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

Arranged Marriages

I'm not sure if other girls operate the same way I do, but I for some reason always have a handful of guys I'm talking to.  I've somehow managed to find guys that I'd like to be with but for whatever circumstantial reason, I can't.  So I end up keeping in touch, meeting them randomly, and occasionally spending a few hours on the phone catching up.  I've always thought this was a good quality, but I think I'm letting it hold me back.  I'm keeping these tiny touch points of a relationship in the back of my mind, and I realized that I shouldn't do that.

One of my friends who I was traveling to Miami with me is from India, and he was suckered into listening to me and another friend talk about dating and guys for a chunk of vacation.  He finally blurted out, "Now I know why they do arranged marriages in India."  He said people go into arranged marriages with a completely different mindset than people who pick their own spouse.  They go into it knowing that they will have to make compromises to make it work for the rest of their lives.  Their spouse is chosen by their parents, they meet and usually "date" for a few months and decide that they want to get married.  It's completely different than in the US where we go into it thinking, "I'll make this work and worst case I will get divorced."  The funny thing is that the divorce rate for arranged marriages is lower than the divorce rate for non-arranged marriages.  It works ... You change the way you think about something, and you can drastically change the way your life turns out ... It's time to stop maintaining all these tiny touch points and let myself find one touch point.

336 Miles Down 31 Miles to Go

Alone Time

Today I ran in Miami!  I'm continuing to bring my runs to the most exotic locations possible.  I ran today with one of my good friends and his wife.  I use to think that working out was something that should stay completely out of a relationship.  I usually wearing loose fitting clothes, I have no make up on, and I believe that if you're not sweaty you haven't worked out hard enough.  So it's not always the most attractive.  After about a mile, the path we were running on was underconstruction and there was a detour.  Through the sand.  No one warned me that running in the sand was like running a marathon without training.  I consider myself in pretty good shape, but I couldn't feel my legs or breathe.  Something about running with someone though made me not want to chicken out.

I'm not sure why, but I always want my alone time.  I love being alone, and working out has pretty much been my steady alone time, not couple time.  It feels so good to have nothing to think about except for not tripping on a stick on the ground.  This past year I've gone through a lot, and I've felt some strange connection to my ex-boyfriend and I've not really been able to pin point why but I think I'm starting to understand that he was not the person who I should be dating.  Maybe if I was dating the right guy, like my married couple friends, I wouldn't need so much alone time.

This week I spent 24 hours driving from Boston to Miami in the car with four friends.  Friends don't replace completely dating someone, but I've had so much fun on this trip so far that it's doing a pretty good job distracting me.  I've been eating Cuban food, dancing, running on the beach, and just having a good time ... That's exactly what I moved across the country to find.

333 Miles Down 34 Miles to Go

Learn From My Mistakes

My favorite people are back at the gym!  Spring breakers!  Sweat suits and light jogging and stair climbers. Trying to sweat off a few pounds still smelling like booze from last night.  I miss undergrad.

My goal for today was to learn from my previous mistakes.  I keep pushing and pushing and pushing myself and getting stupid setbacks like shin splints or injured heels.  So I decided today not to over due it.  I've had three five mile runs in a row, which is something I've never done post injury.  I've also never done this pre-injury.  I've been working so hard that I am back to where I left off before I skied into a few trees.  I think I need to reevaluate how I am living and changing.  I need to learn from my mistakes, and not go back to the old habits I had that made me so miserable when I started this challenge.  I've worked so hard on identifying what they are, but now that I know what they are, I need to be aware when I am making those same mistakes again.  I can't keep re-connecting with exboyfriends.  What is done is done.  I can't keep considering a career that personally sucked for me.  I need to continue eating healthy and keeping myself in shape.

Today I avoided pushing myself two extra miles and risking hurting my knee again.  Now I just need to learn how to apply this concept to life and not just running ...

330 Miles Down 37 Miles to Go

Sustainability

I'm finally fired up, and stamina to keep up with it.  I ran five miles today, and I stopped because I was running out of time.  As soon as I finish this challenge, I want to run a half marathon.  I've been talking about it for years now, and it's time to buckle down, pick one and run it.

I've been shifting my focus towards a "buzz word" that is all around MBA world: sustainability.  I've been working so hard the past year to make tiny and drastic changes to my life, and I want to make sure I make them a part of my new life and not just a collection of random things I did.  I really need to untangle myself from the boys in my life and be able to meet a new one.  I can run five miles and I can keep up with all the things I've changed in my life.  I've noticed reading back through the "decisions" I've made that I can be a bit of a flip flopper.  I even got a bit annoyed with myself.  I always want to be open to new experiences and whatever twists and turns life throws at me, but for pete's sake sometimes you have to say no to things. Some things are just bad for you and you have to only let them be part of the past.  I've had such a hard time for whatever reason recognizing what pieces to leave and which ones to keep with me.

