Too Tired To Hate Myself Anymore

I’ve had the pieces and parts of this post floating around in my mind for a while now. I just haven’t allowed myself the time to sit and really let myself settle in and explore it all in depth.

I have spent much of my life hating my body. I’m not even sure how or why it started, but I know I was already over-excersing and under eating as a first year teenager. I was not athletic, I have never considered myself an “athlete” and my exercise was driven purely as a punishment for what I ate.

Over the last year and a half I have been trying to slow down, to exercise less and eat more (or actually eat “better” is the more correct statement) and to just start loving myself better. It’s been long, it’s been hard, and while I have made some forward progress, I still have so far to go.

Many times as I’ve sat and thought about it all recently, I have found myself thinking that perhaps I’ve finally reached a point in my life where I am just too tired to keep hating myself on that intense level that drove me for so many years.

It takes a lot of work to hate yourself, to punish yourself, to drive yourself towards an unattainable perfection you know you’ll never reach, and yet refuse to let yourself let go of.

I am forty-eight years old. Things are changing within me. I’m on the runaway freight train of perimenopause. I have battled hormone and fertility issues my whole life, and now inside this body, that I’ve cursed and battled against for two and a half decades, is now in the process of officially shutting down and finishing up the thing that never really worked correctly to begin with. (I take that last statement back, I have the most amazing biological twenty-six year old son whom everything worked correctly for, and I wouldn't realize just how great of a gift he actually was for many many years)

I have always struggled to lose weight, to maintain weight, it’s always been a hot mess rollercoaster for me… but the older I’m getting it’s been even harder. I am fortunate to be surrounded by some amazing similar stated and minded women right now. And I have been doing a lot of reading and research and conversations about this time of life that I’m in. And oddly, like infertility, it’s something that isn’t really talked much about.

So where am I even going with all this, Sara? I’m not even exactly sure. I just know that self love is some incredibly hard shit to do. The flip in mindset and toxic thought patterns is a hard thing to break.

My body is so tired right now. My mind is tired, my soul is exhausted. (But it always is… always…) And I’m entirely the one to blame for all of it. I fed the demon mind games for all those years, telling myself all the misconceptions and untruths over and over again. I fought with a body that naturally couldn’t be or do the things I was wanting it to. I fought with a body who’s ideal weight is nothing close to the ideal weight my mind seems to be stuck believing in. I fought a body that just wasn’t able to create and sustain new life as I so desperately thought I needed and wanted.

And recently in all my tiredness and all my lost weariness, I am just trying to allow myself to be who I am, well - I’ve always allowed myself to be who I am in my personality, but this time I'm trying to allow myself to physically be who I am. The miles and miles of running just cannot physically be done any more. The strict protocol of restricted eating just cannot be done any more. The weight is creaping back on. The running and the pace has slowed to a point of basically not even happening. (Though both probably not as horrible in reality compared to my minds reality.)

But does it matter? Does any of it really matter? Obviously it does because I’m still fretting and stewing and writing about it… but I think right now I’m just lost in the unsettledness of it all. How do you love a body that you’ve hated for so long? How do you embrace a physical form you have tried to change your whole life and be ok with it, as is? How do you forgive the living mass that carries you daily and has robbed you of the life of the child you so disparately wanted?

Going back and re-reading this I’m stuck again with an age long wonder over why I can’t just enjoy the blessing of what God created me to be? Why do I have all this guilt over not fully loving myself the way I was created, in God’s image, as a child of God… a daughter of the King… Why is this just not enough for me?

I don’t wish this thinking on anyone. I would never want a friend or family member to ever say the words I’ve said or think the things I’ve thought about their bodies and their selves. And yet, for over thirty-five years I have found justification in saying and thinking them of myself, and not giving it a second thought.

I’m currently trying to rewrite this narrative in my head. And in some ways it’s really simple, and in others it’s so unbelievably hard. I’m pretty sure it’s the simple that is making it hard. It’s the voices in my head at constant war over what is good enough and what isn’t.

For the past year and a half I’ve been working on slowing down, changing my overworked mindset, surrounding myself with likeminded people who support and encourage in this similar stage I’m in. I stopped following the ultra trainers and the lean fit twenty somethings doing all the amazing things in their utterly amazing bodies. For the past nine months I have been intermittent fasting 16:8 and not tracking anything I eat. What a freedom to be free from the slavery over logging every little thing.

It’s quite a bit easier to love yourself through grace and gentle acceptance than to hate yourself through punishment and strict and rigid guidelines and rules. But there is this whisper in there still calling out the carbs and the calories and the guilt over the glass of occasional wine all the time.

And it’s that where it’s all so tricky.

