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