Failing Calculus, New Year, New Resolutions

When I left for the University of Iowa at the age of 17, I was going to be a badass biomedical engineer.  I was going to design artificial limbs for amputees.  My limbs were going to be the most badass thing the world of prosthetics had ever seen. I am talking straight out of a robotic science fiction movie.  That is, until I hit calculus II my second semester.  I would find myself in a desk on campus with a TA who was from another country with a foreign accent I struggled to understand.  The board looked like some sort of hieroglyphics I would never comprehend.  Week after week.  I would sit there with no freaking clue how to deal with this. His office hours were not helpful as his accent was too thick. There was no internet.  No tutorials to look at.  Just sixteen weeks of feeling like I had been dropped in a foreign country where I didn't speak the language until I finally just simply quit going to class and would ultimately received a call after the semester ended, from my parents that I had failed the class.  My first F in life.

When I look back at that period of time I can't help but compare it to my four decades of attempts at weight loss and good health.  Entering the process so many times convinced I could be some sort of badass  fit athlete straight out of the pages of the Sports Illustrated.  I would launch myself into the latest and greatest commercial diet, overdo the exercise until I hurt and really end up feeling a little less Sports Illustrated and more lost in the pages of some sort of foreign language magazine where the characters made no sense.  I would hurt.  I would be hungry.  I would be mystified that a period of time had passed and I was at a plateau and the quick fix I had convinced myself existed was really more smoke and mirrors.  The period that followed this always proved to be a time of complacency and resignation to the notion that I probably could never reach my goals.  With New Years approaching I am wondering how many others will do just this as 2018 gets rolling. 

Well, right before I failed calculus, I had interviewed for a summer internship with a biomedical engineer.  I found myself entering the hospital where his office was and was impressed by the beautiful lobby.  Shiny chrome and glass, marble accents, yes, I could work here.  Let the badass limb designing begin.  Then, I was led to his office.  Beyond the lobby, descending to the basement, hospital green painted cement walls, past the morgue, into a windowless room that was little more than a broom closet.  Here it was.  Design central.  Somehow this lacked the glamour of the Hollywood sci fi I had built up in my mind.  There were no people here.  There was a tired looking guy at his computer who was excited about all the computerized plans he showed me.  Yeah, those were cool, but I am a social person by nature.  I would never see these limbs in action.  I would be in a hole somewhere lost in measuring angles and weight loads and yes using the calculus I had no freaking understanding of. 

So, after getting over the crushing blow of my first F, I changed trajectory. I would essentially scrap my entire first year of college and start again.  This time in nursing.  Financially speaking, this was an extremely difficult time for me.  Scrimping, saving, working and essentially taking school loans from anyone willing to give me the money to go.  I would have to take a semester off when the money rant out mid way through my program and work nights for months in the hospital to get back in.  In all, undergrad would take me six years with the last one being paid for by The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.  The only stipulation for them, was I would go work for them after graduation.  I would go on to graduate, and work on the pediatric floor and be the clinic nurse in the pediatric amputee clinic.  Here, I found myself watching four month old babies being fit with their first prosthetic arms so they could learn how to sit and later crawl.  I would watch kids with traumatic amputations learn to walk again.  You never know how badass first steps are until you get to watch it first hand.  The look of surprise on a child's face when they are finally upright again after months of being down.  The hope in the parents' eyes when they realize their limb deficient born child could be just like everyone else.  It was these moments I was so grateful to have failed calculus and have the chance to have a front row seat to this rather than being in the dark basement in front of a computer screen.

So, maybe the answer this New Years is to change trajectory.   We need to get over the fear of the amount of time it will take to reach our goals, be wary of the quick fix, not be afraid of starting all over again, and most importantly set our sites on things we have never done before, because what lives on the other side of that is a greatness that cannot be described, only experienced.  My goals this year are to complete the Spartan Trifecta as I did in 2017, but this year take new people with me and enjoy my front row seat to their first steps at being completely out of their comfort zones, as this is clearly a soul feeding experience for me.  I also have committed to a crazy 200 mile 12 man relay race known as Ragnar which completely terrifies me.  However, I know that I will learn something all new at the finish line and those around me will get to witness my own reaction to reaching goals I never thought possible.  As always, I am quite certain that the best is yet to come in 2018.

The Tea Cups

When you grow up in the Chicago suburbs in the 80's, there was one weekend in childhood that we waited all year for.  The fair.  The fair would come to the empty parking lot outside McChesney and Miller in Glen Ellyn once a year.  The trucks would pile in and inside of 24 hours the place was lit up with neon lights and smelled of funnel cakes.  My siblings and I would beg our parents to let us go and spend as much time as there as possible.  We would meet our friends and ride the zipper as many times as possible until our tickets ran out.  We would come home exhausted with a belly full of saturated fat and cotton candy being excited for the next year. 