“Healthy” isn’t only the state of your physical body. Your weight, your BMI, your muscle defination. Health is so much more, the state of peace and contentment in your heart and your mind and your soul. And somehow all those signals get so easily jumbled up and messy. We want to be healthy, inside and out, and we wrestle with what society and tv and social media all loudly shout at us vs what our mind and hearts are silently pleading within us. I’ve spent my lifetime chasing physical health, leaving my mental health in wreckage.

So here I am, a year and a half in of attempting to work on loving myself and loving and honoring and respecting my body better, and I’m nine months in to changing my eating to IF 16:8 and not tracking anything in my eight hour eating window. And it's been an absolute love hate relationship of change.

And it’s hard. It’s hard to do all the things well. It’s hard to allow yourself the grace to live within increased happiness. It’s hard to allow yourself to step back from the perfection profile tattooed within the mind, an image that is never anything close to what I see looking back at me in the mirror every morning.

As I said earlier, part of it has just been so easy. So easy to not track, not log, not exercise all the hours and run all the miles every single day. So easy to just eat the food and enjoy the conversations and memories and moments, rather than obsess over the food details.  I don't even want to know how many pieces of pie and cake and ice cream I have not allowed myself to enjoy.  Not that eating pie and cake and ice cream is the end all be all for self love, but there is definitely a long lost loving correlation there somewhere.  I said no as form of punishment.

The other morning I looked at myself, after skipping yet another workout because I just could not get myself out of bed to do it… and as I looked in the mirror I wondered how I’d let myself get to this point (the extra weight, the loss of muscle, the added inches around my waist, the added cellulite on my legs) and I just took a slow breath in and sighed…

I must just be too tired to hate myself like that anymore. I’ve been married almost twenty years to the same person, who bless his heart doesn’t see my physical flaws. I’m established in my careers and learning how to be a good grandma and mother in law. I’m still a struggling mom to a hot mess teenager, but that just is what it is, that is my current season with him.

Apparently it was my endless drive of imperfection, the inner plea to fix and punish a broken body that got me up every morning, that got me through the workouts and the miles and the rigid diet requirements. Such a daily battlefield. Such endless exhaustion.

It’s not that it’s not currently still a battlefield and I’m not currently still exhausted - because it is and I am, but the battle is possibly raging just a little less within me, and the exhaustion is possibly coming more from outside stressors of work and teenagers and finances, and less of that personal perfectionism and I'm seeming to slowly allow to fall through my fingers, disappearing behind me in a quiet trail of lost sparkles.

I have a very very long way to go, but I’m restless, and I’m aware, and I’m continuing to figure out what self love for myself actually is. I’m trying to model to my granddaughter and niece and others watching that it’s about fighting for the love and not the perfection about ourselves.

Oddly, while the perfection level I hold (held?) within me,  is (was?) only about myself. I have never thought or viewed others through that same skewed lens for some reason. In fact, so many times I am envious of all those who clearly are happier and so confident in their minds and bodies, because I know it, feel it, see it in them… while so tightly holding back on to the love reins on myself.

My love was so provisional. It had to be validated. It had to be explained. It had to be earned. God doesn’t require any of that with His love to us, so why is it so hard to grant myself that same grace?

This isn’t a start and finish piece. This is just another chapter in review along my long journey to faith, within the steps and beats of my own heart every day. It’s my season of working on self love, and it’s super easy and super hard all at the same time. It’s something I will never fully overcome or master, it will forever be my work in progress.

And for today, I’m ok with that. I’m simply too tired not to be.

 

Previous Blog Post {  Mother's Day, It's A Tricky One } HERE

Mother's Day. It's a Tricky One.

Mother’s Day
It’s a tricky one.

I personally am in circles of moms that have angel babies, and moms who have buried their children, of various ages and reasons. Hard.

I’m in circles of women praying earnistly for God to grant them with a live, healthy baby. Hard. 

I’m in circles of adoptive moms who are largely caught between the grief of a biological mom grieving the child she placed, and the joy and gratefulness in being the mom that was chosen for that job. Hard. 

I’m in circles of moms who are in the depths of raising those hard-to-raise kiddos, the ones rejoicing at God’s slightest hint of hope and deliverance, right alongside those who grieve and mourn and ache over those cut and broken relationships while they continue to weave through the mess of it all. Hard. 

I’m in circles of new moms, old moms, moms who are grandmas, moms who have moms, moms who have lost their moms, moms caring for sick family members, moms who have had to place firm boundaries up again their moms. Hard. 

I’m in circles of fur moms (which totally still counts as being a “real” mom!) moms who are single, moms who are married, moms who are divorced, moms who are remarried, moms being moms in blended families, moms letting their kiddos have another mom in a blended family that isn't her own.  Moms who work outside the home, and moms who don’t. Sports moms, music moms, star student moms, and moms getting calls from the principal's office and the police station. Hard. 

I'm in circles of moms who mentor and listen and hug and walk alongside, and moms in the thick of needing and receiving all the mentoring and support and prayers.  Hard

I’m in circles of moms with littles, and moms who are empty nesters, both seasons incredibly hard. 

