Aidan is 8!

Two days ago, our Aidan James turned 8 years old!  We are celebrating his birthday week with abandon:  chicken wings (boneless and sauceless), movie night (Despicable Me 2), fun with friends (swimming and soccer), hanging out and playing Legos, sending his sister to camp....the fun never stops!

When Aidan arrived 8 years + 2 days ago, he changed my life in the way that a first child could not.  With this go around, I knew motherhood.  I knew what it was to love a child who was mine.  I knew the joys and frustrations of babyhood and toddlerhood.  I knew...... nothing.

The first child, for me, was a tumult of stress and doing things right so that I wouldn't irreparably harm my poor baby by starting with the wrong foods, skipping naps for fun, and other such nonsense.

Aidan taught me to take it easy and roll with things a little bit more.  Other than moderate to severe evening fussiness that turned out to be (another kid with) collick, he was pretty darn easy.  He continues to be mild mannered in a good way and laid back.

We just love him to pieces.

Happy 8 IS GREAT Year!!

Solstice

The never-ending winter ended.  The school year finished in a blur.  Softball and baseball and life happened.  It's now toward the end of June.  Today is the Summer Solstice.

On this quiet morning while Aidan works on a Lego creation at the breakfast table and while Rob and Delaney are driving toward a softball tournament across the border, the seasons creep into change.  Summer is entering, and so is time for resting a little bit and playing more and enjoying stretches of time together.  We are looking forward to it all.

Aidan's First Communion is tomorrow.  We are fortunate to have family and friends around us to celebrate.  I love these family weekends.  These signs that my kids are growing up might make me sad sometimes in that bittersweet, mothery way, but I am loving the people they are becoming all on their own.

Tomorrow is Almost Here

Tomorrow is the Wisconsin Marathon, and I have to say I've been feeling a little bit sorry for myself.  I still can't quite believe I'm not running.  It feels pretty surreal after all those miles and the months of training mindset.  As I've said, I'm determined to make this experience valuable.

Here's what I've learned:

1.  A big disappointment isn't fatal.

2.  Adjusting my goals is ok.

3.  45 isn't old, but it's time to start thinking like my body might get beat up.

4.  Beating up my body to feel alive is worth the risk.

5.  Being a planner isn't Type-A crazy, as some would lead me to believe.  That's the trait that makes rehabbing my knee feel like a good journey.

6.  I'm finding out which people in my life get me and which don't.  That's not a slam on anyone, but it's a little eye-opening and makes me rethink what I will share in the future.

7.  Rob and the kids get me.  I'm really happy about that, because it's something I've never thought about.  I've usually only thought about them in terms of what I should be doing for them, and I've learned that they totally pay it back to me.

8.  Tomorrow will be tough to get through, and it's ok to be gentle with myself:  Knitting, Chocolate, Wine, and letting others take care of me.

9.  Not training while in the training mindset has given me the opportunity and drive to kick around what I want to do next, and that's a gift.

10.  After tomorrow, the next phase will feel real.  Let's go!

Grateful for the family that "gets me" and wants my soul to feel better.

A little self identity crisis

This whole "What's the Next Step for Me" thing has suddenly taken a weird veer.  I continue to be grateful for good health and all the great things in my life.  I'm just at odds with this little identity thing.

I've moved on a little bit from the marathon disappointment.  Yesterday, I emailed the coordinator to take my name out of the list of marathon runners.  I couldn't bear to think of my race packet sitting at the pick up on the day before the race, abandoned and lonely.  I was also afraid that if I didn't make it official, I'd rescue my race packet at the last minute, then wake up early on Marathon Day in a blind panic and just show up to see how it goes.  Not a good idea.  The doctor said aside from the obvious iliotibial band problem, there is also a possible meniscus tear.

So!  This morning, Riley and I took the kids to school and then walked about a 5K at a brisk pace on one of my running routes.  I did not get that high that only running seems to offer, but it was ok.  If I can walk lots and run sometimes, that might do it for awhile.

