We can't all be bathed..

There are those who always seem to have their shit together. Dressed sharply, hair perfectly coiffed, car clean with a heater/air conditioner that works. They have cute coffee cups. They smell of fresh fruits.

And then.. there are people like myself. I am the type of person that leaves her house with coffee in a plastic cup from a local restaurant/bar, or if that isn't available due to the dishwasher being on the fritz, maybe the container from a mixer deal called "the Bullet" designed to smoosh up smoothies, etc. The container has a handle, is clean, and holds a lot of coffee. Voila. 

There are those that keep their cars immaculately clean on the inside and the outside. They take them in every 3,000 miles for an oil change and every 6,000 for tire rotations. If their car starts making noises that resemble metal scraping on metal, they take them in to the garage. They never have expired tags. 

Then there are people like myself. I drive a 12 year old car with a giant dent in the side that should have been repaired right after one of my students hit it, but instead I took the insurance money and bought new tires. There is more shit in the back of it than any hoarder could possibly dream of. The upside is, if I'm ever stranded, I could probably dig around in the back and find things to cook on, sit in, and even possibly even some yard games to pass the time until a tow truck could reach me. 

My car has 900 stickers professing my athletic abilities (middle aged people need to beat their chests too).The heater barely works so I'm almost defrosted by the time I get to work. Okay, actually that's a lie. I only work 5 minutes from my house and it takes a good 45 for the heater to even knock off the chill. The tags are always within a two year window of being registered (that's an exaggeration. Two months, I meant two months.) 

Such is life...

I will always be the girl with the socks which may or may not be matched correctly. The girl whose legs might resemble a chinchilla at any given time. The girl who instead of getting up early to get her car thawed (or even have a garage to put the sumbitch in) will instead scrape the front window with a shitty Blockbuster card (aren't they bankrupt?) and hope that only one side of the driver's window is required for viewing.

If I am the only one who exists with these conditions... good shit. Character builder. Makes for more stories in the end. I feel certain, though, there are others in the world that resemble me. The character of Pig Pen had to be based off someone. 

So, rock on perfectly coiffed, cutely dressed people of the world. I will continue my path of utter disregard for all things typically associated with adult human behavior. But I will always applaud you for your own efforts. As soon as I set my rimmed "coffee cup" down and figure out how to get the interior lights of my car to go off.

Variety. The spice of life.

Numbers...

I have had this in my head for a while but for some reason today (Friday) felt like the time to write it down. I have lately been in a funk because I was turning 40. Now for some, this is the silliest thing ever. Why would you care that you are turning 40? I can't really answer that question. For myself, I feel like it is a benchmark age. An age we look at ourselves and say, where am I in life? What have I accomplished by the age of 40? We also have a tendency to compare ourselves to others as we review accomplishments. I get sucked into feeling like maybe I have failed because I am 40, not married and have no children. Societal standards I suppose? Then I think, no, it's just not for me.  At least it isn't for me right now. It's the comparing that causes the issues. My good friend Krissy recently told me to take the following quote, print it off and put it on my refrigerator:

                                                   “Comparison is the thief of joy.”― Theodore Roosevelt.

We are all different. We all have different paths. Finding my own path and one that fulfills me should be my endeavor. I am not others. I am me. And my path is one that will be drastically different than anyone else's.

I have a good life. I have a great family. I have incredible friends who recently threw me the most amazing surprise 40th birthday party a girl could ever want. I am active and healthy. What does turning 40 do to any of that? Not one damn thing. Not one.

I decided earlier in the year that for the year of turning 40 I wanted to tackle an Ironman distance race of 140.6 miles.  Too much boxed wine will make you do lots of crazy things. I thought, 40 years old, 140.6, and let's get down to 140 pounds. Hmm. Okay.

An Ironman distance race consists of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride, and to top it all off a marathon distance run of 26.2 miles. A bit lofty of a goal but I said to hell with it. I think in my mind I needed something to prove to myself that turning 40 didn't mean I am old. I needed something to convince myself that turning 40 didn't mean I couldn't still achieve athletic endeavors like I once did when I was much younger than 40.

One of my best friends Craig also turned 40 this year. He and I had to have been siblings in a previous life. We are either pulling for one another like rabid badgers OR we are fighting like cats and dogs.  I mentioned the idea of an IM distance race to him and he immediately said, fuck yes. This from the man who two years previously, when I said to him that he should get into training for triathlons (he was strictly a runner) said to me, swimming is for children and what adult rides a bike for fun?? And yet the journey began with us both dropping about 600 bucks on a race. Staving off 40 makes you do stupid shit. I am ecstatic that Craig is doing this race with me. I will be forever grateful to have him cross the finish line with me. And if he finishes before me I will be okay with that too. He literally makes me crazy sometimes and I curse his name, but in the end (cue cheesy music) my life would not be the same without him and I am so thankful he will be on this journey with me.