I’m in circles with organized Pinterest pinning moms and hot mess express moms. Moms who stay up late and moms who go to bed early. Moms who workout and moms who don’t. Moms who make all their own meals and moms who praise the Lord for drive through and pizza delivery.

I could go on and on about all the amazing women and moms out there- all caught in the cross fire of emotions on this social media highlight reel, boasting “reality” in such a way we’re all left feeling unsatisfied and less than, and entirely not enough, especially to ourselves.

I want to celebrate the moms in my life and the greatness they are. I want to celebrate my daughter-in-law who is now an amazing mom herself. I want to be celebrated as a mom for all the little and big things I do every day 24/7/365. I want to grieve the child not in my earthly arms today. I want to celebrate our birthmom and grieve with her sad heart as well. I want to honor all those amazing women in my family who came before me leading the way for me and my footsteps...

How do you celebrate and grieve and honor and rejoice and stay humble?  How in the world does one begin to know how to do all that well, and all that at the same time at that?

I have zero answers for any of those questions… I just know that this week, and this coming weekend, is going to be hard for a lot of women, for a lot of different reasons. 

So let’s hold hands together and embrace the hard of it all and look up. Look up into the eyes of all those around you, and look up into the eyes of yourself looking back at you in the mirror. Be kind to them, but also, be kind to that one looking at you in your own mirror, and don't forget to also love her well.

Give yourself and everyone around, the love and grace and acceptance they need… that you need. We don’t know the depths of pain, and reality, and the stories within every person around us, and sometimes we aren’t even strong or honest enough to fully grasp or know this about what we carry deep within our own selves. 

 
Blessings to those celebrating this dear but damned holiday. And also bless those who are mourning. And angry. And confused. And hurt. And lost. And hopeful. And doubtful. And cheerful. And joy filled, and every possible feeling in between. 

From the keyboard from one very weary mom out there, to all of you… please know you ARE loved.  You ARE greater than you can ever imagine. You ARE enough. You ARE worthy. You ARE valued. 

YOU ARE EVERYTHING, and more… and you are NOT alone…

Previous Blog post { Donald Half Reimagined Round Two } HERE

The Donald Half... Reimagined... Round Two

I woke up Sunday feeling off.
This is nothing new… every day lately I have been feeling off, for months now.

I have some depression and just finished traveling through a very long Midwest winter, through the month of March and the season of Lent and Easter. Hard months and milestones for me. It’s made me what to stay hidden in bed and it’s taken away my desire to pursue my health as I have so passionately done in the past.

But I have been sitting (laying) in this uncomfortable place of hiding and hurting for just long enough that I’m starting to get antsy again. It’s time to do something again… except I’m not actually pinpoint sure what that “something” is.

Sunday morning, after somehow getting myself through pushing play and doing a weighted workout, I found myself laying on the floor looking at my race medal rack that I have hanging on the wall next to my treadmill.

I was specifically looking at the jumble of runDisney Donald Half Marathon metals that I had worked to collect throughout 2020, and then went on to earn virtually throughout 2021 in my basement, before I ever allowed myself to actually think, hope, dream of doing an actual live in person runDisney event (thank you 2023!) In the past I have mentioned this little challenge I did to only a few people in passing. But regardless of who I told and who I didn’t, in 2021 I set a goal to do a half marathon every month, and then after having completed that every month, I would then have officially earned an hour massage for myself – usually all on the same day if I was able to schedule that all. And… I actually did it. It was often on a Monday, “quick-a-minute” before I would have to log on to work.

Recently in a previous blog I spoke briefly of this and mentioned perhaps “next year” I will have to try redo that challenge again, only this time actually go through with what I had originally planned to do.

See, originally, I had decided to start the hunt for used runDisney Donald Half Marathon medals that people were selling after they, or someone they knew, had physically completed the live in person race through the streets of Disneyworld. I was wanting to do a blog each month featuring a different year’s race medal – and then researching all the details from that year’s race. The number of participants, the winner, the temperature, how long it took the race to sell out after registration opened… things like that. And I really wanted to also feature the original runner holding that same medal at the finish line and including a little story about the their experience and memories. I also of course set a top price limit in which I would bid on or purchase each medal for (#disneyonadime here folks!). The whole thing was quite a fun thing actually, from start to finish. Although, I never did publish even one blog post about it, because I was unable to contact any of the sellers directly due to privacy issues.

Anyway, Sunday morning I was laying on my yoga mat looking at those medals and thought -yeah, maybe next year I’ll try that all over again, only this time with the blog posts.

And then I had the thought, but why wait until the beginning of the new year? Why couldn’t I just start it … like now… this month? I mean, what is stopping me from that? Nothing except myself.

