Forty Feats to Forty

My 20's were spent with a lot of questions. What will I do? Where will I go? Who will I meet? There is a ton of uncertainty in that decade and I had a very love/hate relationship with it.  I loved the mystery, not knowing how your life is going to shape up is very exciting when you're young and pretty fearless.  I also seemed to be naively confident in everything just figuring itself out.  I thought with hard work and a stubborn rebellion against mediocrity, I would certaintly end up with a life filled with happiness, excitement, and love.  But, I was also experiencing a low level, constant anxiety that I'm sure I shared with the majority of people my age.  The fear of the real world and how we would not only exist, but find happiness in it.  

I am so fortunate to say that by the end of my 20's, I had not only answered those huge questions, but I was thrilled with the outcomes.  I married the man of my dreams, built a house in the woods near a place I love dearly, became a mom to two amazing kids and two hysterical dogs, have a healthy body and the knowledge and dedication to not only keep it but to challenge it, and I have 3 (!) jobs that keep me inspired.  Seriously, things are that good.  

You would think that from here, I would just settle in.  Take deep breaths and revel in the hard work and choices that got me to this point.  Unfortunately, I'm not really built that way.  :)  We're officially coming up for air from the baby years and I find myself looking around, happy, content, and wondering...  now what?  I certainly don't want to change anything major.  Quite the opposite, I love everything major about my life (see above.).  More so I feel like I have a little more energy and time to get back to the things that I felt proud of and excited about before the major questions became my focus.  I want to stay interested, and interestING, to myself and those around me.  But the thought of taking on anything else was exhausting and I didn't even know I was missing anything really, or even where to start once I realized it.  Then came a random Facebook post from my dear friend Sam.

Samantha and I became friends 5 years ago this summer.  She is currently living in Germany with her adorable son and husband and is one of the more creative and interesting people I know.  I was not surprised at all to see her new website, entitled Forty Feats to Forty:  A Pledge to Relish our Thirties.  Her and another friend had each compiled a list of 40 things they wanted to do before they turned 40.  Perfect.  This was exactly what I wanted.  An mini bucket list filled with goals that will keep me intrigued and talking about things other than potty training.  

I decided that items on my list needed to fall into two criterea:  attainable and fun.  I wanted it to be motivating but not stressful.  And not a boring to-do list like "organize the pantry" but rather items that I look forward to, have never done before, feel will make me a better person, or am intrigued by.  I will have a larger, LIFE bucket list for sure but for now, with the busy lives and smaller budgets we have, this will be a way to remind myself of what is important outside of the daily grind, healthy dinners, swim lessons, baby sitters, vet appointments, conference calls, 8 hours of sleep that I NEVER get, and everything else that is constantly on our minds.  I wrote her, said "I'm in" and immediately started my own list.

I turn 33 tomorrow. I plan to check off all the items on this list by sunset of my 40th birthday. So I'm a little behind the other youngsters taking part in this life task but I consider that a challenge. Here's to staying interesting, intrigued, and excited about life and to becoming the person I always hoped along the way.

1. Finish a crossword puzzle.
2. Brew a batch of beer.
3. Take a cooking class.
4. Build a piece of furniture.
5. Visit Asheville, NC.
6. Go to a Steelers game at Heinz Field.
7. See 7 new bands in concert.
8. Check off 5 marathon states.
9. Set off fireworks.
10. Play a round of frisbee golf.
11. Go on a dinner cruise with friends.
12. Eat a salad with 5 ingredients grown in my own garden.
13. Take part (or start!) a huge food fight.
14. Send a message in a bottle.
15. Taste at all of the wineries on the Monticello Wine Trail.
16. Watch 75 of the Best Picture Oscar winning movies.
17. Learn basic, conversational Portuguese.
18. Hike/run/bike in 10 new state/national parks.
19. Watch the sunrise and sunset over a different body of water in the same day.
20. Volunteer 20 hours each for 5 different charities.
21. Run NYC marathon.
22. Plant 30 trees.
23. Take a cheese making course.
24. Ride a century (not BGC).
25. Go skinny dipping.
26. Attend a black tie event with Dave.
27. Paint a painting.
28. Be an extra in a film.
29. Ride a zip line.
30. Fry a pickle.
31. Race all events of a running or biking series.
32. Learn to play tennis.
33. See a show at Austin City Limits.
34. Read 10 books from the New York Times best seller list.
35. Create a joke from scratch.
36. Host a "lazy" adventure race.
37. Be an audience member for the taping of a live show.
38. Spend the day at a spa resort.
39. Host a rooftop dinner party.
40. Complete a photographic series and display somewhere.

