May 10, 2010 | Filed under: Is She Still Talking?, Thinky

We were in grad school when my friend Margaret turned 31. I’m just so comfortable and mellow, she said. I remember thinking it was weird to have that kind of revelation at that age – 31 is such a random number, not a milestone age like turning 30 or 35. And I, being a decade younger, had little concept of what the hell she meant.

I do now. At the ripe old age of … 31.

Back in March, after surviving another ugly, ugly February, I was feeling it. Mellow. Despite everything being up in the air – I had no boss yet no shot at a promotion, no relationship, and no semblance of work-life balance – I was actually pretty chill, which came as a great shock to me. I looked around at my life and thought, “This may be all there is. And that’s not half-bad.” This was quite possibly the most mentally healthy I’d been in, you know, ever. Rather than thrashing about, striving for whatever is around the next bend, I was doing what I needed to be doing and feeling good about it, nothing more.

In retrospect, I wonder if all the pollen clogging the air was making me high.

In the last few weeks, I slipped up, and I let myself want something, if only for a brief moment. And now instead of feeling good about where things are (statuses all being the same, except that my new boss starts soon), I’ve been restless and churning. Instead of deliberately marching myself back to that mellow place, I’m left wondering if that feeling was instead resignation, complacency, a way of anesthetizing myself in light of an existence that falls short of the one I really want.

I don’t know which is better, healthier. Accept the way things are, and make peace with that? Or continue the quiet — but possibly desperate and futile -– struggle that we learned in AP English class:

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

* * * * *

Ten days ago, I read this article in the Times, and reflected on how good it was for me to see that perfectly lovely, well-educated, and by all accounts accomplished people sometimes don’t get the life they would have chosen.

Today, Elena Kagan was nominated to the Supreme Court. Which either makes her a great example of how you should always strive for your dreams, try try again, etc., or it’s definitive proof that god hates me .

February 25, 2010 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am, Is She Still Talking?

I’ve had New Year’s resolutions to tell you about for, oh, the last sixty days.  Now’s as good a time as any to discuss them, as they’ll become important in a minute.

1.  Eat healthy foods, made from real, non-processed, organic/locally-grown ingredients.

2.  Exercise.  Sixty hours a week in front of a computer is not healthy.

3.  Do not let February steamroll you this year, as it has in so many years past.

That’s it:  three things.  Manageable, right?  While resolutions #1 and #2 are going … well, not great, but fine … I am completely and utterly failing on the February part.  (Five days into February, my boss resigned.  Then I tossed a hand grenade into my precariously-balanced relationship.  On the same day.)  It’s been an anxiety-filled three weeks here, and if you don’t believe me, ask my spice-loving co-worker who took a break from the sauce (literally) because it was eating a whole in his stomach.

But!  Tomorrow I’m getting on a plane, bound for New Orleans and the Rock’n'Roll Mardi Gras Marathon where I will drag my under-prepared self 13.1 miles to the finish line.  (The chance to run regularly would have really helped my stress levels, but DC was busy being buried under 54 inches of snow this winter.  Great timing, Mother Nature!)  While flying to another city to run 13 miles seems crazy, the real crazy is that it’s the best excuse I’ve had in a while to take two days off of work.

When I get back to DC, it will be March, the piles of snow will have vanished, and I will have survived another dispiriting February.  I may, however, need to keep that resolution on the list for next year.

May 4, 2009 | Filed under: Is She Still Talking?

Well then. That was a slightly longer break than I’d anticipated, but I think it was worth it. Thanks to all of you who’ve stuck around this long.

I’m not going to lie to you, there was some serious angst going on, followed by some all-out moping, and really, it’s better that I didn’t spread it all over the Internet, convincing you to dye your hair black and listen to Nirvana for days on end.  And then once I bothered having a life again, it kinda got in the way of blogging. I have stories I haven’t yet told, so I will (slowly) roll them out here. Fair warning: a select few of them will probably be thinky-bordering-on-mopey. I see no reason to sugar-coat my life for you. You all know better, anyway.

I’ve been learning — well, re-learning — a lot lately.  Things I’d forgotten in the tangle of winter and work and melancholy,  like how much I need to spend time outdoors; how much tree pollen and I don’t get along, at all; how physical activity makes me happy; how February contains all of the worst, darkest, bleakest moments of the entire year, all strung together in a deceptively short month and for the love of god I have got to set that as an annual reminder in Outlook and stop making life-changing decisions then.  (Hello, end of two long-term relationships and a job!  Aren’t I brilliant?!)

Also, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, I’m considering Twitter.  Because even if I don’t manage to write a whole post here, most days I can manage 140 snarky characters about SOMETHING.  Thoughts?