So oddly enough, the idea had been planted (or do I need to say – re-planted?) and it was starting to fester and grow a little in my mind once again.

One little problem… my back is bothering me, I’m even older and more out of shape than I was two years ago (“runners” have to actual “run”), I’m hardly ever writing anything on my blog anymore (“writers” have to actually “write"), and I still have no way of contacting any of those original sellers to get their stories to share (excuses, always the excuses).

Minor details. (ha)

But, I just keep thinking about it. It keeps poking at me, and I think that I’m going to just start by… starting. I’m going to write this little update and hit publish and then see where it’s going to take me.

Pop back periodically and see where I actually end up running with it ;-)


Previous Blog Post { My Season of Ugly Year Eight } HERE

Next Blog Post { Mother's Day.  It's a Tricky One } HERE

My Season of Ugly ... Year Eight

Last night as I was asked why I was so crabby lately, by my then cranky hubby… I was reminded again that yes… I am full sprint into my season of ugly as I call it. Well, full sprint in at a very slow sloth’s pace.

Eight years ago on the Friday of this exact weekend, we were hours into the nightmare that lay ahead of us after hearing those dreaded words… “I am so sorry… but there is no heartbeat.”

We knew it was coming, we just didn’t know when. I was convinced I was going to die during childbirth, while birthing a child that had already died. I had been rushed into an emergency c-section after 48 hours of labor with my first child, and had hemorrhaged after my first miscarriage (both nearly two decades earlier in my life) so I had no hope or faith in my body, and frankly, there were multiple times if I’m honest, I just wished it would happen already and just be done and over with. The living while waiting on the dying is … I don’t even know, I don’t have any words for it.

On that Friday afternoon eight years ago… we were arriving at the specialty hospital an hour and a half away, to be induced, to deliver a baby we had diligently and desperately prayed for for years and years. That prayer just wasn’t exactly answered in the way we had hoped for, or quite in the time frame we had imagined.

But, God did answer our prayer for a child, He just waited until I was turning forty, and then He decided that He would rather have her with Him in heaven, than with us down here. And honestly deep inside I know that this a blessing, a gift… but it just doesn’t always quite feel that way in my heart, while I'm still the one standing here on earth. Yes, she was spared the sin and anguish of this earth, but oh the anguish that has left on us some days is overwhelming.

I’m currently reading a book called The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. That’s a lie. I have the book and I have been looking at it and telling myself to read it since this summer. I took it from the amazon box and placed it on my nightstand in the reading room. And not long ago I did pick it up and move it to the nightstand in my bedroom. I believe I looked at the first paragraph on the first page, but I remember nothing of what it said.

However, I know the premises of the book. Our bodies hold on to our traumas, our hurts, our past moments of sin, shame, and anguish. And deep within us, even when we are not aware, it is affecting us, all parts of us from inside out. It silently hums and yearns and turns and pokes and prods at us from inside, causing us angst with ourselves, which then leaks onto those around us.

The My Season of Ugly – neatly written and published and packaged in a book written by someone else, quietly sitting on my nightstand, just waiting for me.

Yes, I am traveling through my parallel timeline of hurt and remembrance. I was sick at Thanksgiving and Christmas and didn’t know I was pregnant. I would find out days before Valentine’s Day. I would travel through Lent, my 40th birthday, our anniversary knowing and silently dealing. It was the Friday of Palm Sunday weekend the year she was born, and the waving of palm branches will never be the same again. A year later it was Easter Sunday on the day of her first birth day.

It's here, I’m there… right here and right now. It’s real, it’s raw, it’s hard, it hurts.

Part of me knows that it merely is what it is, while another part of me fights inside wanting to know why… why I can’t just be over all this… why even when I think I’m doing really well… that out of the blue it will strike me down again, every year.

Here's something funny... just a few weeks ago, as I was coming home from my Run Disney princess half marathon trip - I actually found myself saying the words... "This year it has been really good. I have been busy training and thinking about the disney trip, and then we were away together and actually doing the trip and the races, and I found I just wasn't thinking about everything as I parallel traveled the timeline this year...  Perhaps this race has even brought me healing over it all."

I now sit back and chuckle at myself.  If only.

It quickly returned, pulling me back into bed every day, all day long. I drag myself out – only to either climb back in, or fight myself all day long to not to. The dishes and the laundry are absolutely killing me. Killing me. Church, public, people... so hard. I’m irritable and irrational, and I'm sure the people I live and work with are beyond ready for me to dig myself back out of this hole yet again.

And I will. I will. And I know it’s ok to not be ok in the interim. I do. It’s just… these are the days of my hard, my ugly and I’m aware. And yes, I’m on meds and I see a therapist. I meditate and do devotions, and all the things… I'm not looking for or wanting suggestions or quick fixes. Just grant me a little more grace to get me through.

