4 little words.  4 little words changed my life.  Silly.  I guess I knew it was possible.  We have always been bad choice-makers.  Not like life-ending or extreme danger kind of choice-makers.  Just stupid.  Uncommunicative.  Assuming.   I thought we were safe.  Why?  Too afraid to think any other way?  I just didn't want to let myself go there.

But April came.  Toward the end of that beautiful, frilly, pink laced month I found a text message on my phone.  I had to read it again, and again, and again.  It just didn't make sense.  It wasn't provocative.  It wasn't overtly sexual.  But it was intimate.  It was not meant for me.  I was never supposed to see it.  It was meant to be sent to one of my closest friends at that time.  Someone I trusted implicitly.  Someone I adored.  Someone he very obviously had romantic feelings for.  There was, again at that time,  no denying he had feelings for her.  And she was too afraid to tell me how she actually felt about him.  Didn't really matter after all.  The damage for me was done.  I was devastated.


The 4 little words came later on that night in the midst of a horrible argument.  To say I fell apart is a gross understatement.  My little world, everything I had known for the past 17 1/2 years, was gone.  Someone told me at that time I was absolutely dis- regulated.  A bit of an understatement now that I look back.  But my unraveling didn't end there.  Basically I spent the entire summer acting like a lunatic trying desperately to save what was and is unsaveable.   Breaking my heart again and again and dragging my beloved children along with me.  I did these things.  My anxious nature didn't want me to see or accept responsibility for my life collapsing the way I allowed it to.  And those 4 little words just bounced around inside my head.  I prayed,  bargained, pleaded, but nothing could save me from myself.  No one but me.

This is not a happy re-entry to my blog.  But it will get better.  There are things that ARE better.  Despite having one very bad friend, I have many, many wonderful, supportive, funny friends.  Friends that make me laugh.  Friends that pray for me.  Friends that listen or take my mind off things.  And in the past several weeks I have been able to set myself free some.  I haven't catapulted myself yet........but someday I will.  This situation is a long way from being settled.  Everyday.....like 100's of thousands of other women (and men) I fumble along in my new founded state of no longer being founded.  And every night...EVERY NIGHT....I am BETTER for it.   Every morning I am better.  I am sad.  My heart hurts.  I am mourning something precious.  But I am also recognizing the precious in many other things.  There is power in taking care of yourself.  There is power in music.  There is power in my children.  Mostly there is power in my friendships........(family included.)  No one may be as lucky as I am to have such amazing friends.  New ones.  Old ones.  You are floating me along and I will never forget it. 

Oh....those 4 little words......."My feelings have changed" still hurt.  But I am working on letting them go.  Looking forward to the day that those words float away like butterflies and never, ever return.

My First 5K. It's All Downhill From Here

Sooo.....right after Christmas I overheard a friend of mine say she was training for a half-marathon.  I piped up that I would love to train with her.  She said the race was 4 months away and I thought "Hmmm....I can do that!"  So I went home all excited, sat down at the computer, and began to research training.  Now, let me explain something.  I am, and always have been, a walker.  Sometimes walking 3 miles, sometimes 5.  I will do it for months straight then stop for whatever reason.  I am not a member of a gym, nor do I have any indoor exercise devices.  I have ALWAYS walked outside.  Periodically, (and by that I mean anytime in the past 20 or so years) I have tried to run.  I more gallumph than run.  I just never was good at it, so I never stuck with it.  That being said, after spending the last 2 months fighting a crippling depression where I was mostly in bed, I knew I was literally starting from scratch.  But, really needing something to obsess over, I pressed on with my research.  Oh it would be no problem to do a half-marathon, I discovered.  As long as you are currently running 8 to 10 miles weekly, 4 months is a great training period.  Um....yeah....the only running I was doing was running back to my bed after I unlocked the door in the afternoon to let the kids in from school.  And now, on a new anti-depressant, just staying awake felt like exercise.  Oh.  And I am 44.  But then my husband suggested that I start with something a little more feasible.  Why don't I do a 5K?  So after doing a bit of research I found a race in Nashville that was exactly 2 months away.  I clicked on the link, signed up, and "Operation Butt Off the Couch" became a reality.

Now I am 2 weeks into "training."  I am still terrible at running.  I believe a tortoise AND a snail would smoke me.  But, after finding a 2 month training schedule for a 5K called "Couch to 5K" (which describes me to a T), I am trying.  At this point I cannot tell that I am improving, except that I am adding distance to my walks.  And my neighborhood is HILLY.  So, in all honesty, right now I am really just running downhill.  My calves are sore, but oddly enough, the backache that has been plaguing me for months is pretty much gone.  Maybe it's the stretching.  Whatever it is, I'll take it.  I sincerely hope to run this sucker.  I may have to run and walk it.  But on ST. Patrick's Day, early, eaaaarrrllllyyyy in the morning, I am going to be there.  Walk, run, whatever.......I will do it.  Hopefully running.  I don't have running shoes because I invested in a very expensive pair of walking shoes over the summer and cannot justify the cost of running shoes just yet.  My clothes are dorky old mom clothes, as I haven't bought any sleek, brightly colored Under Armor yet either.......but.......eff that.  I'm going to do it anyway.  Clomping, with my weird running gait, pushing up my glasses as they fall down my nose.  Hey, my Mom did 5K's when she was 44, and she had a toddler!  SO, using her as my inspiration, and because I cannot allow stupid depression to win, I am going to try this thing.  I'll let ya' know how it goes.