where do I go from here?

Today? Is a good day. I’ve had time to think. To clean. To breathe. It’s taken a couple weeks to find my groove. I am not going to tell you I’ve got the whole presence thing figured out. But simply realizing that I’m not always present, and that that makes the tasks in my life harder instead of easier, has been mind-blowing.  Sometimes I catch myself, wandering off inside my head when I really should be paying attention to the task at hand, and I’ve had to laugh a little as I pull myself back on track.  It amuses me to find that at times I have the attention span of a child.

My half is coming up soon — just over two weeks away.  I see registration is finally open for the event.  I need to take care of that this week!  I don’t know why I’m putting it off.  I’ve done the training.  Signing up for the race should be easy.  Except it isn’t.   The closer to the date I get, the more worried I become.  Which is ironic, seeing as I have trained for this event, and trained well, and I know I can do it.  I guess I’m a little worried that I’ll feel like a flunky, walking it when most everyone else is running.  And I’m worried that people will scoff at me — what’s she doing here?  This is a runners’ event, go do a volksmarche!  Half-marathons are for fit people. Obviously, I don’t expect people to say these things to me, but I worry they’ll be thinking them.  Deep down, I realize people are going to be in their own minds.  They’re not there to judge me; they’re there to race.  A few will probably even applaud my efforts.  But, shit — this is making me cry to even write this.  Funny how I need to get into my head, and out of my head, eh?

I’ve been trying to formulate my plans for after the half.  My plans to train for and complete the Disney marathon have fallen through.  At first I had hoped to just scale it back and do the half, but even that simply isn’t in the cards.  Back in the summer when I signed up for the race, I had no idea how much time would be involved in the training.  I mean, it’s one thing to say “and a 5-6 hour training walk on the weekend”, it’s another thing to actually take that much time out of your incredibly short weekend and do it.  Between helping Liam with his homework and aikido in French, going to a French immersion course myself  three days a week starting next month, and the day to day demands of life, I’d be hard-pressed to commit the time to train for a half even.  Aside from the training, hopping an ocean with two kids in tow — and all the ensuing jet lag — is not a great idea.  Especially since they (and I) would miss a couple days of school at best, and have to jump right back into the routine with no time to adjust to the second time change in a week.  Cost is a factor too, of course.  I’ve gone back and forth on this a dozen times, contemplated going solo and leaving J on his own with the kids, and in the end?  It always works out that the needs of the many outweigh the wants of the one.

Where do I go from here? Since I’m not going to be training for a race, I doubt I’ll want to spend much time out walking.  Winters are wet here, people, and being out in the cold and rain for that long is not fun.  I thought about swimming, but the pool’s lap schedule does not mesh with my school schedule and my mommy schedule.  I’m spending a lot of time looking around at alternatives.  Yes, I could hop on the elliptical in the garage three times a week.  It would get the job done, it’s convenient, it’s free.  And it’s boring as hell.  Like stab my eyes out boring.  I need a plan.