Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Letter To Year 16

I was flipping through a magazine the other day and found a contest that requires you to write a letter to your 16 year old self.  I missed the deadline but decided to do the letter anyway.  It was a good thing and I convinced a few friends to do the same; even a male co-worker!  This is my letter to me.

Dear Me,

Let me begin by telling you that there is no sense in telling you that you will achieve everything you hoped you would by 38. You don’t. Don’t be burdened by this. For the most part, it is a very good thing. You are so full of ideas, dreams and opinion. You are also full of doubt, fear and again, opinion. All of those things combined will make you a fairly decent person 22 years from now.

It’s taken me hours (days even) to decide what is important enough to tell you. Heck, they still might not be that important. But what I’ve come up with is what’s important to me right now. You will grow to learn so much from those around you. I know you have this idea that families are supposed to be as successful as the Cosby’s, as cheesy as Family Matters and as clever and funny as Good Times. You will soon learn that our family doesn’t exactly fit those molds. With time, you will recognize the values that came with our parents building a strong foundation for us. You will learn that the debates you had with Daddy trained you to be able to back up an argument; not with opinion, but with fact. He will teach you that the attitude you bring to others will always come back to you. Always. You will eventually consider Mama as a woman and not ‘just’ a mother. You will realize where she came from and what she sacrificed to give you a good life. Listen to her. She’s right about most everything.

Your friendship circle consists of people you’ve been going to school with for years. Mostly kids from the neighborhood. Don’t mistake being acquainted with being friends. You will come to realize some of them are not as they seem. But don’t blame them. They haven’t come into themselves just yet. Luckily, some great people will come into your life and leave the same way they came. Recognize the great in them, and claim it for yourself. And never forget that a quality friendship will far outweigh the quantity.

Right now, you still don’t know who the heck you are. You are shy and are nice to everyone and afraid to speak your mind when something is wrong. I know you get hot under the collar when someone says something off color or someone is being treated wrong. I also know you think you can’t do or say anything about it lest the attention is turned on you. Don’t be afraid. You have so much power. You have no idea! You have a way with words that your future teachers, professors and friends will compliment. Practice this skill but don’t ever forget you have to back those words up with fact, finesse and fearlessness.

Don't worry too much about how you look. Comparing yourself to others is a mistake. Love your body early. The more you love it, the more you will do for it and the better it will be to you. It will be with you forever so you may as well learn to love it. You are right to not follow the diet trends. They probably won’t work. Check out the pyramid if you must. Reduce your intake of artificial sweeteners and processed food. Just do it. And I know you have had many failed attempts at a workout program. The only thing that’s keeping you from success is your preoccupation with what people will think. You think they will make fun of you because you are not as fit as they are. Honestly, no one’s paying attention to you. One day when you are old enough to not care about what people think, you will be one of those jogging along the side of the road without a care in the world. You'll be the one in the aerobics class at the front not caring that you got the butt thing going on. You'll finally understand that when it comes to your body, it only matters what you think.

Don't worry that you haven't dated at this point. It will work out for you in the end. You will go through some duds in your life but you will learn from each one. In the end, you will be blessed with an amazing love and it will blow your whole ideal about being open with your emotions. Being ‘hard’ is just not as cool as you think. There is nothing wrong with dropping a tear or two. When you meet the person that shows you trust, love and support be open to them. Try not to be afraid and the reward will come that much faster. Oh and let me tell you that you are happily married and loving the hell out of it.

At 16, you haven’t had any real storms of life. It will be years before you do. There will be people in your life that will cause you a world of hurt. Let go of the grudges. You are not equipped to maintain them. It's just not in you to do so. The guilt and work to keep them hurts you much more than it hurts them. You will lose some precious loved ones and that will rock you to the core. You will feel pain that you think you will never get over. My advice to you would be to trust those who have proven time and time again that they love you. Let them help you. Share your feelings and the hurt will significantly lessen. This I can promise. With these storms you will call up everything you’ve learned about your faith in God. I know right now, church is a bore and leading a Christian life is just not fun but stay the course and you will soon learn what it really means to be who you are.

The following are just things that might make your life a little bit easier. I can’t see that it will keep you from becoming the person you are today. Convince the parents that you can handle classes and a job at the same time. Start saving now and it will help you feel more independent later. In the future when you establish your independence you will fight working in an office setting. Don’t bother. It will happen one way or another. Embrace it to get to where you really want to be. But don’t get too comfortable because some of them are surely miserable places to be. Keep your eye on the prize. Figure out how to live simply. Clutter is a bitch to get rid of; mentally and physically. Spontaneity is fine until you have real responsibility. Learn to set a plan of action to complete tasks and you will save time like never before.

That’s about it for the moment. I would hope that if you get nothing else out life, it would be that you realize you are worth everything good that comes to you. You are a good daughter, sister, friend, and wife. Notice I didn’t say mother. You are sort of one; just not in the way you think!

