If you’re ever bored and want to have some fun, follow your friends to a bar where they’re having a mini class-reunion and pretend you graduated with everyone there.
The reaction from people trying to place you is classic.
Sure, it isn’t real nice, but it’s funny. Also, if it’s Saturday night in Ohio, that’s about as exciting as it gets. And, you never know how many of your “classmates” will offer to buy you a drink.
Some of you may remember that one of the items on my Life List is to run a 1/2 marathon. I had wanted to run the one here next weekend, but it turns out that I got my dream job working for a company who kept me very busy during the summer months. Training for a 1/2 in August and September was out of the question.
Once things settled down at work, my husband announced that he would help me meet my goal. He looked right past the fact that I had been sitting for, virtually, months and hadn’t even thought about increasing my heart rate since the spring. He said that if we start now, I should be able to run a 1/2 marathon by May. I still have my doubts.
My suggestion for anyone who wants to get their body in motion after a long sabbatical? Insist that a friend or your spouse kick you out of the house and make you start running. Also, have them tell you that you’re doing great and that you’ll look better with a smaller butt. It needs to be a person to whom you can say that you simultaneously love and hate them for what they’re doing.
If you’re overweight and out of shape, like me, it won’t be easy, but you can do it! I have even put some tips together for you as you pound the pavement. If you are a gym rat, you can skip this section.
1. Running in the rain is great. It keeps you cool and the trail is virtually empty. The fewer people to see you huffing and puffing.
2. Never trust a fart.
3. If you look gross in compression pants, add shorts over them. Though, keep in mind, this will not stop the shorts from riding up and you’ll look gross anyway…maybe even more so, as you pull fabric from your nether regions.
4. If you tend to get winded, run with a dog. They have to poop sometimes and you’ll get a little break.
5. Take ibuprofen as soon as you get home.
6. Your running route should go past a fire station. There are defibrillators there.
7. Walk and catch your breath when there’s no one around. Sprint when you pass the soccer fields filled with hundreds of people.
8. Don’t let your inhaler prescription expire. Trust me.
9. Invest in good shoes. In the right size. If you wear an 11, admit you wear an 11 and that you are really an evil-stepsister and not Cinderella.
10. Look at pictures of your in-shape friends on Facebook before you head out for your run. Curse them with each step.
Keep it up, no matter what! With a little luck and a lot of work, you will be able to run a whole 8/10th of a mile, just like me!
After I dropped the kids off at school this morning, I drove to the library to return some books.
Next to the library there is a long path which runs for miles to the north and south, mostly used by runners and bikers and one loose dog who once darted up the riverbank, through the trees and sent a biker flying over her handlebars onto the asphalt. I don’t know who that dog belonged to, but I have seen her sleeping in my daughter’s bed.
I digress.
Because it was so early when I returned the books, the path was mostly empty, save for a lone, young mother with a jogging stroller. My initial reaction was that she didn’t seem much different than I used to be; which, after some thought, wasn’t really true at all.
Of course, I don’t know the woman so it’s quite possible that we are a lot alike…though, when I say that, I mean her young-self and my middle-aged self, because I could tell by looking at her that she had her act together far more than I did at her age.
First of all, it was 8:00 AM. And, she was jogging. With a baby.
Second, she was color-coordinated and wearing nice workout gear.
Third, see the first thing again.
I was SO not that mother. As a matter of fact, I can recall feeling very disheveled inside and out. I can remember not wanting to leave my house because of the way I looked and I canceled plans all the time. I was overweight, my hair was completely unstyled and my clothes were outdated. Inside, I was a mess because I thought all of that mattered. I felt like a hag at the age of 27.
Now? I’m MORE overweight, my hair is a disaster and I’m currently wearing a shirt with a coffee stain and my husband’s running shorts from 1990. The ones that I fished out of the Goodwill bag because, hello? Perfectly good running shorts! Even though the stripe down the left leg has detached itself and hangs loosely.
But, inside I’m not disheveled anymore, no matter what I look like on the outside when I show myself in public. I don’t stay home and make excuses. I am living my life, enjoying my family, friends, work and the confidence that comes with age. Well, in my case anyway. After seeing that young mother and knowing that I would have never done what she was doing, I realized that 40 isn’t such a bad place for me to be. Either that, or it’s my Zoloft.
All I can say is that it feels good.
And, I didn’t even have to go jogging.
I have been really busy lately. Like, so busy that I don’t call my friends, or my dad, or even the dentist when I have a toothache so wicked that I want to knock out my molar with a sledgehammer.
That busy.
My mom has been a huge help to me. For the last few weeks, she has taken one, or both, of my kids to her house almost every day. She usually picks up my son in the morning while my tween daughter hides in her room, then she drops him back off in the early evening. Even though the BlogHer Conference is over, I am still catching up, so he went over there again yesterday.
When she dropped him off after dinner, she told me that they had just had an interesting conversation. Although my mom knows my son is famous for making inappropriate comments, she asked him, “Do you think I’m pretty?”
My filterless boy replied, “Half and half. You’re half not-pretty because you’re old.”
“What about the other half?”, my mom questioned.
And, he proved his ability to manipulate when he said, “The other half is pretty because I love you.”
I have never seen anyone give a simultaneous insult and compliment quite so well.
For the record, today is my mom’s 77th birthday, so feel free to tell her how awesome she is for putting up with me for all of these years. You can do that now, BECAUSE SHE JUST GOT INTERNET…which is really like MY birthday present, because I don’t have to print my blog posts anymore.
Please, don’t tell her she is half-awesome. You can leave that to my kid.
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