The thing I also remember vividly was my parents' reaction to the fair.  There were heavy sighs and eye rolls.  There would be the under the breath mutterings of a waste of money, and the resentment they tried to hide about driving us there.  At the time, I didn't really understand it.  As I got older and moved into adulthood myself, I would see probably what they saw.  The bolts on the rides were rusty, the zipper shook in an unnatural way when it went.  The food was heartburn producing and artery clogging.  The carnies smoked too much, had deep lines in their faces and clearly had pasts we probably did not want to know about.  They worried about our experience there.  Would we be sick when we came home?  Would we be safe on a ride that has been put together and taken apart a million times by staff that clearly had deep issues? 

It occurs to me that this is so much like the holiday season.  My children are so excited right now for the emergence of Santa, they can't wait to have their presents, eat our traditional foods, and enjoy the magic of the season.  I have now taken over my parents' role of worry.  Will I get it all done?  Will I get the toys they want?  or will they fall apart like the rickety zipper?  Will my cinnamon rolls they count on Christmas morning come out right?  How will I accomplish all of this while keeping the kids in order, working my remaining 12 ten hours shifts this year, running my motivational company, including launching a challenge Jan 1,  training for five races next year for the teams I captain, and caring for a sick family member?  This whirlwind of stuff at the moment has my head spinning much like the rickety tilt-a-whirl.  I suddenly find myself with the sensation of standing in the middle of a the chaos of a small town fair, neon lights clouding my vision, with a better understanding of the lines on the face of the carnies as the exhaustion of the season sets in. 

When I became a parent myself,  I had the opportunity to take my own mother to Disney with my children.  It surprised me that she would want to go as amusement parks did not seem to historically be her thing  Yet, she was excited.  There was really only one thing she wanted to do in that visit.  She wanted to ride the tea cups with me and my two oldest children who were small at the time.  It seemed so odd coming from the woman who hated the tilt-a-whirl.  That day she would sit in the cup and laugh as she watched the faces of my dizzy children.  She smiled at their reaction and I smiled at hers.  She enjoyed the ride.  The whole day at the park went that way. Watching my children's excitement over seeing beloved favorite characters, and enjoying food far beyond funnel cakes. She was more excited with each thing.

To be fair, it was a bit of a challenge to get my 60 year old mother out of the tea cup.  She was dizzy and not physically built for the cup at that time.  We would laugh as we pulled her out and she staggered to the gate slowly regaining her equilibrium.  It occurs to me now that this woman who never liked the fair maybe had the right idea.  We will never be perfectly made to get through this thing we call life.  Maybe instead of tolerating the chaos of the local fair, our job should be to look for better opportunities to take a ride.  We should hold on tight, enjoy the smiles of children, seize the dizzy and take the hands of help and laugh as we stagger to the gate realizing that at some point equilibrium will return, but until that time we are in for quite a ride.

  

Drowning in Three Feet of Water

In my adult life, I have found myself at many family holiday gatherings.  These are always times of reconnection and celebration, but I think, for my family anyway, it always comes down the swapping of stories from years gone by.  It would seem there were the classics for each person.  For me, hardly a family gathering goes by without mention of the Cancun incident of my childhood.  At that time, sunscreen really was not a thing.  So....this white girl from Chicago, after being parked near the equator for a few days ended up with sun poisoning.  It is a particularly nasty form of sunburn that causes an intense itching sensation and scratching only makes it worse and it burns like fire.  As a child, I maybe did not handle this well as I found myself on the beach doing some sort of uncoordinated dance similar to Elaine Bennis from Seinfeld, as I tried to cope with the total body sensation.  Now, understanding, unfortunately I am the youngest and the only girl which led to my brother's pointing and laughing.  I became annoyed and began uttering the phrase,"I itch".  Going forward, this would be known as the "I Itch Dance" and has literally provided decades of entertainment for my siblings who very thoughtfully taught their own sons the dance.