I've focused on three major areas: Boys, Jobs, and Health.  At least I've identified that I was miserable with my decisions in all areas before I started this challenge.  I narrowed down the three problem areas and am making tiny changes in all of them.  I really expected some big "Kablam!!" moment or something to happen to me like it does in books and movies, but it turns out my journey was lots and lots of tiny changes that brought me back to grad school in another state: going vegetarian (or clean eating), focusing on a career in hospital management, and choosing to be single instead of with someone I know isn't a good fit for me.  All things I'm frustrated with at times, but happier with now that I'm here.

I've been pretty good at eating vegetarian, watching my nutrition, finding new recipes, cooking at home, and it is amazing how much what you eat affects your mood.  I've worked my way through the professional network in Boston and found a job this summer doing hospital administration, which is perfectly in line with what I think my career will be.  So we will see!  I thing the source of my flip flopping is the boys.  Maybe this is where the big "Kablam" moment will come?  I have no idea ...

327 Miles Down 14 Miles to Go

Keeping it Charged

Today I was running away from something else frustrating.  I was in a team meeting, and I opened my email to see an interview invitation for the hospital I was targeting in Chicago.  The hospital I wanted to work at before I went back to school to get my MBA.  I applied as a random applicant who had no connections to the hospital.  I knew these interviews were very competitive to get, and I was so upset I closed my computer and walked out of the room.  I've already accepted an internship at the biggest hospital in Boston, doing exactly what I'd be doing in Chicago.  Arguably a better position, but I wanted to be home again.  I'm not sure why ... But I feel this crazy obligation to live next door to my family.  I am pretty sure if I try really hard I can get my sister or something to move to where I am.  We'll see, for now I'm getting ready for my first summer away from Chicago.  I'm inventorying all my Bostonian friends and collecting the ones who will be here to entertain me this summer.  I'm finding some good ones.  I'll put my Chicago hospital on hold for this. Who knows, maybe I'll end up liking it here more.

I also had a super weird interaction with the Nice guy last weekend.  We went out for a friends birthday, and he came over after.  We fell asleep at my house, and the next thing I remember is being woken up in a haze in the middle of the night.  "Hey ... Can you come lock the door behind me?  I'm gonna go home."  I woke up and he was gone, and I could barely remember this conversation.  Super strange ... He sent me a message in the morning and apologized ... but I'm starting to think we just aren't compatible.  I'm not sure why, but I miss the bickering.  I miss the joking, arguing, and making up.  It just doesn't feel as charged as I'm use to.  I need that shock that keeps me on my toes and keeps everything spicy and fun.

322 Miles Down 19 Miles to Go

Chronic Pain Management

This run was a cause for celebration.  I've broke through the four mile run habit I was stuck in.  Five miles, and I wasn't even tired.  I feel a little bit like someone lit a fire under me, and I just took off.  Something snapped and I not only wanted to move forward, but I just got up and did it.

I've been back in physical therapy for my back, and it is probably the most frustrating trip to physical therapy I've had.  I've had back pain for about five years now.  It started from sitting in a bed for six months and not walking.  I lost a ton of weight and most of the muscles in my legs which only made it worse.  I spent some time in physical therapy right after my accident focusing on my back, but it never really made any lasting impact.  It got so bad that I resorted to cortisone shots a few times.  The second time I got one, I turned on the news two days later and there was a meningitis outbreak.  Caused by a specific form of cortisone that was injected into the spine.  I was instantly convinced that I had meningitis.  After about four frantic calls to my doctor I decided taking three cortisone shots to the spine is not something I want to do on a regular basis.

I felt a little bad for the physical therapist that is working with me now when I went in for my first visit.  I am healthy, I work out 3-5 times a week, I've been in physical therapy for three years, and I have literally tried everything.  However ... still in pain.  "Structurally I should be fine" or at least that's what the doctor told me, and I just sort of gave up assuming I'd be in a mild amount of pain most of the time.  I don't want to be on drugs, and I don't want to be in physical therapy forever so I just deal with the pain.  The other day when I went in though, we didn't start with the normal spinal stretches ... But they wanted to talk.  Weird thing for a physical therapist.  She wanted to tell me that she understands what I'm going through, she had back pain for years after a snowboarding accident and that it did go away but it took a lot of work.  My other physical therapist (I have one and a student that works with him) wanted to talk to me about chronic pain management.

In general pain is caused by some kind of trigger.  With chronic pain your body can get use to it, and continue sensing the pain even though the trigger is no longer there.  The way they explained it is through Phantom Limb Syndrome.  Sometimes when people lose limbs they can still feel it.  The brain is so powerful that it can imagine a finger on your body when there is no finger on your body.