January 8, 2009 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am, Is She Still Talking?

Eight days into the new year — high time to get myself some New Year’s resolutions. I’m not sure how much resolve I have, so let’s call these goals targets to shoot for pipe dreams.

If there’s one thing I learned in grad school, it’s that goals must be CLEAR and MEASURABLE. That means none of this namby-pamby “be more patient” sort of resolution. (I feel OK giving up on that particular resolution. Ten years running and it hasn’t worked yet.)

Therefore, here are some of my goals for the year. I’m sure it’s not an exhaustive list, but I’m too exhuasted to try to come up with the rest of them.

• Run 800 miles. Now, before you go thinking this sounds batshit insane, please note that 800 miles is approximately 15 miles per week, or three 5-mile runs each week. This is a totally manageable goal which will only become unmanageable if I don’t work out three times a week. And if I don’t work out three times a week, a lot of other bad things will happen, not least of which is becoming batshit insane.
• Blog at least once a week.
• Do not stress out.
• Add weekend days onto work trips so as to do something fun while in other places, rather than the fly in/fly out routine from last year.
• Finish furnishing the house.
• Do not stress out.
• Bike. Like, ever. Buying a bike might be a good first step.
• Send real Christmas cards. Before Christmas.
• Do not stress out.

Did you make resolutions? Have you blown any of them already? It’s OK, we won’t tell.

December 11, 2008 | Filed under: Is She Still Talking?

Him: So, your birthday’s this week.  Are you making a list?

Me: A list?

Him: Yeah, a list of things to do before you die.

Me: Um, you do know that I’m turning thirty, not sixty, right?

Nope, I haven’t made a list.  But if you’ll indulge me in this exercise of intense navel-gazing here (and damn it, you should — it’s my birthday!) I will take the opportunity to runimate on the last decade and what this particular milestone means to me. 

In many ways, I’m happy to leave behind my twenties. I feel so far removed from what it was like to be 23, that I can hardly believe I was considered a grown-up then and was allowed to have a job and own a car and sign an apartment lease. Who entrusted me with these responsibilities? And more importantly, WHY WOULD THEY DO SUCH A THING???

I am really OK leaving behind the heartache that came in my twenties, both personal and professional. I know I’m lucky, in that I can identify exactly two traumatic/ heartachy events that occured prior to turning 19, but the law of averages seems to have caught up with me in the last decade. I’m sure there’s more to come, but I have to think it’ll be spread out a little bit more. (Please?)

Thirty brings with it a mellower version of me, just like everyone said it would. To be clear, mellower does not necessarily mean less driven or less stressed, because on the whole I’m probably neither, but I’m more accepting of the fact that some things just ARE.  Sure, there are often ways in which things could be improved or maybe they’re not exactly the way I prefer, but there are only so many hours in the day and only so many brain cells to devote to such causes, that some things will just have to remain sub-par or imperfect or just the way they ARE because it’s too much trouble to change them. (Not-level bathroom counter that lets a pool of water collect in one corner which will evaporate and leave behind ugly scuminess unless I wipe it down with a towel every time I use the sink, I am looking at you.) These are the things that are no longer allowed to cause stress or use up brain cells.

I think — I hope — that I am more accepting of other people and their experiences, too. (Here’s where I turn the Cheese Factor up to 11…) It seems to me that Forrest Gump was right: you never know what you’re gonna get. We’re all shaped by our experiences, but few of us get to pick them. A decade ago, I didn’t know that I wasn’t going to law school. I didn’t know that today I’d be single and childless. I didn’t know that I’d take a three-year detour to California. I didn’t know I’d turn myself into a distance runner, hiker, skier. I didn’t know that I’d take a job so demanding and all-consuming that the entire range of personal life highs and lows, hopes for the future and unfulfilled dreams, baggage that could fill a cargo plane has to be compressed into a space the size and shape of a box from Tiffany’s. I didn’t know that I’d have firsthand experience with a box from Tiffany’s. I didn’t know that it wouldn’t work out with the person behind the box from Tiffany’s, but that I’d be OK anyway. Better than OK. Really good, actually.

I’m looking forward to my thirties.  There’ll be the slowing metabolism, expanding ass and dramatically less supple skin. Oh, wait — wrong list.  I don’t know what’s in store for me in the next year or the next decade, so in the meantime, what should I put on the list? 

* Almost.  Officially on Friday.  But we’re celebrating a day early at my office, so why not post here today, too?  Also, the stress-induced insomnia kicked in full force this week, so I’ve had several quiet hours during which to write. Lucky me.