Baby we were born to RUN.

HOLY SHIT goooodmorningggg, WOW! you know what I just did???? I woke up before my alarm - and I jumped straight out of bed into my running shoes. Willoughby of course took notice and began to circle around me whining incessantly - he made the process much harder than it had to be with his carrying on BUT whatever, he knew we were going for an early morning run and he was like "HELL YEAH MY MOMMA IS BACK WOOF WOOF" I put on my ghetto old school ear phones and swirled and clicked the IPOD to Mumford and Sons and went to seize the damn day. It was perfect, like seriously. I have missed my early morning runs, they are so much more spectacular than sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. I am dripping sweat as I sit here and type and that smells a thousand times better than nicotine on my pretty finger tips. The morning was cool and I felt really alive out there in my bike shorts and tank top, my skin was aware of the temperature, I love feeling the weather on my body. We took off walking first, just to warm up my old trick hip which I injured running three years ago - I was wearing the wrong running shoes - who knew I was an over pronator and have dancers arches that would make you believe I spent a lifetime in toe shoes....I tore my labral, had a little flap loose and when I ran, because I was not rotating properly the little flap nicked along every rotation. Everyday like a junkie, I ran and ran on it. The first mile hurt and then I went numb and felt nothing and "SO WHAT?" I said - until four or five hours later when I couldn't walk - at all. Get up the next day like a crack addict and do over.... Took six long months to recover and really expensive running shoes AND I know, that I must warm that hip up and let it get used to the idea that it is about to be pushed. So.....we started out slow and we took in of all the beautiful things around us. We passed a tree that had like eight birds in it - it was a low tree - more like an over grown bush of some unknown kind - regardless, it had like eight birds in it, just sitting on branches and chirping at each other. It made me think of my Nana and Bob and Lilly Kitty. I knew that dead blue bird on my doorstep was an omen, sigh. I went on then as Mumford and Sons finished one song and went on to one of my favorites 'little lion man' - If ever a song reminds me of Bob without a specific memory attached, it is this one. And... before I knew it, Willa's tongue was hanging out of his mouth flapping behind him as we took off like bullets, flying down the road in a full on sprint. IT FELT SO GOOD. In my mind, I said "run at this speed until the end of the song" I tore up the road, Willa right beside me like a good running partner, his head by my left knee, keeping perfect steady pace. We ran and ran, as I listened to the words and let my grief sweat out of me. I love feeling it trickle down my back and into my ass crack - it means it's working. As I made it through the song and sprint, I slowed to a jog and remembered when this all began, my love for running. I HATED to run HATED IT. And then I quit smoking (HA) and decided that I needed a new addiction and it should be something I had to learn to love. I began slowly - a mile a day..... I told my trainer at the gym - my goal is this - I want to be able to out run an attacker. IF I FAIL at that, I want to be strong enough, quick enough, to be able to fight for my life - I never cared about pounds or calories - I didn't do any of it to look prettier - I took hold of my health because if I wasn't living to die I might as well be living to live and be a badass while living it. And man was I a badass. Weights got tossed about, cycles got cycled and miles got logged. Hundreds and hundreds.... Best shape of my life, could have pounced a quarter off any part of my body like a military bed. SIGH.... Willa and I chose a hilly road and dug in for the big climb, my runners stance unchanged - as though I never left it. My left arm like a birds wing up and out a little more than my right, hand open and fingers dainty, pinky almost raised like a good Irish lass at tea time, right arm in like a boxer, hand balled in a fist. When I went for my gait analysis at Cville Running shop, the owner put me on the treadmill and mused at my gait. Hips square, dug in,back straight and tall, torso elongated and shoulders high, spine straight up to my skull - he cracked up at my arms - one a dainty bird and the other a boxer. He laughed "what's with the arms and hands?" I said "well, you catch me - I am going to stroke your face all sweet with my left hand and confuse you and then punch you as hard as I can with my right." He laughed at me and I said "No, really" and I laughed with him. Today I