Right now, the world is full of hard, and ugly. The weather and wars and shootings and sickness and violence and death… It’s everywhere, all the time. Surrounding, suffocating, saddening with it’s venom and snake-like squish of every day life squeezing the life out of us. Out of all of us.

I think we are all stumbling along in our states of inner ugly right now. We are all dealing with hard things and we are all needing heaping doses of grace – both to ourselves and to everyone around us.

Grace.
One step. One day. One smile. One hug. One act of strength and kindness.
Grace to ourselves. Grace to everyone.

Grace.

Previous Blog Post { Geese Flying Overhead } HERE

Next Blog Post { The Donald Half Reimagined Part 2 } HERE

The Geese Flying Overhead

I have been hearing the geese fly overhead again the past few days/weeks (time is all a blur right now, so I’m not exactly sure the specific time frame) … Every time I hear them honk and flutter above, I am instantly reminded of our first trip to the Round Lake campground.

March of 2015.

I was sick. I was pregnant. We knew it was a girl. We knew she had Trisomy 18. We knew she would not come home with us. We knew we needed to be within ten miles of a hospital.

And the thought of having to hide at home all summer was absolutely killing us.

We had been trying to find an option for a permanent weekend place on a lake. A lake. Any lake. As long as there was a hospital nearby. The first place we looked at we knew was just not going to work for us, with our always running away then seven year old, with water directly surrounding us on basically all four sides. The concept was great, the location however was not.

A few weeks later we found a campground with a few open permanent sights still available for the coming summer. We decided to drive down after work one Monday and check it out. We left the running away seven year old home with my parents and took along the teenager. We drove the sixty minutes north, and as I sat in silence looking out the window – my mind in its accustomed near lunacy amid our current reality… there were geese flying overhead, and there was much talk and excitement about the coming water foul hunting season.

It was cold and windy that afternoon and early evening. There was still some snow on the ground and some ice on the lake. We met the campground owners and got a tour, asked all our questions, and in the end, we chose a spot, and stepped into their house to fill out a contract and leave our deposit.

We drove away having met two new friends that day, and we also had somewhat of a plan for the summer – with a hospital within ten miles, if needed.

And now eight years have passed. Eight summers we have lived and loved and thrived at that campground. The running away seven year old is now a teenager that can even drive us there every weekend, and the then teenager is now married and visiting with his own family. In all those years between then and now, the runner has continued to do a lot of running, but has also been able to grow immensely and enjoy an amazing amount of grace and love and freedom and friendships while doing all his running.

This lake is a place we have found some healing from our pain and loss of Faith. It’s a place we have found love and grace all over new in our marriage and family. It’s a place of so many new friendships and memories and laughter.

There really aren’t words to describe it all. There are photos of sunsets and sunrises, there are garmin trackers of miles and miles I have put on training and running there. There are record size fish caught there that now hang on the walls. There are scrapbooks filled with a million photographs of our time spent there.

And it is again another March, and the geese are again honking above. The memories of that first afternoon there, again playing in my mind. The baby that was still alive within, the reality we knew we were inevitably and blindly moving (or should I more accurately say “catapulting”) towards, with a timeframe all so unknown and unwelcome and unwanted.

She was born, and she was buried, and we continued on… and have continued on… and are continuing on every day… every week… every month… every season. And it’s just hard to believe we are almost at the start of yet another season at the lake. Soon we will be on that route that will take us from our house driveway in Iowa to our camper driveway in Minnesota. We will open up the camper and we will start a new season of adventure at the lake.

And while I write this… I can’t help but think of some of the loss that has come, and will be coming, to some of the campground families as well this past year. We said goodbye to a long time friend this January. I’m not even sure how many years he and his family have been a part of the campground family – but it’s been a lot. From pop up, to 5th wheels, to the cabin… He was the one I give sole credit to for getting us there. His daily stops in the office where I was working – always talking about the lake… and would later give my hubby the name and contact info of the campground owners, who we would contact and soon meet, and would also become our new friends as well.

We said goodbye to Gene this winter… and now we are getting ready to have to say goodbye to one of those dear friends he shared with us when he gave us the campground contact info. Mike’s health has been hard over the last few years, and now we recently learned they are trying to get him back from their Arizona winter house to the lake for his final days.

Our loss brought us to that same lake so many years ago. It gave us time to rest, time to mourn, time to heal, time to grow, time to create a whole new family of friends. It’s given us so much in our journey, when so much has been also taken. And I can’t help but smile a little smile through my tears every time I hear those honking geese flap and fly overhead, as they too are on their way back to their same lakes for another season.

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How Is It December Today?

How is it that today is December 1st already? How are we eleven months through this year already? Three hundred thirty-four days in...

And what in the world have I done this year? What possibly have I accomplished?

I feel like it was yet another year of one step forward and four steps back.