I suppose I could spend the time at family gatherings annoyed at the jokes at my expense, but the reality is, everyone has a story.  It really is equal opportunity.  One of my favorite stories involves an aunt who used to spend a great deal of time on Kentucky Lake with her siblings and children.  Here was the problem, that aunt did not know to swim.  One fateful hot July day in Kentucky, she found herself venturing out into the water to cool off.  Summers in Kentucky are humid and unbelievably hot at times. She went deeper and deeper until she got to the place that she was sitting down.  The water up to her chin.  Legend has it, in this moment, she suddenly realized she could not swim and began to panic...arms flailing, screaming for help... as her siblings began laughing at her and telling her to simply stand up.  The reality was, the water was all of 3 feet deep, she simply needed to put her feet down and stand.

As I reflect on this, I begin to wonder how many times we find ourselves drowning in the demands of life.  So many times life can come at us like a daunting wall of water with sudden changes like the loss of my mom this summer, or life altering diagnoses like one of my family members is going through.  There are the simpler things that build up on us too such as financial constraints, injury in the middle of race training or interpersonal issues.  Whatever it may be, we may find ourselves flailing around screaming for help.

I think the thing we fail to consider, is that often the water really isn't that deep and what we need to do is simply stand up.  Rise above the struggle and let it land right where it belongs, harmlessly splashing against our shins. This does not mean we minimize serious issues or ignore things, rather we focus on what lives above the water.  At Kentucky Lake, what lives above the shallow water is a wider view of clear blue with the reflection of bright sunshine, surrounded by tall pines and rich greenery only found in that area of the country.  Yes, some of the best views nature has to offer, all things that aunt would have missed by failing to stand and drowning in three feet of water.  So, this holiday season, maybe our challenge is to see what lives above the flailing in shallow water.  What views can we find beyond the struggle?  I suppose it is our job to simply stand up and look.  Rumor has it if you are patient and look hard enough at the Kentucky Lake you will see an eagle soar across the sky. 

One word of caution, though, while we are busy enjoying the view, and figuring out new ways to fly in the face of the trials of life, it may be best to employ some modern day sunscreen to avoid creating a dance move best left out of any dance party.   

Words of Wisdom from Piglet

My dad was drafted into the Army during the Korean Conflict. I suppose it was his military background that caused him to have strong opinions on tattoos.  I was brought up with the opinion that tattoos were the thing of men who obtained them in a back alleys of Asia in between the battle ground and prostitutes.  I think my dad was pretty grateful he had spent the Korean conflict in Germany, tattoo free.  My mom was no different in her negative opinions of tattoos.  She had graduated from nursing school in 1965 and was of the opinion everyone with a tattoo had hepatitis B.  She felt tattoo parlors were dark dirty drug dens run by motorcycle gangs and were frankly dangerous to even be near.  Then, the late 1990’s hit and suddenly there were tramp stamps and barbed wire bicep cuffs. Admittedly, I had friends get tattoos like this, but the healthy fear my parents had instilled in me coupled by my inability to commit to anything permanent on my skin kept me out of this fashion trend.

So, how was it 15 months ago I found myself in a beautifully decorated tattoo parlor in Saratoga, NY that resembled an art studio more than the stereotypical dark caves my mother depicted so many years ago, getting my second tattoo at the age of 46? Yes, I have a total of three now, the other two have their own stories I will save for another post. By the time I entered NeedleWurks that day, I had long reached my goal weight and was released to run after my hip fracture four months before that. I finally was to a place I held the notion that if I could maintain my weight loss and fitness through a broken leg, this level of health just might be sustainable, a belief I had never been able to have because of so many past failures.  To cement the notion of permanency I began to think that  an indelible visible reminder of this journey was in order.

What would said reminder look like? My tattoo was born out of  the idea that my obesity served as my cocoon in so many ways.  Despite weight struggles being on public display for the world to see, I  came to learn this same weight was as comfortable as a caterpillar's warm cocoon.  My obesity kept me safe.  I was safe from the demands of physical things.  Nobody was going to ask me to go running with them or lift anything heavy.  I was the less successful friend or family member and had been for decades so I was safe from big demands or challenges, thus limiting the odds I would take on something huge and fail... although these are things I would not truly learn until much later, I am certain this is why I never had lasting success.  As I now look back, while my conscious self was busy engaging in one crazy diet plan after another, the flipside was. I really did all I could to make my cocoon of obesity state of the art.  Outside of the poundage that surrounded me, I created an external environment that fed it all.  I had a recliner, a heated blanket, and a family room kitchenette full of snacks, along with 300 channels on a 64 inch TV to continue to feed my complacency while I existed in the confines of the comfortable cocoon. 