Here's the thing though:  if I could get past the feeling that I'd suddenly become old overnight, I'd feel better.  This is such a head game.  I can't decide if I've been living a life of fictitious youth or not.  What is real?  I'm not sure what 45 is supposed to look like.  Some of my peers are grandmas, and some have young children like me.  But we are still peers.  I see them on Facebook, and we all have lines and necks that are starting to do that thing.  Our eyes look different than they did in college.  Some are in good shape and others have become matronly plump.  Some of the hairstyles are "mom"-ish and some appear to be trying for 25 years younger than we are.  What the hell is age appropriate for me without losing all the youth that gives life its spark?  It's a very confusing time.  I'm a little bit freaked out by it, to be honest, because I seem to have misplaced my identity (which has been an issue lately anyway, if you've been following along).

If it wasn't for my abrupt halt to distance running and my orthopedic surgeon talking about arthritis and tissues becoming papery with age, I'd be ok, I think.  He told me that running at our age carries risks to injury simply because of our bodies becoming older.  Screw that!  I wanted blissful ignorance and "age is just a number" and still working on bad-ass accomplishments.  I'm going to have to lick my wounds for awhile and then regroup.

  

What Else is Next?

It came to a head yesterday on Tax Day.  Even though the taxes have been done and submitted without issue for awhile now, this day and certain others seem to prompt feelings that are nearly universal in nature.

Up until we moved from Milwaukee almost eight years ago, I've always worked full time.  Often, I've worked more than one job.  There was that first married summer that Rob said, "Don't work.  Relax," which was wonderful, but other than that, I was a working girl and a working mom.  I worked various jobs up until and through college.  After that I was pretty focused on my career in education.  I didn't feel like a duck to water with it, but I knew it would be a good vehicle to work toward becoming a college professor of literature and a writer.  I liked the kids (especially in the most urban middle school conditions) and old school buildings and, of course, the school supplies.  It was enough, but I got distracted and sort of lost my way.

I went to graduate school to become a principal, because I felt it was time to move to another level and to improve my knowledge base in education.  I also got into a great program and met people who turned out to be good colleagues and mentors.  It was all good, and the masters' degree bumped me up on the pay scale, but I was moving further away from the reasons I had become an English teacher.  Life and my career progressed.  I became a mother and turned down a great paying (and red-tape stuffed) position at the district central office.  I was content with the decision to turn it down, but it was a mental struggle at the time.  Rob got a job that moved us away, and I stayed home with newborn Aidan and pre-schooler Delaney.

That abrupt shift changed my life as I knew it and as I'd been plotting it for the future.

I loved having the unexpected opportunity to be home with my children and to be available to them 24/7.  Always a homebody, it was nice to be there.  I baked and cooked and cleaned and did picnics and all of that other fun mom stuff.  I was able to free up our family weekend time by taking care of the house during the week.  It was good, but I always felt a little (or sometimes more than a little) uneasy in my role.  It was interesting to me to suddenly be a "housewife" or "stay-at-home mom" or whatever you want to call that role.  Me, who'd worked since age 14 and had always been a worrier about if I'd be able to make ands meet, now home and financially secure if we were careful.  My life was safe but strange and unfamiliar to me

Since then, I've managed to spend a few years feeling relatively at peace with my current place in life.  However, the kids are getting bigger, and I've been feeling more of a push to figure out what the bloody hell I'm going to do with the rest of my life.  This question mark hanging over my head makes me feel panicky and then irrelevant and then really crabby.  There is a pattern to my quandary.  It keeps repeating itself until I find something to distract me for awhile.  Hence, the running and knitting and wine, I fear.  There's no such excuse for the chocolate.

I don't have to jump into something right now.  I'm grateful for that, but for a long time I've felt guilty about it.  Rob and I discussed it this week, and I was finally able to put into words why I feel this muddle about me.  The last time I was in career search and seize mode, I was in college.  My friends were also working on planning their careers.  There were high school counselors (whose help was minimal) before that who at lease made the question relevant at the time.  After college graduation in the early years of my career, my friends again were in the same place.  We adjusted our roles and added to our experience.  We were resume building.  We discussed our progress and plans.