Granted, the year is not officially over yet.  We still have a fleeting thirty-one days left before we close the book on this chapter... but I know I am not where I was hoping I'd be a year ago, you know - when I was reflecting on the previous years helpless ending to yet another rough year.

At least I don't think I am where I was hoping to be. But truth be told... I'm not sure I actually really had any true plans for this year.

Every year I try to find a word... a theme... for the coming year to focus on. I was reflecting on this a few weeks ago. I had the thought that while every December I try focus on listening to the whisper of what the next years word will be, while I try look ahead to the next twelve calendar flips before me, while limping slowly out of the previous twelve flips that always seem to leave me weathered and worn... I very rarely spend any time during the middle of the year really trying to touch base with the word... the intentions... the expectations I set for myself before the start of each year.

This year's word is ENOUGH.

I just went and pulled that blog post back up...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So, as I look to 2022 and wonder – Well, what should I all attempt to do / reach / overcome THIS year?? I just can’t help but want to just attempt to actually do nothing at all. Or at least go in with zero expectations of anything.

No milage goal. No weight goal. No preset races and training schedules. No book reading list. No budget expectations (but not meaning I’m allowing myself to be free to spend and spend – no, just wanting zero expectations on my attempt to NOT spend in my incessant drive to try to save and to justify overworking.).

No goals, no resolutions, no expectations.
Simply allowing whatever to just be enough.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ok.  So perhaps this year I did accomplish something, by actually not doing anything.

I tracked my intentional milage

but I had no goals or expectations what that number needed to be, or where I am currently even at with it for that matter.

I worked out somewhat regularly (though less than half of what I did in 2021),

but had no hardcore training schedules for anything.

I didn't get on the scale once.

I also had no goals or expectations what that number needed to be.

I didn't track the books and pages I read,

but I know I did read a lot, fiction and personal development.

I didn't write and publish a set number of posts, and while in the back of my mind I'm thinking I wished I could have done more...

I do honestly know that the state of my mental capacity to process and express in that manner this year, just was not even an option.

I went to work. I traveled. A lot. Like, I flew in airplanes three times in nine months. I went to the lake. I went to therapy. I went to the hospital and met my granddaughter. I went to another city and adopted a new dog. I held hands with my tribe of amazing women. I taught my teenager drivers ed (like, all of it ~ classroom and driving) and then handed him my car keys and let him drive himself to school. 

It was a tough year.  A great year, don't get me wrong, but a tough one. But I'm fairly certain this has become the canned speech I've given at the end of every year.  And every year I look ahead and hope for the best... or at least hope for better.

But best and better are a bit left undefined for me I think. I know I'm one that no matter how much I do, or how far I go, it will never be enough to satiate that nagging voice inside me always scratching for more.

It's the who that I am, hardwired into my very marrow.

I've spent much of my life fighting this... this perfectionism, this drive to over achieve, to over accomplish... to overcome... to hold it all together and to keep all the plates spinning for all the people.

I'm one that doesn't know how to not automatically give 110% at everything.

I'm not sure how it happened or how it all evolved... or when I went from trying to perfectly achieve and accomplish all the things - to coherently trying to not perfectly achieve and accomplish all the things... But I'm nearing a fine fifty years lived here shortly, and it is who I am.  There is always a battle within, always.  For better or worse (for richer or poorer?)(lol). 

So where am I even going with all of this?! I don't think I actually know.

But I do know that December's seem to be hard.  December's seem to take their toll every year.  December's seem to hold so much expectation while also guaranteeing nothing at all.

It is December, yes. 

But... The year isn't over. The year isn't a wash. The year isn't a bust.

And I'm not quite ready to cry in my coffee and call it quits just yet.

And neither should you.

Let's trust we are where we are supposed to be, in the timing that God has coordinated it to be.

Let's allow ourselves to sit, to lay our heads back, with our eyes closed for just a few brief moments.

To rest... to less, yes... but not to quit... not yet.

Previous Blog Post { Dream Big Princess ll } HERE 

Dream Big Princess Challenge ll

So I have alluded recently that I may have a small announcement to make… And while I don’t have quite all the details worked out yet, I actually have something quite large I am going to spill the beans about!

I will attempt to keep this short and to the point, however we all know I’m a bit hopeless with my words and stories :-) 

So, are you sitting down? Because I was sure glad that I was.

Let me briefly set the backdrop to this stage. Ever since I first saw @whiskey_tamago_flowers post during one of her RunDisney events on insta I have fallen madly in love with all things RunDisney. Except - I knew I would never actually get to run a live in-person race in Florida, through the Disney parks.

Mostly due to two factors. #1) They are all ridiculously hard to actually get registered for. I mean we are talking in past years, the race has seen up to 56,000 runners, and registrations selling out within minutes of it opening up. and #2) I would never be able to afford to actually do it. Let's just say, the registration fee to run through the parks does not include anything other than... the race. If you want to go to any parks after, extra. Travel and airfare, extra. Disney photo package, extra.