I had just finished training for a marathon with my good friend Beth and said to her that I wanted to train for an IM distance race because I was turning 40. She is of the gentle, tender age of 39 and so does not understand my 40 woes. She said, I will train with you for this but I am NOT doing an IM distance race. Beth had her sights set on the half IM distance in Wilmington. And yet she did every single bit of training that Craig and I have done. She has done 100 mile bike rides, she did an 18 mile run with us. She has done all the swimming with me, sometimes 2 miles in one session. Beth is a good friend. Scratch that... Beth is an amazing friend and I am lucky to have her in my life. Oh and Beth is now doing the FULL IM at Wilmington. A nice birthday present for me. :)

The journey to 140.6 hasn't been easy. There have been ups, downs and in betweens. When you spend as much time together as Beth, Craig and I have running, biking or swimming, there are bound to be times when even the Pope would be stretched thin. I am the anxious one of the group. I worry about everything. I have had two workouts that ended with me doing deep breathing exercises and even sitting on the side of Route B crying. Beth is the casual athlete but still has days where she is "over this shit!". Craig is either the one spouting quotes of inspiration with vim and vigor or the one saying, um, not feeling it today. We are athletes, I know this, but we attack it with maybe a different plan than some would. We have each had our days of pulling one another through. That is one of the benefits of being part of a team or a community. We got each other through. I have no idea how someone would train for one of these races without a group, without support. I am thankful, as well, that both Beth and Craig are two of the funniest people I know and thus made me laugh when times were tough. Laughter cures many ails.

I stood looking in the mirror this morning getting ready for work, in my bra and undies, examining my physical condition. I looked at the extra skin under my arms, the extra chubs around my waist, the stretch marks, the freckles. I thought of how much we tear ourselves down trying to compare ourselves to an idea of perfection. I thought of how many times I have said I hate this or that about my body. And then it hit me, especially after spending the last 5 months of my life training, truly an epiphany (as I listened to Coldplay's Atlas).... these arms have gotten me through so many miles of swimming, these legs have carried me so many miles on a bike and so many miles running, this body stepped up when I said, hey let's push it a little bit. And I actually stood in the bathroom and started crying (IM training makes you soft) thinking how thankful I was to have a body capable of doing these things. Freckles, extra skin, veins starting to peek through on my legs. I am thankful beyond words. This body is mine. And I wouldn't trade it for any other.

The coincidental part of this is that on my way to work I saw an email from the person who got me started in all of this... a little lady named Amy Livesay.. It was one of the kindest emails I have ever gotten. She spoke of myself and Craig and Beth and the journeys we have taken to get to the point of attempting an Ironman distance race. She always gives me confidence. She always believes in me. Today was no different. And again, on the way to work, I cried (IM training makes you soft).  I am not a religious person in the least, but the scripture she quoted today made me take pause and I copied it down.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."  Hebrew 12:1

Amy has been my source of sage advice and rampant encouragement since I met her. I thank my lucky stars for her and for her friendship. I will say, religious or not, I always think of her words she told me before my first sprint tri.... "Just be thankful for the day, be thankful you can participate. Enjoy the day. There are so many that cannot. You can." She is a wise woman.

In the grand scheme of life, these races are not of importance. People who face major life issues daily and face with them with grace and courage are the heroes. They don't sign up for those battles. I did. I actually paid money for this shit. I paid to have others put me through the rigors of all of this swimming, biking and running. So really I can't complain. But I will anyway. I mean hell, it is a long way to go in one day. :)

I am so thankful to have two of my best friends to tackle this challenge with me. I am thankful beyond words to have had the support of Team TEEM.. Barbie Banks, Suki Lycke, Colleen Parsons, Amy Livesay, and Karen Rouse. It is a bit of full circle for me that Colleen and Amy will both be there to hopefully see me finish. We started off together in our triathlon training group with Amy as the coach and Colleen as a teammate in the group I lovingly called the Bad News Bears (*disclaimer: Colleen is an amazing athlete and not worthy of BNB status but she was in the group.. :)) Full. Circle. So happy they will both be there. I never thought I could finish a sprint tri and here we go...

I am thankful for our IM coaches Mackenzie Rickman and Caroline Cue for their friendship, insight and wisdom and for coming on rides with us and for helping us with a training plan, for giving us advice and for making Beth and I better people at getting places on time ("Mack is there, we probably should just camp out overnight to make sure we are on time..")