Now, my friends are hip-deep in their chosen fields.  Those who have changed directions have made the decision to start their own businesses and are in the process of making them successful.  There are other friends and acquaintances who work full time as mothers and, let's be honest, lots of them resent it at least a little bit.  Even the ones who love their careers are tired and overcommitted and miss their kids daily.   I'm not going to start whining to them about all the choices I have to make and all the time without needing to bring in a paycheck that I have in order to make said choices.  No way.  I also have friends and acquaintances who are stay-at-home moms either in the early years of it or are content to leave it at that indefinitely.  They rightly feel the job of mothering never ends, and they feel that they want to make it their primary lifestyle long after the kids grow.  Good for them, too.

So, I'm on my own here.  I am not in a rush to end my current role, but I'd like to start mapping out the next chapter.  I need to plan, and that's always been one of my biggest strengths and one of my worst faults.  Rob suggested that I spend the next while brainstorming without cutting out ideas for reasons of impracticality, pipe dream status, or just plain ridiculousness.  I'm pretty quick to do that, so I'm going to try not to.  I'm going to dream a little and research and think on things.

Here we go.

What is Next?

Last week, my marathon plans were derailed for certain.  My knee has been an issue for over a month.  I rested and crept back into running.  It was sore, but things were going ok.  There was hope.  Let's just say that.  Last week Tuesday was my last scheduled long run before the taper leading up to Marathon Day.  I had 20 miles scheduled and, with a bit of a sinking heart, decided to run long for as many miles as possible.  Depending upon the total miles for that day and how I felt that evening, I'd make the final decision that I'd been hedging on about the marathon.  My run started out really well.  I noticed that my knee started to make its presence known on the odd-numbered miles, so I made a brief stop at every even-numbered mile to hydrate, stretch the IT band and walk a few steps.  It was working right up until just past mile nine.  Well, back up.  The pain on the odd-numbered miles started to increase at mile seven, but I kept up my hopes that had been rising since I started running that morning.

By mile nine, I was giving it one last positively-minded push and just kept going.  If I was going to have to quit the marathon, I would need to know for sure that the pain was going to make me feel justified in quitting after all these months, hours, miles, and sacrifices in training.  There was something on the outside of my right knee that was definitely feeling different in a very bad way.  It was the first time over the course of my iliotibial band pain hiccups and pitfalls that I started to think about the possibility of a lasting and severe injury.  At the halfway point of mile eleven, I turned back and limped to the car.  Luckily, I had just passed it less than a mile before stopping.

It's been a weird week.  I've been sad and felt like a quitter.  I've also had flashes of knowing that quitting is for the right reasons in this.  I hate quitting.  I hate wasting time.  I hate thinking that I will never get to run my second marathon, because this pain almost derailed my first marathon last year.  The difference last year was that the pain in my knee was totally manageable until the week before the race.  Marathon Day was the first long run with soreness back then.  It was really painful and difficult, but I was able to do it with very minimal walking.  I wish I'd known then that it would maybe be my only marathon, because I would have savored and celebrated a little more.  I might have even attached one of those 26.2 magnets to my bumper.

So, that's that.  I'm seeing the orthopedic surgeon at the end of this week and trying to get out of this non-cardio funk that not running puts me into (and this, I swear, is what has kept me running).  I'm getting back into yoga and, after just doing strength exercises at home, am heading back to the gym tomorrow morning to try the elliptical trainer and to lift weights.  The injury thing will or won't take care of itself.  I might have to adjust my life a little bit and my self-image, but it's not fatal.

I'll survive.  I'll also make damn sure that I grow in the process, so that all that running and prepping wasn't in vain.

And that's the whole point, I'd say.  Remember this, and happiness reigns supreme.