So over the years I have creatively put together a few #disneyonadime runs as I have called them. I have planned, and trained, and spent hours online shopping and bidding and putting together three different major virtual disney themed run challenges for myself.

My first was in 2019 when I was able to register for all the RunDisney Virtual Shorts races and I would put them all together to virtually run, in my basement, and earn those metals during the same live in-person races during the RunDisney Marathon weekend.  Read more on this HERE.

My second was in 2021 when I again put together a virtual run, in my basement, to earn a set of used RunDisney Princess Weekend metals, which I again ran during their then also virtual races of the RunDisney Marathon weekend (thank you Covid 19).  Read more on this HERE.

While on my mission to put together my #dreambigprincesschallenge for the above run, I also put together a RunDisney Donald Half Marathon 12 month challenge. I put myself up to the challenge to run a half marathon every month for the 12 months of 2021, earning past Donald Half Marathon metals that I was able to find online. It took a while, but I would eventually have twelve metals in a box in my closet and one official RunDisney Donald Half Marathon race shirt to wear for each race. I set a price limit on what I’d spent per medal, and kept track of the years I had so there were no duplicates.

My full initial plan was that I was going to also publish a blog post every month featuring that year’s metal and researching all the facts to share. How many people ran that race that year, what the weather had been, was going to feature a photo of the original runner whose metal I now had, at the finish line holding that same metal. I wanted to feature that runner each month and also open it up to see if there were any other finish photos of other runners and their same metals from that same race. I ran into a small snag when I was not able to ask for any personal information to follow up with anyone after purchasing- due to rules of poshmark and ebay. Totally understandable of course … but, it did kind of hinder my resolve.

I don’t even know if I have shared that much about that publically, but there are 12 official RunDisney Donald Half Marathon medals sitting on my table in the basement, waiting to be displayed on the new medal rack I bought for them, which I also haven’t gotten hung yet. For some reason, I never quite felt brave enough to share about this challenge I guess.

Anyway, every month in 2021 I was able to get myself through a half marathon, and the night of every one of those half marathons I gave myself the gift of an hour massage as my reward.

One random day in February 2022 I happened to click on the RunDisney registration page, and there was a freak registration opening for just the Princess Half Marathon, two weeks out. Not going to lie, I almost clicked the button to register, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to do just one of the three races, and my 2022 PTO was already all spoken for (one of which was for a long weekend family vacation to the Black Hills where I would be running (finally) the Deadwood Half Marathon after 3 years of having to cancel or defer for various reasons. Read more on this HERE.

That race was to be six weeks ago. I didn’t end up taking that trip or running that race because we would become first time grandparents AND welcome home a long awaited new puppy into our home in less than 48 hours during that exact same time.  Read more on this HERE.

So - get on with it right? Sorry - as I said, too many words… I know, I know… always.

On my work desk calendar I may have penciled in “Watch for Disney Princess Registration” during the third week of Aug. And somehow over the last year I had started following a few facebook and instagram RunDisney pages. Mostly because of the total cancelation of all races due to Covid 19…

On June 21, 2022 I sat down for a few minutes of scrolling before logging on to work. I randomly caught a few posts about the big excitement of registration opening at 10am that morning. Registration day? Why had I thought it was going to be in August sometime? I may have googled what time that meant for my time zone. I may have gone to the actual website registration page at 8:55am.

At 9:00am when it showed Registration Open, I may have clicked on the button.

It quickly popped up that I was in a holding queue to get into the registration page and the approximate wait time was 1 hour 15 minutes. I almost closed the browser page, what was I honestly even thinking. But I got busy with work and it was just spinning away in a window in my background.

After about 15 minutes I decided it was totally silly what I was doing and I needed to just stop, it was all giving me a stomachache. But this little person in my head kept saying - well, just leave it and if it’s meant to be it’s meant to be and if not, you are not out anything. Just take a chance, who knows.

An hour and twenty minutes later there was a little chime and a note popped up that I was being moved into the registration queue. FOR THE LOVE, what was I even doing?!?! I could already see that two of the four individual race options were already sold out. But the 10k/Half Challenge Race was still open.

So I clicked it.

I clicked the boxes and typed in the lines and clicked “add an additional race” and then clicked on the 5K race, which crazy enough was also still open.  Suddenly I was entering my credit card information. And my shaking hands of course typed something wrong. Denied. Ugh. I typed it all again. Denied again. Crap - it was a hefty chunk of change, was my card maxed out, I had no idea. Then I thought, shoot I bet it sold out before my card was processed and that why it’s denied.

I almost closed 'er all up right there out of frustration, but… I entered it all one.more.time.

And then I found myself sitting there looking at a Congratulations pop up window. Apparently I was registered. But I totally didn’t trust it or believe it. Everyone talked of how they got all through the registration process to have it sold from under them.