The moral of the story today, is that you have the power to reprogram the way your brain thinks.  Your brain associates pain with certain activities where it was always present, but you can teach your brain that the pain is gone.  If I can teach my back not to hurt when I run, I can teach my brain to stop feeling other pains too. It's time to start trying to manage my chronic pain ...

317 Miles Down 24 Miles to Go

"Nice" Guys

It's time to identify a trend in my dating life.  They are all pretty much assholes.  I know everyone is always saying, "Why do girls always date bad guys?" or something like, "Nice guys always finish last."  Last night I went out with someone who is just really nice to me.  He just right away seems like a genuinely good guy. He asked me to get a drink and talk about a case competition I was doing, and after a few hours we hadn't touched on the case competition.  It was actually really refreshing and a little bit scary at the same time.  I've been looking for this!  I ordered a martini that sounded awesome ... and it was terrible.  He switched with me and ended up drinking a blue martini while I was drinking a vodka soda. He's not like the guys I usually date.  He's not super into sports, he's from San Francisco, his idea of a date was the two of us getting a drink and talking.  Most guys I've dated have taken me to a dive bar to watch a sports game, and usually at some point we end up with all his friends.  I actually really love dive bars.  I also really love watching a game in them, but at a certain point I had to realize that I wanted other things too.  I think this is what I realized when the marine came to visit me.  He landed and went to the bars to meet his friends.  He came over two hours after he said he would, and he was a little bit drunk.  It just does not make you feel special.  Anyways ... this new nice guy is also quite a bit older than me (ten years), which made me nervous at first.  But after going out, I think that maybe 10 years is a good amount of time ...

308 Miles Down 33 Miles to Go

I would have killed him.

Yesterday I had a moment where I just had to stop myself and yell at me, "What the hell are you doing?!?!?!"  It started completely normal and escalated quickly.  I had been planning going on a ski trip for a while ... and I was starting to have second thoughts.  They overbooked the house, and to be honest, I'm too old to get wasted and sleep on a roll of toilet paper for a weekend as a pillow.  It wouldn't have been that bad ... but I feel the same about trundle beds as I do about wood floors and toilet paper pillows.  I wasn't skiing and started to think of all the other things I could do with my weekend.  As I commiserated with my friend who also was planning on backing out, we started listing all the other things we'd rather do.  I hate communal food ... which was the game plan for the weekend.  I told him I didn't want to live without oranges for four days, and communal food is always 95% carbs.

As we complained, he said, "I'm not hitting on you.  But we should get a hotel in Boston.  You can have oranges.  I won't slobber on your alcohol.  Guaranteed own bed.  Also sweet hotel robes."  My first thought was this sounds indefinitely better.  I started googling for crazy things to do in Boston and looking at hotels in Boston.  Enter, "WTF" moment.  Friday night was Valentine's Day.  I was searching for a hotel room on Valentine's Day with my friend ... who was not single.  I decided two things when that happen.  One: Time to put some space between me and him.  Two: You can't just find people you like and spend time with them.  If my husband was talking to another girl how he was talking to me ... I would have been really hurt.  Then I would have killed him.  I think maybe I'll just put a little space between us ... I do not want to wake up and realize one day that I'm starting to have feelings for someone who is taken ...

305 Miles Down 36 Miles to Go

The First Bend

I missed it. But I'm not stopping

Something odd happens when you've been single and moving around the country on your own.  I realized for the first time, I'm living completely untied down.  I don't actually have to do anything I don't want to do.  In every relationship I've been in, I've done things like stay in, go out, travel, see movies I didn't want to, because my boyfriend wanted to.  It's not bad to do the things he wants to, you have to do it ... But it's a little bit great not to feel obligated.

I've been talking to my ex who I have crazy chemistry with a lot, and he said something that I can't seem to forget about.  He lives in Florida now, and he said, "I am nervous dating you wouldn't work now.  I think you'd resent me for moving to Florida eventually."  What?!  Who said I was moving to Florida? He assumed that if we got back together, that I would move there with him and just piece into his life that he has.  I was confused because I'd love to travel around and live somewhere new with someone I'm dating, so moving to Florida sounds kind of exciting.  But I can't do it with him ... It would be the first bend.  If I bend for him once, I'm sure I'll end up doing all the things he wants to and forgetting about all the goals I've made for myself.  He didn't seem to understand why I want to work in a hospital, or why I picked up and moved to Boston for school.  I realized that he hasn't really known me at all after my skiing accident, which changed a lot of things for me.

I had a short run today ... Still recovering.  I realized that I missed my goal, but I'm not stopping.  I will finish this mileage challenge if I have to overcome 100 injuries.  So I'm adding on another month and another 26 miles.

Challenge accepted.  No bending.

