last few weeks. The urge to sit in front of the laptop and bang away at the keyboard shelling out words of despair, frustration, elation, confusion, struggle, contentment, resolution LIFE is no longer at the forefront of all that consumes me. Marathon time is fast approaching and it seems that my thought process has come down to two things: Run. Eat. (Repeat).

That’s not to say my brain isn’t on a constant overload of emotions and “oh this would make a great blog post”. It is. When you spend on average 9 hours a week running/walking you have lots of time for thinking, contemplation, crying, and coming up with words that you know would not only be good to read but send the blog world in a tailspin of awesomeness as it got the people standing up and taking action.

But then you get home and get in an ice bath for 15 minutes and you forget about that fucking blog post.

As the marathon gets closer and I spend more time outside freaking out, wondering how the hell I’m going to do this I begin to doubt my own ability to accomplish something I’ve set my sights since the very first time I pinned a race bib to my ever shrinking body. I begin to wonder if I haven’t proverbially bitten off more than I can chew. I begin to wonder what the hell is the point to all of this shit. Why do I care so much about this marathon? Why do I care so much about the food I put in my body? Why do I care so much about standing up and moving forward and trying to grab frantically at anyone that is trying to do the same? 

Really what is the point?

When I run past a fast food joint what stops me from going in and filling my arteries with fat smothered in more fat with a side of fat? When I go out for breakfast (and what I what to eat is a stack of pancakes with sweet sticky syrupy blueberries smothered on top) why do I consciously pass up the crispy hash browns and butter smothered toast for a side of fruit? When I go to Costco and wheel my bigger than life shopping cart past the 150 count candy bar boxes and plastic tubs filled with red licorice why don’t I just shut down, tune out and stuff my face with the delicious taste testing morsels like the rest of the zombies instead of standing around contemplating whether I want brussels sprouts this week or do I have a hankering for some baby spinach?

Yesterday I was standing around in the kitchen (after taking my new hand help mandolin for a test spin on some cucumbers) and read a post by Christie over at “Average Mom Wears Capes” titled “The Importance of Waterproof Mascara“. She’s got cancer. I fucking hate cancer. It took my mom. It took my grandmother and it will take a few more people I love before my life is over. All of a sudden my life choices seem so very ridiculous. Why lose the weight? Why run my ass off? Why Why Why…for fucking sake WHY?

We’re all like those ducks in the picture at the beginning of this post.

Spinning around on the belt of life. Unable to detach and fly off into some world of forever living. Choices and decisions made decades ago could come back and ping me off the rotating game of living. I’m a moving target. We’re all moving targets. Most times I wish I lived the life of my cat: meandering from bedroom to kitchen, waking only to eat and then padding quietly back to the warm spot on the bed until the next time he hears me grab a spoon and a packet of wet food from the pantry. Instead I’m constantly thinking about what is it going to be like to close my eyes and never open them again? What if I get a phone call that someone I love is no longer here? How will I know I’ve done all that I’m supposed to do with the time I’ve been allotted on the rotating target game?

Then I remember why…

After reading Christie’s post, I clung to Meegan. I smelled her hair. I touched her skin. I confessed that for the first time I felt like someone was seeing me for me. Looking into my eyes like I was the focus of their life. That it took 42 years for me to feel like I was the most important person in someone’s life and in the instant that I was reading about someone else’s life being affected in ways I can never imagine, I didn’t want her to get sick too. I don’t want to get sick…

So the choices I make now…the running, the food, the crying when I want to eat something but pass it up for a “healthier option”, the moving, the standing up and taking names as I continue to kick ass on my life changing journey it sort of makes sense:

We’re all moving targets…

But my ass moves pretty fucking fast.

(try and keep up).