We shall see how all this plays out come next Saturday. I am anxious, excited, fearful, ready to rock, ready to cry..  again, just a silly race. Honestly. Yet somehow a test of commitment, of preparedness, of dedication. It will be an adventure regardless of the outcome.

Colleen sent me a quote once which I will carry with me on Saturday... "Some day you will not be able to do this, today is not that day."

40. It's just a number. Bring it 140.6.

Poppa Ron

I am biased, as most daughters should be, that my dad is the best in all the land. In all honestly though he ranks at the very top of them all. He is the most giving and caring man ever. And let's face it, having to put up with me, he has to be one of the most patient men on the planet. 

My dad has always been my best friend. That isn't to say we have never had arguments, all best friends have arguments. The very best ones figure a way to settle them and move on. My dad and I are no different. I always felt bad for him that he never had a little boy to go and play catch with and with which to talk the "boy talk". So I decided that I would be his little buddy. He was a football coach and athletic director and I was his sidekick. I loved to go and golf with him, mostly because I liked to be able to drive the golf cart. He even got me my own set of clubs so we could play. He would get on the men's tee and drive the hell out of the ball and I would get on the Misty tee (about 20 yards in front of the shortest one) and I would play whack a mole. 20 shots later my ball would make it to the green (I told you he was patient). 

My dad loved to hunt and fish. On one sad occasion he took my sister and me with him to go deer hunting. I had no idea he was actually trying to kill the animals until I got there. I mean, I thought I knew what deer hunting was, but seeing it firsthand really made me realize the little guys might get injured. It was cold, we were in the woods, a deer appeared on the horizon and there was blood about to be spilled. I had to hatch a plan and hatch it quickly. Luckily we had healthy southern snacks in the form of Snickers Bars and Coca-Colas with us. I grabbed the candy bar and made as much noise as possible with the wrapper and thus saved the deer's life. After that day, my sister and I never darkened another deer stand with my dad. 

I hung out with my dad so much I guess I thought he and I had the same authority. I was "helping" him at a track meet when I was about 9 where the realization of my actual status of "kid" came to me. There I was in my trusty Puma cleats, wearing my whistle with my mouthful of sunflower seeds. I sidled up to a senior boy on the track team and plainly told him I wanted to sit in the seat he was occupying. He looked at me, gave me a sideways look and said, "I'm not sure you realize it but you aren't the coach... your dad is." For me, it was like a scene out of a movie where the person's face is really clear but seems to be moving to the far end of a tunnel. It was a good lesson, and one I am happy I figured out at the tender age of 9 as opposed to possibly being in high school and having the same scene repeated. 

My dad taught me how to drive and again, had the patience of Job. I was so afraid of driving my standard rule was drive at least 5 miles UNDER the speed limit. Holy hell. Thankfully, we lived in a pretty rural area and had a lot of back roads. I was terrible at driving at night and even worse at parking. My favorite times were when we would have to go to a game to scout or for my dad to be the administrator and we would get to take the magical Driver's Ed car, the one with an extra brake on the passenger's side. I LOVED riding on that side when my dad was driving. That little pedal called my name and I would choose the most inopportune times to mash it down. I got to learn lots of new curse words and had a giggle all at the same time. 

When I finally was able to drive on my own, I struggled with the concept of needing gas. Actually, I struggled with time management. I would never leave our house until the absolute last minute to get anywhere. It drove my dad nuts. Poor guy was my principal in high school and my time management skills meant I had a few extra tardies first hour. That is until I figured out if I came in just late enough I could pull the tardy slip off the door before it got to the office. I was just doing crisis management for him. The gas crisis was actually a bigger issue. Somehow it always seemed that I would run out of gas with less than a mile to go to the school. On about the 7th time I had to traipse to a nearby place to call him (this was a bit before cell phones), things got testy. My dad finally sat me down and said, "Misty, there is no easy way to tell you this, but it is not possible to wean a car." Hmm. I listened and nodded as if I heard him. And then promptly ran out of gas again the next week. 

Poppa Ron. Giver of givers. He would give you the shirt off his back and then some. I remember in college when I would be running low on funds, I would drive down to his office and wait patiently in the outer room as he was scolding one kid or another and then go in to ask for extra funds. My dad was born and raised in Arkansas and as such has a slower cadence to his speech than say someone from almost any other state. I would tell him the plight of my sad bank account and he would look at me, lean back in his big office chair and put his hands behind his head, and slowly, ever so slowly, give me his decision on fund distribution. At some point he decided he would use the inquiries for money as a way to gauge the college education I was receiving. He would ask me things like, who was Harriet Tubman? How did Western Civilization form? Recite the Kreb's Cycle. 