I went to my email. For the love, there were two registration confirmation emails from RunDisney in there.  One for the Princess 5K.  One for the Princess Challenge (10K & Half) I clicked on them. I went into my account. Ummmmmm. It showed two valid registrations for the Princess Half Marathon Weekend. I went back and clicked on the main registration page. Everything was showing as sold out. Everything.

I had no idea how, but I was officially registered to run the Princes. 5K, 10K, and Half Marathon three consecutive days in a row, live, in person, in Florida, at Disney.

No words. None. How does one process something so unexpected like this?

I had no idea what to even think or feel. And I was too scared to tell the hubs. He was not going to be impressed with this.

Within minutes I had put in my PTO request for work, and had it approved. I then messaged a few of my core peeps with the congratulations screenshot I had taken, all of them replying back that they didn’t even know I was going to try register. (Well, I didn’t know I was going to either when I woke up! I replied back to everyone)

And then I continued working as if something completely life altering had not just happened to me.

I would work until the end of the day. The hubs called on his way home and I was standing at the front door putting the puppers out. He was chatting and I was hearing nothing and I finally interrupted and said - Ummm, wanna know about my day? Apparently the RunDisney Princess weekend registration opened today. Pause. Ummmmm, wanna know how that went? Pause. Oh, the race thing you’ve talked about before…. Yes, that. I may have gotten registered. WHAT? For which one? Well, all three. What were you thinking?!? Why would you do a thing like that? Well….that’s kind of how the whole thing kind of works…

There was a little more small talk and I was then asked - This isn’t at DisneyLAND is it? Because I’m NOT going back to DisneyLAND! To which I replied - who said I was going to ask you to even be the one to go along with me?!? And no - it’s in Florida at DisneyWORLD (#eyeroll).

A few minutes later he arrived home and sat down on the couch. He asked about the actual dates, I told him I’d already had my PTO request approved, and that apparently according to social media chatter all the Disney resorts had already sold out before the registration opened, and then all the people who don’t get in cancel their reservations, so some will open back up.

He didn’t quite realize the vast immensity of it all apparently, as not many do.

I assumed it was end of conversation, and I put travel and lodging on my future to-do list and would deal with it all later. He surprised me a little later as he looked up from his phone announcing he was looking for flights and lodging. The flights were already pretty limited, and our first option actual sold out before we got through booking.

In the end, by the end of that night we had two plane tickets and a reservation at a resort and spa four miles from Disney. Race registration and airfare all non refundable. Again, what in the world was I doing?

Needless to say it was a very unexpected, very expensive day. It took a bit for it to all sink in. Still trying to wrap my mind around it all if I’m being honest. But, Lord willing, I will be getting to mark off one huge bucket list box in February 2023.

And I have one more very large announcement to add to this one!

I am going to be partnering with a very special non-profit, and raising money through this huge race opportunity. Mere’s Mission is a precious group of other loss moms who love and support all those who never signed up for their specific loss journey. I first took some huge brave big steps about a year after we lost Faith and reached out and connected with them. I dialed in to their support group, I took myself off mute, and I shared my story, our story, our Faith MaryJo’s story.

Years have continued. Relationships and friendships and mission opportunities have continued to grow since then, and one of the very first things I was thinking about after getting that Registration Confirmation was how I really wanted to run this for Faith, and for all the little ones out there we have said good bye to too soon, and for all the little ones yet to reach Heaven’s gates before their parents as the days and years continue.

Below I will give some brief information and links about Mera’s Mission, with a promise of more specific information and ways to donate as I get all those specific details rolling, and I would love to ask everyone to just open your hearts and be in prayer as to how you might be able to come alongside me as I partner with them while training and running in this dream race that I have carried in my heart for so long.

Mera’s Mission is a non profit, started by loss mom Kim Maimone in honor and memory of her precious little mermaid, Mera. The mission offers love and support during all the steps of loss, while recognizing all the different types of losses from embryo loss, early trimester loss, miscarriage, stillborn, and beyond. It is a safe place to connect, to cry, to reach out, to share, to listen, to walk alongside those on all their various journeys and stages of loss.

All donations will go directly to the mission to help them continue to offer support services, memory walks, a lending library of free books and resources, purchasing and donating Caring Cradles to hospitals, and many other areas of help for those needing a special touch during their times of need.

Get connected, find out more, pray for

and watch for more information to come on how you can help support:

Mera’s Mission 

Facebook: Mere's Mission Inc. click HERE

Instagram: @merasmission  click HERE

           Caring Cradles (Giving more time with a baby who has died): click HERE

#dreambigpricesschallenge

#runlikethewindbulleye

#faithmaryjo

#aswejourneytofaith

Previous blog post { To or Not To Run Like The Wind Bullseye } HERE