What you don't see in this existence is there is a fine print.  This existence is gray.  It is monotonous.  It is a soul robbing place where the security I felt was there only to keep me from being what I truly could be if I could only get out.  So many times in the last three years on this journey, I have been uncomfortable.  I was afraid of looking silly at my first Dry Triathalon, at Orangetheory.  It was my first race of any kind in life.  I was terrified of being last.  Well, guess what...I was last, but as I finished the 5K part, the last leg of the race, my son would hop back on the treadmill, as he had already finished, and run the last quarter mile by my side encouraging me the whole.  I learned that day, being last, which I previously was terrified of,  was not fatal.  In fact, it could be pretty amazing. 

There was my first outdoor Spartan Race in March.  Up and down the snowy ski slopes of Greek Peak. I spent the days leading into the race with serious concerns I may not finish or I may fall off the mountain which made me long for the comfort of days gone by, at least by a little bit.  There was no falling off the mountain in a coccon.  To be fair, sliding down the back of an icy mogul repeatedly made sitting a bit challenging in the days that followed, but this was Spartan's first winter race ever.  I got to jump the fire at that race and part of something entirely new with my son by my side.  Not to mention, a two hour grueling climb for 3 miles and many obstacles in 16 degrees, taught me so much about what I was capable of.  This is not an emotion discoverable deep into my previous cocoon of fear, complacency and carbohydrates.  Thing after thing I would do.  Each challenge different than the last helping me to see who lived beneath the heated blanket and pile of snacks.

Walking into Needleworks that day I knew what it had to be.  It had to be a butterfly.  The colorful entity that symbolized me learning to fly after decades of gray darkness.  For those dark years, I can honestly say, all I wanted was to be who I am now with absolutely no idea how to get there.  Fear of the unknown, unhappiness with the present and goals that seemed completely out of reach.  I would read every book on weight loss and fitness available. Something had to get me from here to there.  Years and years this would go by until I finally realized the answer was in my kid's bookshelf.  A simple conversation between everyone's favorite obese bear and his sidekick.

Who would know Piglet could be so prophetic.  I learned that by overcoming the fear that holds us in our own cocoons, we leave the worst parts of us behind, so the beautiful colorful parts of us can fly.  There are many days I feel my wings have only begun to spread, but I have a colorful kick ass butterfly on my ankle that tells me I have a whole lot of flying left to do.

Live Like You Were Dying

It is Thanksgiving week.  As an avid blogger, I had the token being thankful blog all sewn up in my head.  I would open with the celebration of the milestone of my 700th class at OTF this week, revel in that number, relate it to other 700 things, such as how 700 pennies may only be 7 dollars, but carrying them in a sack up the side of the hill was way more challenging.  Take on the small challenges first as they are bigger than you might thing, grateful for success....blah blah blah.  Yep, it was all woven with colorful metaphors and holiday cheer, I had it ready to roll in my own mind.  In fact, I essentially had it worked out by last Thursday, well ahead of schedule.

Until I didn't........

On Friday, someone close to me received a life altering diagnosis, and is facing a large, game changing surgery.  Somehow the glow of my 700 classes with the flowery words of being thankful for reaching goals one step at a time, no longer seemed to matter.  Those thoughts were replaced by trying to find a way to encourage someone through a situation for which they had no power.  Normally, my brand of motivation for my clients involves sharing my story.  My battles against a lifetime of obesity.  My discussion of the people on my journey who convinced me I could even when I was not so sure.  Convince them they can too.  I begin to slowly open the window of possibilities for my clients and then sit back and watch them bloom into these amazing forces.  It's what I do, and I love it.

However,  how does that apply here?  How do you convince someone they "can" through an illness that is totally out of their control?  They can what?  Control what happens in surgery?  Control the diagnosis? Control the course of the operation?  The fear producing lack of control is something my brand of motivation did not apply to.  After all, I motivate by proving things are within our control, when, in this situation, they are not.   I was clearly out of my element here.  Admittedly, my attempts to encourage were largely a failure this weekend.  I finally resigned myself to the place where I simply had to wait until the recovery phase of surgery to apply my special brand of encouragement.  Now, I was the one who had no control.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a planner.  I am the person with the plates spinning on the sticks, six or seven at a time frantically transitioning from plate to plate, never letting even one fall.  I balance two jobs working every shift there is, kids' schedules, running my company, household stuff, workouts, race training .....my endless list of stuff that occupies each and every day, so no,  my own lack of control is clearly not working here.  I am a get shit handled doer, not a waiter for the right opportunity to jump in.  As I was headed in for night shift this weekend, I found myself lost in thought, contemplating the frustration of this notion.

