On the Other Hand…

…  I know that my previous post sounded very self-congratulatory, and while I wrote it that way on purpose, because I need every little bit of encouragement I can get these days to make it through the next three weeks, I am not comfortable leaving a post of patting myself on the back without some rejoinder.  So, here goes:

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am truly a lazy person.  My favorite way to spend a day is on the couch with a good book… preferably with a cat or two on my lap, but I won’t wait for another kitty to join our household to take advantage of the couch, believe me.  Also, I can be the Queen of Procrastination.  When I was in college and had to study for finals, I would do absolutely anything to avoid studying for finals… in fact, my oven was always clean during finals week, because honestly I would do ANYTHING other than study for finals.  

On top of that, I don’t have the patience I need.  When I get exasperated, which is all too often, my tone of voice shows it, no matter how much I try to control it.  This wasn’t good when I was a teacher, and isn’t good when I am helping my 92 year old mom.  You would think with something so important, I would learn how to adjust, but though I work at it, I know I fail miserably.  

I have had a desire to write for years.  I have a bookshelf of books on how to write.  I have an idea of what I want to write about.  I was without a job for two years and so had the time on my hands to actually get a good chunk of a book written… and did I do it?  No.  As noted before, I am lazy.  Even when I wake up at an ungodly hour of the morning and think I could get out of bed to write, I don’t do it.  It may come someday, and to be honest, my experiences training for marathons are good fodder for the mill, but whether or not a book ever comes out of this old brain remains to be seen.  I have serious doubts about whether or not I will ever make myself be un-lazy enough to do it.  

I tend towards the over-indulgence of any kind of treat.  I have weighed 250 pounds; I have enjoyed much more than my share of wine and beer and booze, and if I never have another drink again in this life, I will still have had more than most people.  I love ice cream, especially soft, partly melted yummy oh, well, let’s just stop that path right there.   

So, why have I spent some paragraphs beating myself up?  Well, first of all, as I said, my last post left me with an uncomfortable feeling of patting myself on the back too much, and I had to fix that.  But also, I have an ulterior motive.  I need to remind myself why these last few weeks of prep for the ING New York City Marathon are necessary.   I don’t actually have to go, you know.  I can cancel.  I think about canceling every time the panic level gets up there in the triple digits.  Backing out of things is another of my failings.  I have quit jobs, quit work-outs, quit friendships and quit life-styles, all when they became more work than I wanted to put into them.  I could quit training for New York, too.

But I can’t back out of this.  I have a goal.  I started my “project” as I call it, to honor the memory of Bob Heinle, whose story you can access at the top of my blog, on several of the pages I have posted there.  I want to honor, also, his beautiful young bride, Lisa, who lives each day now without her best friend, who hates it when people call her “strong” because she knows in her heart she isn’t strong enough, no one is strong enough to go through the hell of the first year without the love of one’s life.  A person does it without being strong, and then pays for it with the pain of absolute desolation when the frenetic energy stops.

Along the way, during my project, I have come to know several other people who live with spinal cord injury, and I want to finish my project to honor them, as well.  You can read their stories, too, in links on the right or at the Reeve Foundation site.  I want to honor the difficulties these people face every day of their lives without the luxury of being able to give up.  They CAN’T give up THEIR project, because their project is making it through the day with the bodies they have now.  And that is that.

But most of all, I don’t want to cancel my project because what I REALLY want to do is raise money for the Reeve Foundation, because what they are doing with research dollars is nothing short of a miracle.  In ten years, people  with spinal cord injury will be able to do so much more than they can do now, simply because people like YOU chose to give money.  Spend some time on the Reeve Foundation site.  The link is just there, at the top on the right.  Then, hit the button right below that one and go to my donation site.  The money you give will do so very much.  Thank you.

10/9 – 2 miles
10/10/10 – 10 miles  (I really didn’t do that on purpose…)
10/12 – 3 1/2 miles and push-ups and abs work