He got so tired of giving me gas money he gave me his gas card. Silly, silly man. I know his thinking was that the card would only be used for gas, and honestly, how much gas could a person use just driving to and from class? Well...... gas stations in Arkansas, although only recently carrying alcohol, had plenty of other stuff to purchase. My college roommate and I would regularly go grocery shopping in the local Shell Station. Such good prices! My dad finally, after many, many expensive charges, called me to ask if I had started my own trucking company or possibly a taxi service for the homeless. I had those gas cards for years. They even came with me on my trips to Maine. We came up with a mnemonic for remembering which stations we could use Poppa Ron/Momma Linda Bucks.. STEM.. Shell, Texaco, Exxon, Mobil. So many gallons of gas, so many bottles of beer. When I was about to turn 30 I said to my dad that I would hand the gas cards over to him as a sign of age and independence. We were having my 30th birthday lunch with many friends and my parents and I waved in a grand gesture and said, father, here are your gas cards back, my independence is upon me. About 5 minutes later my mom turned to me and slid them back to me under the table and instructed me that my delivery was good but my content needed work. I still have one gas card to this day. Damn you dependence on oil!!

My dad is my hero to this day. I still call him to ask the silliest questions. He always has just the right answer and always makes me feel better. He has recently learned the art of texting and will send me the sweetest little nuggets and usually signs off with his name.. Poppa. 

I am so thankful for Poppa Ron. He is the best. And I am lucky to call him Dad. :):):)

"Bosoms"

After my marathon, my right foot was a bit hobbled, I think due to carrying the weight of water filled shoes around for almost 5 hours. I was back at school the next week and my foot was killing me so I decided to go see the school nurse for a bag of ice to help with the pain.

As I was walking down the hall I heard a familiar voice ask me what had happened to my foot. The voice belongs to a very kind woman that works here at school named "Mary." Mary is one of those people I am just drawn to. She is a little kooky, sometimes says things that are not entirely appropriate for a particular setting, but she just has a heart of gold and it shines through. I think Mary used to be a runner herself, too, if memory serves me correctly. She too struggles now to get around as well as she once did.

When I told Mary I had hurt my foot recently running a marathon she just squealed and hugged me and gave me a peck on the cheek. It was as if my own grandmother had been transported into the hallways of the high school and was giving me praise! I was grinning from ear to ear.

As we continued down the hall Mary and I discussed the conditions of race day with me telling her about the rain and the cold and the flash flooding. She was so intrigued by the whole event. She then asked me if that had been a bucket list item for me, running a marathon. I informed her that no, actually it had been my third and that I really just enjoyed running.

At that point we had made our way to one of the main entrances where students tend to congregate when Mary's eyes got very wide and her eyebrows seemed to dissappear somewhere close to her hairline as she exclaimed, "Wow I wouldn't have thought you a runner because you have such large bosoms!" As she said it she made this gesture with her hand arcing across the front of her own bosoms and I found myself awkwardly repeating the same gesture and nodding as I did it. I was so taken aback at the question and quite frankly the use of the word "bosoms" that I was literally unable to come up with any words.

If you have ever seen the movie "Sixteen Candles" it was oddly reminiscent of the scene where Molly Ringwald's character got her boobies pinched by her own grandmother. Actually it was a toss up between that movie scene and the scene of my own mother giving me the "period talk" in 6th grade. My mom: "You see because you are a girl and might someday have kids you are going to have your period once a month for the next 30-35 years at which point your hormones will dry up and then you will start overheating on a daily basis and become marginally insane. Here is a box of Kotex. Enjoy."

Mary continued... "I mean, do you wear a special apparatus? Do you tape them down before you go running?" And my own awkward head maneuvers which vascillated between nodding quizzically to shaking my head from side to side continued. By that time in the exchange I believe I had also begun to make a sort of mewling sound without any actual words being produced. I pointed haphazardly at my shoulders and "bosom" area trying to pantomime where a sports bra fits as if that would answer the question of how I am able to carry such un-runner-like anatomy. Mary continued to speak and said bosom at least 3 more times but I think I missed some of the conversation as my gaze skipped from the faces of one student to the next who were stopped and staring blankly at us in the hall. 

I finally just started meandering down the hallway hoping that would be the signal for the whole incident to be complete. Mary congratulated me on my marathon efforts as I hobbled quickly away and I waved saying thank you for the kind words and gave her a smile.

As I arrived at the nurse's office I realized there was a substitute nurse was there for the day. I politely asked for a bag of ice for my foot. Her first question, obviously, was to inquire what had caused the foot pain and swelling. I said that I had just run a marathon and as I was speaking her facial expressions started to resemble that of Mary's and I thought, oh, hell just give me the bag of ice....