One More Run ...

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much happier I've been, and what has made me so happy.  I look at my friends and family and I want to be as happy as they are.  I've been comparing my happiness to people getting engaged, married, puppies, houses ... But none getting their MBA's.  I'm not the same as them, and I'm sure they were happy before they did all those things, just like I am now.  Also, for the first time since high school, I'm so happy with my body.  Not because I "look" a certain way, but because in the beginning I was dying after one mile, and this week I will run more than 20 miles.  I wanted to do a marathon a month, and this week, I'll almost do that!  I could run forever ... except today.  Today I was dying with two minutes left in my four miles.  I think it was because I'd been running 4+ miles back to back, but I felt like my legs were giving up.  I kept thinking in my mind that I did not spend a year running to walk the final few miles, and I just kept pushing myself ... This is not the time to stop kicking ass.

When I think about all the things that I think will make me happy, it's a lot easier for me to define them now. I use to want a serious relationship, lots of friends, kids and a puppy.  Somehow I got wrapped up in the wrong relationship, and I ignored all the signs that we were wrong for each other.  I've stopped tying my "happiness" to a person or thing, but tying it to my ability to do the things I want to do.  I've been running, eating healthy, putting myself through college, and traveling wherever I want to go.  I feel like I've taken the last year of my life and given myself a hard reset.  My old work out is now my warm up.  I can't lose weight because I'm all muscle.  I'm going to be the first one in my family to get an MBA, and I'm the first one to move away from home.

I took a deep breath, and focused on the fact that I only have two minutes left ... plus one more run tomorrow.  One more run ...

364 Miles Down 3 Miles to Go

Location is a Deal Breaker?

I did not want to run today. If it was any other day of this personal challenge I would have skipped and promised myself I'd make up the mileage later. There was no later today so I needed to get my butt up and moving. I was really wound up and frustrated. I spent the other night talking to one if my Chicago friends who I wrote about earlier ... I dragged my toes to tell him I was moving to Boston, because I wanted him to ask me out.  Once I finally told him, he responded exactly how I thought he would, "But you're moving ..."  I can't blame him, but I was hung up on the fact that I just didn't care about distance when I thought of him. I'm not quite sure why.

I spent a couple hours talking to him the other day about his career, and he's really made me think.  He reminded me of how restless I was once I realized I wanted to go back to school.  Jumping from career to career option, and not really knowing where to land next.  Eventually somehow we landed on the topic of dating, "saving yourself for marriage," and Fifty Shades of Grey.  It felt really good to have an open honest conversation with someone about dating.  After talking about Fifty Shades of Grey, it finally got personal. He started joking about how he was an attractive guy with a big heart ... and I reminded him that I tried to tell him these things when I still lived in Chicago.  He acknowledged that he freaked out, pushed me away, and kept me at a distance.  Then the truth surfaced, everyone has different deal breakers.  For him one of them was location.  For me, I never considered any place other than Chicago home, so I never considered me moving to Boston for school a deal breaker to date someone in Chicago that I really wanted to be with.  I let him know that I didn't believe location was a deal breaker for me, and he agreed that he could see that perspective.  I sort of wish he saw it two years ago... when I wanted him to ask me out, but what can I do. He said we could pick up the conversation from here next time we talked, and we left it at that.

It's kind of funny how sometimes things frustrate you when they happen, but they resurface again later in the strangest of ways.  I didn't see location as a deal breaker, but I can understand how someone else would. I'm not really sure what will come of this later, if anything, but reconnecting was very refreshing.

360 Miles Down 7 Miles to Go

"Home"

Today I finally admitted defeat.  I live in Boston.  I'm no longer a Chicagoan.  I miss the Weiner Circle at 2:00 AM, being two blocks from the beach, and even the cubs fans throwing up on my sidewalk.  So here I am, admitting that I live here, and for the time being here I will stay.

I finally spent some time moving into my apartment.  I unpacked the final Ikea packages I'd been pretending not to see.  I put my mattress on a bed frame.  I hung all my postcards on the wall so I'd be reminded of the trips I'd taken.  I found a church and started actually going.  I joined a yoga studio.  Time to establish a connection to the city of Boston other than my classroom and local pub bubble.

I remember in college when my boyfriend at the time (the one who lives in Florida now) told me he was moving to London for graduate school.  I freaked out, and he seemed so calm.  I remember us talking about what would happen when we were in different countries.  I was 21, and I was planning on graduating and following him across the Atlantic Ocean.  I had barely been out of the country myself at the time ... and I thought this was a completely logical next step for us.  I remember defining "home" as laying your roots in another person, and home could be wherever you were together.  He always woke me up by saying, "Goodmorning Beautiful," and although I didn't, I felt like I could find "home" somewhere other than the structure I grew up in.  We're not together anymore, and my home definitely isn't him, but I like the concept of not feeling tied down to a brick structure as a "home."  I can feel at home wherever I have my running shoes, my friends, and the road to myself.  I can always rely on my running shoes.

356 Miles Down 11 Miles to Go

Running Towards It

I need to knock off some serious mileage ... so today I resorted to the treadmill, which I've grown to hate.  It ... is ... just ... so ... boring ... and stationary.  I've been running literally, and running figuratively for over a year now.  I feel like I started this challenge to run away from things.  I have run away from a million different things, letting frustration fuel my progress.  I've run from exboyfriends, bad kissers, shin splints, boredom, crappy friends, rain, wind tunnels, work, homework, and the picture of what I thought my life should be now.