         

                                             Happy Birthday to me. 

Me time becomes marathon time.

Our schedule is busy to say the least.  Like busy to the point where my friends and I exchange emails with lines such as "would LOVE to see you guys...how do the next two months look?"  There have been some great studies done recently on how all this busyness will affect us in the long term and why we feel the need to stay so busy but that's another post.  And, as apparently there are still only so many hours in a day, I constantly feel the pressure to choose oh so very wisely what we fill those time slots with.  There are of course the mandatory items.  Sleep (hopefully), work and school, eating well, travel time, attacking the never ending to-do list, and then, if there's anything left, maybe a few hours for fun and doing whatever we choose.  This is the time slot that I find the most stressful, ironically.  Maybe it's because all the other things aren't really an option.  But this time, the "me" time, is all you get a say in so it better be good and it better make you happy.  Do I nap, workout, see friends, sit and read, just sit, DIY, walk in the woods?  The possibilities are endless and therein lies the problem.

My alone time was pretty unstructured for a while which was great.  It varied from week to week, and I found myself feeling like it was the reset button I needed.  Until I decided to take on another marathon, my 9th overall (I think) and my first since the kiddos were born.  Training for anything with significant distance takes two major things:  time and energy.  And, you got it, those are the two things a working mom of toddlers has very little of.  But I was looking forward to a few things.  Hours on winding country roads, seeing the seasons change, feeling my body become more efficient as the mileage increases, checking off training weeks and looking towards a final date.  It brought back a lot of memories.  Unfortunately, things have changed a bit.  Which seems like the understatement of the decade.  And all of a sudden, a 22 mile training run isn't something you think about and plan for weeks, even months, in advance.  It's something that you remember you're doing the night before, throw together a route, check the weather - crap, it's supposed to ice?  where are those winter gloves? - and hope your overly supportive hubby can pitch in and pick up the kids when you inevitably don't hit your goal pace and are literally running too late to do it yourself.  (Sorry again, babe!)  It's something that you hope you have the time to enjoy along the way because Lord knows, when you get home, stretching is probably out, showering might happen IF they nap, and you'll be eating goldfish by the handful as a recovery meal while you simultaneously referee between the kids and catch up on work emails.

Fast forward, because time does little else these days, to the day of the race.  I made the decision to leave the family at home.  Judge it either way but this one was for me.  I had fought for training time, woken up early for speed work, managed to work jobs, keep a household somewhat running, and, to my knowledge, not kill anyone during the process.  Whatever happened, I was more proud of toeing that start line and excited about crossing that finish line than I think I ever have been before.  There will be plenty of races for the kids to see mommy run in, plenty of time to show them the healthy lifestyle that I hope more than anything they will take on themselves.  This one was mine.  And isn't that an important lesson in itself?  To show your children that it's ok to make time for yourself, to have hobbies and passions that you don't have to share/post/tweet to feel proud of?  What the hell do I know, but I would love to believe that by making, not finding, my own alone time and choosing well how to spend that time, I'll inspire them to set their own goals, athletic or not, and look inward for their own happiness.

In the beginning, I started this training program to see if the marathon distance was something I could see myself doing consistently again at this point.  Would it be attainable with our crazy busy lives, but, more importantly, would it be FUN?  I think hindsight is always a bit rosy but I can say that yes, there's something about 26.2 that I'm not done with.  I'll get my more relaxed alone time back soon.  For now, it will come and go with the race seasons, life commitments, and family milestones.