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

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