Sincerely,

You

PS. Pay attention in Spanish class even though the teacher is a spaz. Oh! And for heaven’s sake learn French. One day someone will love you for it!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

5K Mission Adventure

We completed another 5k this past weekend.  It was fun and the weather was awesome.  For those of you who don't know, the 5K Mission Run/Walk benefits the Storehouse food bank here in Pflugerville, TX. Nice cause and I do think it was one of the more fun ones I’ve done. My husband ran it with me, my sister and T. He didn’t actually know he was going to be running it. I asked if he was going to go and his response was ‘I’ll be there to support you.’ When we got there, I went and collected 2 bibs and tshirts at the registration table. I told him, ‘I signed you up so you are racing.’ He is a go with the flow kind of guy and I knew a 5K was nothing for him. It would be like any other morning stroll. So, we lined up and Alex and I took off running. He left me at the .10 mark. I was more than OK with that. I learned a while back to run my own race and gave up on trying keeping up with him. I struggled with my knee a bit but that didn’t stop me from a jogging and walking. My husband was cheering me on at the finish so that was nice. I don’t know my exact finish time but it was below an hour so that was pretty good. T and my sister came in a little after an hour which was good considering it had been more than a week since either of them had worked out. Slackers! But it was fun and we helped the organization raise over 700 lbs of food! Woo hoo!

My husband pointed out (I asked for pointers!) that I don’t know how to control my breathing when I’m running outside. No kidding! There are so many factors that I don’t have to consider when running on the treadmill. A few of those factors are wind, pollen, dust, gravel, distractions and the heat. Half the time I’m only at it a few minutes before I start to get stuffy or sneezy. Of course the stuffy and sneezy depends on where I am. When it’s super hot and I’ve decided on a solo walking workout, I take the trail less traveled. It has tons of trees and it’s nice and shady for most of the 3 miles. But it also had bugs that find my afro, dust that makes its home in my nose, and some family of pollen has launched a vendetta against me. But it’s pretty and it’s 3 miles and I feel accomplished when I’m done. The ‘pretty’ and ‘accomplished’ part makes me want to keep working at it. My friend sent me a guide to learn how to pace myself and I have dusted off my old workout schedule and hope to be making improved strides in no time.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

A Bust but a Must!


Me and T

Waco PD stole my glory!  Lazy-arsed bums. OK. Let me back up and start from the beginning. As noted in my previous post, I was a bit nervous because there was no map of the 10K on the Race site and I was relieved to get it by email the day before.  My friend and I hit the road to the Race before 6am.  It was a pleasant drive as I rarely have conversation when traveling to Waco.  She was talkative and still had that energy.  But it was cool.  We stopped to visit my sis, then went in search of the Alico building to park for the race.  We people watched as we were making our way to the start line and made several educated guesses on why some of these people thought their outfits were appropriate for these walks.  There were heeled flip flops, regular flip flops, super short, coochie-cutting shorts, and some pretty awesome team themed tshirts. 

The race eventually got started.  It was slow moving for a while.  So many people and oh so many strollers at the front.  We finally hit a good stride and my buddy was doing quite well.  I don't think she's ever walked this fast even on our after work walkouts.  At the 5K turnaround, she decided she was going to try the 10K.  My mouth hung open.  I had my doubts but she wanted to go for it and far be it from me to stop the motivation.  So, we forged ahead. 

I decided to break away from her at one point because I wanted to do this with a relatively decent time, though at that point in the race, since I had yet to run, I wasn't expecting the best.  Well, I hit the Mile 4 marker and some little kid comes running up to me. He's telling me the guy at the last marker says I have to turn back.  I walk a ways back with them and the guy is saying I have to turn back.  I ask why.  He says he doesn't know but the cop says I do.  Well, at this point I'm pretty darned pissed.  He says he's not sure why but I should ask her.  You bet my buns I did.  I ran up to her and asked her why the hell I was being turned around.  She (in her dumb Waco PD voice) said, 'I don't know Ma'am.  That's what the radio said.'  So, I moved one to the cop at the stop ahead of her.  He said we should have been turned around earlier because there were only supposed to be out there a certain amount of time and they were going to be opening the roads.  I was royally pissed.  So much so, I told him about it.  I told him, 'This is some Shyte!'  He said, 'I'm sorry ma'am.  You can continue but the roads will be open and yall can't be walking in the road.'  I went on back.  You are telling me they only had the roads closed for 2 hours following the start time for one of the largest races of the year?  What?  Were they so busy they couldn't hang around? 

My friend had been turned around well before me so I had to find her and catch her.  I made this my challenge.  I ran until I caught up with her.  That was a small victory because I felt good enough that I could have kept running.  I hadn't even broken a good sweat from exertion yet.  Now, the humidity was another story.  But anyway, we walked the rest of the way back but I did end up leaving her behind again because  as the whole turn-back scenario replayed in my head, I got more and more pissed.  And as most people know, pissiness fuels me and makes me push my workouts a bit harder. So, my walk was pretty fast and I was passing as many people as I could.  And I caught several comments by the returning runners about how unfair this was. Unless they organize this better next year, I can't see it being as successful and that would be a shame for such a good cause.

Per my pedometer, I hit roughly 5 miles.  That's not bad but I wanted my 6.2 and I wanted my time!  Oh! And when we hit the bridge for the finish, we bottle-necked and I had to stand still for a time. What a rip-off.  I didn't even get a time.  And you know when a race ends and you are supposed to receive the bananas, bagels, chips, vitamin waters, bottled waters and such? Well, that was all done.  They were giving all that to people before the race got started.  By the time I got off the bridge, the tents were packing it up.  In the words of my sister, 'What kinda chicken outfit is this!'

But I do try and find the positives.  My friend did a rockin' job of keeping up a good pace and she did over 4 miles at a supa-dupa pace.  I was so proud of her and hopes this has put a fire under her to continue her workouts at a higher rate.  My goal has not been met therefore, I must move to find another 10K.  We do have the 5k Mission Race in May so I may just do it twice (around the lake) and get a personal time and call it done.  Either way, I'm gonna get what's mine!  Waco PD....phooey on you!