Reflections At Almost 34

So tomorrow morning….34 years ago…I decided to grace this earth…or so my mother says. For the life of me…I can’t figure out why she likes me so much….lovely woman…wouldn’t be me without her.

I’ve come a long way in my running since this time last year. I could barely run 10 miles and was getting ready to run Lighthouse for the first time…on a bum knee and little strength. This morning I ran 13 miles and had plenty left…although my legs were feeling a bit rough at the end. I just wasn’t feeling this run…even though the Root River was beautiful and I hadn’t been down there in awhile…blah..whatever.


I decided in my early 20’s that my life was going to be perfect at 30. Maybe it was my way of looking forward to ageing instead of dreading it like so many women do. I enjoy getting older…maybe even wiser…although once in a while I’m taken aback when I see a picture and see I have lines in my face. Or I look at my children and realize that I look UP to my boys now…and my daughter is gaining on me every day. I realize that when I’m 35…I will have a son that can drive and is only a couple of years away from leaving my shelter forever…or at least for awhile.


So here is a recap of my life up till now…from say….18 on? I married my first husband…and had V not even a year later. When V was 5 months…said first husband decided he didn’t like being married…and gave us the boot. When V was 9 months old…on a ‘lets get back together weekend’…I got pregnant with Dom…*we didn’t get back together…kind of hard when he had a girlfriend at home I suppose *. When Dom was 3 months old…I met Bill…and stayed with him for 4 years. He was a wonderful, troubled man who loved my boys…but died..right before V started kindergarten. When Dom was around a year old…I discovered Tae-bo and stuck with that for many years. During this whole time…I struggled with my weight, went back to school…and continued to raise these incredible boys…and bought my first house. A bit over a year after we lost Bill….I met Skip. By that time…I knew what I didn’t want in a man…and what I HAD to have in a man if he ever had a shot at keeping me. I married him 3 months later…I was 26. My boys fell for him as hard as I did…and it was beautiful to see. When we’d been married for about a year….we had the BRIGHT idea to add to our family. After trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant for almost a year…we finally did. My weight didn’t skyrocket…but I didn’t come through this pregnancy as easily as I did with the boys. In January of 2005…enter Tinky. She was amazing…and cemented our family and turned it on it’s head at the same time. My weight crept and crept upward till I was 250lbs. No matter what I did..or how hard I worked out…I just couldn’t get it under control. I started researching weightloss surgery when I realized that our insurance covered most of it. It was scary….a HUGE decision at 30 years old…because I’d reached that age…when my life was supposed to be perfect..and the only thing that wasn’t wonderful was my health. But I finally set my mind to it…jumped through the 8 million hoops set up to discourage you from doing it by insurance companies…and in October of 2007…had RNY Gastric Bypass. I was back to work and back to working out in under a week. I dropped 102 pounds in around 8 months and started running. My mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer not long after I had surgery and a gal from work was doing a 5K walk/run for the American Cancer Society. I told my mom about it and we both signed up. When I filled out the form…it had a section that asked if you were going to walk or run…I looked at that for a bit…and marked ‘run’. It was 3 weeks before the race.


I did a VERY modified Couch 2 5K and ran that race..in it’s entirety. I really don’t know what my time was…all I know is that I loved it and…and my mom was so proud of me.


During the next couple of years I kept running. Life didn’t always stay perfect. Skip and I separated…things happened with my children…my friends…my parents…my brothers….but my running was always there.


So what do I know at almost 34? Not much more then I did at 24 I’m afraid. I still have the same amazing family and friends..and have added a few more people here and there. Weight loss surgery fixes the weight…if you work it right…but doesn’t fix anything else….and it WILL come back if you’re not vigilant..and change your entire life. Your plan and Gods plan are often two VERY different things…although sometimes you can meet in the middle.


And maybe most importantly…you can have it all…you may just have to adjust what your idea of ‘ALL’ is.