For one of the first times, I wasn't running away from anything today.  I was thinking as I finished one of my only five mile runs, that after this I only have 14 miles left to go.  I've started finding things I want, and then getting them.  I wanted my MBA, I want the experience of leaving home, I want to travel, I want to eat healthy, I want to be stronger, I want to work in a hospital.  There were so many things I wanted to do that I am no longer thinking about but I'm actually doing them.  It's just that easy ... I made a list of things I want, and then I did those things.  I don't feel stationary anymore, I feel like I've moved.  Literally, I have moved to Boston, but I feel like I've put a hard "reset" on life.  I love taking time to myself, running, and taking the time to process my day.  I also love how great my legs look now.  Who knew?

It's time to find some new things to run towards, like new vacations and exploring, the finish line of graduate school, my decision to pick a new career, finding a way to run more than five miles at a time, my next city, and maybe even a puppy.  So many new things to run towards ...

353 Miles Down 14 Miles to Go

Exactly How to Be Happy

I realize today that I've spent a year forcing myself to think about everything in my life.  I know I've spent a great deal of time focusing on dating, my career, where I live, how much I work out, what work out I do ... Everything.  I'm so happy I'm taking the time and energy to process things and internalize them.  But the biggest thing I've learned is to take it all in, learn from it, and then just let it go.  I've made lots of changes in my life over the past year, but I've really just reaffirmed what makes me happy and tried to find the path to be there.  A year ago when I started this mission, I was incredibly unhappy.  I remember sitting on a city bus on a rainy Chicago day explaining to one of my best friends from college, I'm going to fix my life by running. Thank God she didn't think I was crazy, I may have never done this.  I couldn't figure out why I was so unhappy, and it was probably a million things happening in my life all colliding together.  I'm 19 miles from the end goal, and I honestly don't think much of that has changed.  The only difference now is that I've learned somehow not to let if affect me.  Crap will always be a part of life, but instead of holding onto it, you can acknowledge it, forget it, and move onto something that will make you happier.

The less I've focused on things that upset me, and more on things that make me happier I've learned to shift my mood.  Nothing has ever changed my attitude as quickly as a long run and a good smoothie.  Two things I rarely did before this year started.  In the beginning I felt like I was trying to convince myself to be happier, and now I feel like I know exactly how to do it.

348 Miles Down 19 Miles to Go

Rip off the Band aid

Spending the week on a beach with some good friends was exactly what I needed.  I feel incredibly refreshed, and there is nothing like spending one week in a studio apartment with a bunch of friends to bond you.  I'm at the edge of my first year, and I literally can not believe how fast time is moving.

Last night I had a surprise visitor to Boston, Sex or No was here.  I had been so wrapped up in the sunshine and cuban food that I had blocked out anything that wasn't directly seeking me out at the moment.  I feel like I've been slowly moving on in my own time, and never really had that "jolt" or "push" a new relationship gives you.  As soon as you become wrapped up in someone new, all that history you were trying to forget about seems so trivial.  Almost to the point that I can't believe how much I thought about it before.  It seems like one day you need to stand up, decide its over, and rip off the band aid.  So I had a message from him to come meet him out, and I figured why not.  I really liked him when we were hanging out in Chicago, but we were just on two different pages and neither of us were settling enough to start a relationship.

As soon as we got a second alone, he kissed me and said "Can I come back to your house." Smooth move.  I've decided to answer the question very selectively, and it seemed like someone from Chicago who I wasn't going to see again didn't quite feel right.  It was really good to see him again, and I wish we lived closer, but I something felt off and I couldn't say yes.  So I told him I'd see him in Chicago and we left it at that.  I got hassled a little by my friends for turning him down, but I'm not sure how to say yes to that proposition and still show someone I want to be in a serious relationship.  So until I figure that out ...

I've also realized ... I'm going to have to run an incredible amount in the next few weeks to meet my goal ... But I'm getting much better at it ... Similar to picking boys ...

344 Miles Down 23 Miles to Go

They're Making More Everyday

Being that I was so close to my college ex who lives in Florida, I sent him a note to see if he wanted to meet up for dinner.  He replied, "Can I bring my girlfriend?"  Awesome.  I'm not sure why he didn't tell me, and I'm even more unsure why he thought this would be the best way to tell me.  I took off running down the side of the beach, actually looking forward to the sand patches today.  I wanted something thrown in my way that I knew would suck but I could take on.  I could barely breathe when I finished the sand patch, so I ran another mile.  My legs hurt so bad in strange places, I was discovering tiny muscles that I didn't know I had. Running on sand is the worst.  I got back and checked a picture that I had posted ...

... Sitting next to it was a picture of my Chicago ex and his new girlfriend.  His profile picture of them pops up every time he likes something I post.  And he has been liking things on my facebook ... Which I find mildly annoying.  It's hard to purge him from my memory when he does things like this.  I want to focus on sustaining the fact that I don't want him in my life anymore.  So I "unsubscribed" him from me, along with the Florida ex.  He won't see anything I say now unless he seeks me out.  I've been good at keeping him out of conversations with my friends here because I'd like him to stay in Chicago, but I mentioned it to my friend. She said so simply, "Great.  He can be with someone else.  She can have all the good stuff, but she's getting all the crappy annoying stuff you hated too.  Don't forget that.  There are a lot of other guys out there, and they're making more of them everyday."

Also after being down here, I've decided I want to be Cuban.  The food, the dancing, the careless fun!

340 Miles Down 27 Miles to Go