299 Miles Down 43 Miles to Go

Work Husbands

One mile!!! I'm going so slow.  I hate it.  I really don't know anyone who is alright with setbacks, and I know I need to just figure out a way to deal with it ... But right now this makes me super crabby.  Getting back to 100% myself is taking forever.  I'm in the middle of internship searching now, and I am waiting to hear from a really big hospital in Boston that is my first choice. It makes me so nervous to wait and wait and wait ... I've been working on this for so long ...

The more I talk to people in consulting, the more I realize that all the money, hotel status, airline miles, crazy travel plans, free amex points ... I was going to say aren't worth it, but then I realized that I really miss those things.  I have a good friend here, who was also interviewing for a consulting position and said to me, "We should both go! It would be so fun! We can hang out all summer!"  I freaked out a little bit.  We use to have a name for this when I was in consulting, "Work Husband."  You eat breakfast, lunch and dinner together, you share a car, you go to the gym together, you work next to each other, you're in the same hotel ... I've made some good friends this way, but then we always go home on the weekends and after a year we live in different states.  I always had a love hate relationship with it.  I was overpaid, learning a lot, and traveling all over the world.  But "date night" ment facetiming my boyfriend while I had room service alone in my hotel.  Everytime I wanted to walk away from it, I would get a raise or a promotion or a new project somewhere awesome and stay. Being gone so much put so much space between me and my boyfriend at the time that I remember getting a huge raise (~$10,000) and not even telling him.  I'm not sure why exactly I didn't tell him, but he just didn't seem to understand.  My work husband knew though ...

Recovery from running injuries is a frustrating process ... But I will do it.  I just get up and decide it's time to run again.  Sometimes I'm fine, and sometimes my knee hurts or I am so exhausted I can't breathe when I run, but I always get through it.  Rearranging my life is the same.  I go back and forth on missing someone who I know is not good for me, and I go back and forth about a career that I also know is not good for me. I guess I need to just learn from running.  Make the decision.  Just do it, and be done.  I don't want another work husband, I think I'd be happier with a real one.

298 Miles Down 18 Miles to Go

Did he hit on you?!

I had a pretty strange experience last week.  I was contacted randomly by a manager at a big health care organization in Boston.  He wanted to talk to me about an open position in his group.  He set up some time to talk with me on the phone, and scheduled quickly a meeting with me to come in and talk with him more about creating an internship for me in person.  I figured either the group was a huge mess and needed some kind of change or this was just way too good to be true.  He wanted me to come in and meet all the different groups he managed and design an internship for me around something that I found interesting.  He worked in IT, and I'm pretty sure he grabbed my name because I worked in consulting for a few years in IT.

Well I put this idea in my back pocket and kept it on the table as an option.  Until I talked to another alumni who worked for him.  I asked her if she knew him and what she thought of him as a manager.  The first thing she said to me was, "Did he hit on you?!?!"  I was baffled.  This literally never crossed my mind, and then I realized he never even asked me for my resume and he was offering for me to design any kind of internship I wanted?  It didn't add up ...

I took that option off the table.

297 Miles Down 19 Miles to Go

A Man on My Couch

Today I had a different kind of wedding ring seeking.  I went on a fancy dinner with one of my friends here.  We were talking about how it sucks not to be able to go out to dinner and get dressed up.  I'm single, and his wife is currently living out of state.  So, we decided to get dressed up and go out to eat, along with another one of my girlfriends.  Dinner was awesome, and we went to a bar afterwards that had a jukebox.  I had a beer ... and then I woke up in my bed.  Somehow I forgot the whole night.  I immediately changed into pajamas, went to the bathroom, and wandered into the kitchen for water.  I felt like I could drink all the water the faucet could give me and still be thirsty.  And he was sleeping on my couch.  Shiiiittttt.  Hate blacking out!

After I woke him up fumbling for a cup and water, he filled me in on some pieces I didn't remember.  1.  I threw up on him.  2. I forced him to watch several episodes of Pawn Stars.  3.  We spent quite a bit of time talking about his wife, apparently I had a lot of questions.  As soon as he realized I was fine and awake, he left.  Needless to say I had a lot to think about.

294 Miles Down 22 Miles to Go

Wedding Ring Seeker

Just as I start putting consulting on the table for all the good things it has, I am reminded of all the bad things it has to come along with.  I went to a health care panel today (in graduate school they are always pushing you into "career exploration" which I usually hate, but today was awesome) and there were three women on the panel who were running hospitals in Boston.  ALL of them had wedding rings on.  I started thinking about my old gone Monday-Friday life, and I had a mini panic attack.  I don't want to put myself into a situation where I can't meet anyone.  When I think about dating a consultant, I am not even a little bit attracted to the idea because I know I'll be having dinner alone four nights out of seven.  I know I'll be sleeping alone, and I know I won't be able to talk to them for more than five minutes at a time all week.  If I hate the idea of this, how can I expect someone else to be okay with it?  Also, I tend to get fat from eating out at restaurants too much.  So there's that too ...

291 Miles Down 24 Miles To Go