knew that bird and boxer - she was me again, just like she had never left.... And, just so you all know - I only stopped because I went to get my degree and when you work full time, have four kids and are a student - there is little time to pee, forget run. And, a year in - during finals - I wandered outside one day and bummed a cigarette off the cute kid that worked at cinema taco and nicknamed me 'guacamole' He looked at me like 'really?' and that was that - a smoker again......sigh. BUT SIGH NO MORE (the Mumford and Sons album title) cause I am back. I desperately want to go back to the gym too and lift - pump and spin were tow of my favorite classes ever - I miss my Rebecca and GMA, Chet and Barb, all the gym rats. Those were good, healing, productive days in my life - I kinda want thie further evolved Deb to take a crack at that again. I was thinking as I was running - it's all about taking personal responsibility. Life, I mean. Take personal responsibility for the way you live, the choices you make, for the way your life goes. It all comes down to that. My life has been hard, no doubt. I walked with Emma last night and we talked more about my childhood - how lucky she and I are to have the relationship that we have - how mine with my Mom was so difficult - that we were completely different people. We talked about how I ran away - how I lived on the street for a while - how I was in foster homes as a teenager - a group home for teenagers. It was kinda tough. Of course some of that was not my fault - and some of it was.... Some of my miserable marriage to Dan was not my fault (a lot) and well, some of it was. There is always a choice involved, ALWAYS. I have little patience for people who blame everyone else and refuse to accept responsibility for their part in their life. Sure......life can just HAPPEN and SHIT can just Happen - um yeah, I am queen of shit happens - BUT, I always have a choice how I let it affect/effect me. There is always a choice to be made. Wallow in shit and complain, point fingers and be the victim and chainsmoke while doing it OR get up, dust my shit off, see my part, accept my role in my undoing and fix the fuck out of it. I prefer the latter choice, always have. I won't ever go back to bullshit that I bring on myself - I won't ever do it again.... I said it on Monday in counseling with Dan - "I am done with bullshitters - if you cannot do the truth here in this room - I don't belong in it" I have no time left to waste. That is my choice. I think this is day 5. I like day 5, it feels detoxifyingly delicious. Yesterday I called Emma's school and asked the secretary to pull her from class and have her call me. Last night when we were walking on the trail she told me that she thought she was called to the office because a girl threw dog poop at another girl on the playground and she witnessed the event - she thought she was going to have to tell ... Instead she called me and I told her that I loved her more than life - that I was missing her - that I am grateful she is my daughter and my best friend. She told me as we passed a butterfly bush on the trail, that it made her feel really special. There is always a CHOICE to be made. I finished my run under the shade of a massive pine tree. I noted the needles on the road at my feet. I stopped and stood in them, looked up and saw all the cones that will fall very very soon. I thought of Audrey and the pine cones she brought me on our camping trip, one sits right next to me on my Grandfathers desk where I sit to write - it is next to me right now. I remember her asking me "Missss Deb wasss wasss this?" - she is so damn inquisitive that smart baby girl - she asked that question about everything, especially things she knew the answer to :) I thought about Bob and I, the day we lay under the pine trees in the front yard on our backs in the damp grass, the smell when I hung clothes on the line - I thought about choices and how I wish I could reach out and shake him - sit in my seat in our kitchen, the one with the handcuffs and have a real conversation with my best friend not the last cowboy that replaced him - or maybe is the real him??? IDK. Choices..... It is a hard thing to accept when we are used to claiming we are victims. I am not a victim. I am a victor. And I CHOOSE to believe that, when I could easily convince others and myself, otherwise. Good thing is, I smiled and cried on my run today. I thought of my Nana, my life, my kids, my sweet daughter, Mary, Bob and Audrey and choices. Not bad, smiles and tears in one run, kinda like he bird and the boxer..... I think it was a perfect choice for the start of Day 5. I kinda want to call Matt at school today :) Be blessed and choose good things. LOVE LOVE LOVE - Happy Friday!