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Sunday, July 20, 2008

UNCF Fund Run 5K...

It has been one of my mental blocks since I did it last year. I wanted to do well so badly. It's like I was desperate for something, and when I didn't do well it went into the big pile of disappointments that I had collected.

It started out with pain, a calf strain that I tried to run through. I ended up injuring myself with a tear that still haunts me to this day. Every time I get up in distance, I won't say milage because I hardly think 1.50 can be called "milage", it rears it's ugly head, and I quit.

I also didn't get much support. My WW running friends were FABULOUS in that department, but my family, with the exception of Ryan, was another story all together. They still don't get why I love to run.

Even though I hoped like hell, Ryan knew he'd be in the middle of the Gulf working. He was so supportive he even bought a GPS for me and "pep talked" me everyday. He was like the guy on,"The Water Boy." YOU CAN DO IT!!

My dad was freaked out about my going into the city, "alone" to do the race, yet they weren't willing to come with me. It's not like I was running in the middle of the 9th ward, alone and in the middle of the night. I was running around Audibon Park, in the Garden District, with a thousand other people!!

Ryan says it's their way of manipulating the situation. My parents don't think it's safe to ride a motercycle, so when we want to go ride they make a thousand and one excuses why they can't babysit. Same thing here, they refused to babysit. I was angry, hurt and feeling like a cagged animal ready to pounce.
It was the beginning of the end, of the woman I used to be. I was basically the poster child for, "Angry White Female."

After talking to my sister, she said that she would go with me and watch M while J stayed at her house with her husband.

I say it was the beginning of the end, because before this I would have just given up and stayed home. I wanted this so badly. I was tired of being told what to do, and what I was or wasn't capable of. Even now I hate that I allowed myself to be that person.

Not smart enough, not pretty enough, never skinny enough....too skinny. That friend isn't good enough, that boy isn't good enough, can't sing well enough, can't write well enough. Kids?? are you crazy? You'll just fuck that up too! LUCKY to be a dental assistant. Fortunate that such an educated, intellegent person is fooled into thinking you're good enough. No, I'm not exaggerating. Story of my life. I've learned through LOTS of therapy that my mother is the one with the issues, not me.

You see, my mom has this screwed up thinking that she's "protecting" us from failure, by dicouraging us from doing things were we may not successful. It's not because she doesn't love us, it's because she doesn't KNOW how to express her love other than her fucked up idea of protecting us from disappointment. She never got the concept that failure builds character, as well as success. Without failure you have nothing to work for. In her eyes failure just equals hurt. I don't think anyone ever taught her that success is in trying, not in winning, so you never fail unless you don't try.

I wonder if she has a clue that it hurts more than helps, especially when you get the inevidable, " I told you so." if you don't make it. Who cares that I made District Honer Choir four years in a row! I didn't make State, so I sucked. She wonders why I couldn't sing in front of her, it was an actual physical reaction when she was in the room. I really wasn't being a stubborn little bitch,like she thought. Dispite my eyerolls and saddy additude I was balled up on the inside;

I've learned that I can't sit around and wait for people to love me the way I need to be loved. There are some things that you simply can't change. The only thing I can do is be the kind of daughter that I can live with being, and maybe one day she'll appreciate that for what it is.

For me, this was so much more than a race. I wasn't running against a clock or the people running next to me. I was running against myself, trying to out race my demons, I failed miserably. I put on a brave face and did a good job of "acting" proud of myself, but I wasn't.

I wasn't ready for that race and it had absolutly nothing to do with my physical injury.

After alot of work, I'm in a different place this year. Even if I have to walk it in again, I'm ready to leave it on the course. It's the last peice of my past that I need to make right.

I have 11 weeks and a sore tendon in my leg, the haunting, poorly healed injury that I mentioned before. My PT friend has assured me that I should be able to train as long as I train smart. Lots of stretching, lots of strength training, lots of ice even when it doesn't hurt. No running without shoes, because of my high arches.

We do a good bit of barefoot running in Tae Kwan Do. Thankfully, my instructor is super helpful, and has begun giving me a minute to throw shoes on whenever necessary. I puffy heart my TKD peeps.

Oct. 5th, UNCF Fund Run. Bang or bust, run or walk, here I come! I've got some buisness to work out. It's demon killing time!

2 comments:

Viv said...

Yea love the little countdown to you kickin butt on that 5K. you have a course to avenge and that motivation enough right?!

Al's CL Reviews said...

You will do great. You are such a different woman than where you were last year.