I was travelling the New York Thruway into Albany, my iPhone on random, when suddenly a song came on I had not heard in a very long time.  "I was in my early 40's, with a lot of life before me, when a moment came and stopped me on a dime...."  Tim McGraw.  OK there is a lot of irony here.  First, I am not a country music fan.  In fact, I generally say that country music gives me a pain behind my eye.  Sorry but the white chick from Chicago is really more of a rock fan.  Yet, it had a lot of relevance to my current situation.  Why was this even on my iTunes?  My understanding was this song was about a specific aggressive brain tumor I saw many times in my ten years of neurosurgery, the glioblastoma multiforme.  Untreated, patients are dead in three months, with chemo, radiation and surgery, you get 18.  When it came out, this song was something those of us in neurosugical circles could understand and appreciate from a professional perspective.  Somehow though, this weekend I heard this song with new ears.  It was no longer professional but personal.

Friday stopped me on a dime.  The weekend was spent going over and over test results and facing mortality and the ramifications of that, feeling helpless just like the song said.  However, the song reminded me of something very important that did not happen, at least until now.  Seeing this as an opportunity.  This is a positive opportunity to see what life has to offer. This was an opportunity to truly live like we are dying.  We could see a chance to break out of the routine and see exactly what can experienced right here and right now.  He talks about skydiving, ok side note to my Spartan Team, clearly if the A frame freaks me out this may not be for me...Rocky Mountain Climbing, ok this.  If I can climb the mountains of WV for 20 miles, taking on some snowy Rockies, yeah that would be amazing.  Then there was the notion of the mechanical bull....a whole other thing.  There seems to be so many opportunities in life we ignore because of our perceived notion of limitless time or our ideas that our own limits prevent us from these experiences.

As I fantasized about my own possibilities in life, I finally began to realize that maybe my job, in this scenario, was not to encourage this person through the situation for which nobody had any control, but instead, help them to embrace the best life has to offer right here and right now.  I now know this is really more what Thanksgiving is about this year.  A grateful heart that we have been given an amazing opportunity to live like we are dying each and every day, not 700 classes or whatever the latest PR is for the pull over.  For some. this notion will be the simple appreciation of a glorious sunrise over a beach with crashing waves, others an amazing dinner around a beautiful table with family and for others it will be jumping out of an airplane.  No matter what it is, through the trials of life we need to see that every day is an opportunity to see the best life has to offer.  The chance as Tim McGraw so eloquently puts it, to love deeper and speak sweeter.  It makes me think maybe, just maybe... I need to seek out a bull named Fumanchu.

When a Playlist, is Not Just a Playlist

Today is my birthday. Today I woke up and I was 48. It seems dangerously close to half a century, such a big number. However, on the bright side, when it is your birthday workout at Orangetheory, you get to make the playlist.  Last night, I spent some time combing through some of my favorites and tried to anticipate what my favorite 8:45 crew would enjoy the most.  These people have become my family.  We generally sing, laugh and encourage one another in a way I have never been blessed to be a part of before now.  Ultimately, there it was.  Twenty-five of my favorite bad ass tunes that push me through long runs and workouts outside the studio, sent to my trainer. I was all set for a fun morning of crushing it with my friends.

What came back to me was a bit different.  My trainer sent me the confirmation that she was all set with the music with the comment that,"you could tell it's an emotional one, but it's for your birthday so people have to deal with it."  Wait.  Emotional?  I was not so sure I knew what she meant.  I sent AC/DC and Aerosmith after all, among other things. 

As I entered the lobby, I would discover a birthday greeting with the tally of the classes I had taken at Orangetheory in 2 years and 7 months, 692.  Wow.  That was a pretty big number.  No wonder this felt like home.  When it was time for class, we would enter the studio to find "Raspberry Beret" was playing.  A nod to my 80's teenage years when I was that obese child dancing around my own room, just a wee bit self conscious to do it anywhere else.  As we mounted the treadmills, "Black Betty" started and it was time to move past the warm up and right into push pace. In that moment, I began to think about all those 4:30 am mornings early in my training when getting out of bed seemed to be the most cruel joke of all.  In the dead of winter, I would have to bundle up, put this on in the car and weave a string of profanity as I traveled to the studio.  I would have to convince myself the misery of this night owl being up at this hour was far worse than the disappointment that would surely come later if I didn't go, and worth the satisfaction of a workout complete.  I would always find those two things to be true, but it didn't stop my early morning pre workout antics any.  In fact, at times, my schedule will not allow for anything other than 5:00 am and in that case, Black Betty and profanity is still a thing.

"Back in Black" would  then usher in an endurance segment as I would be reminded of college days gone by.  The days when my friend and I would hit up The Cue in Iowa City to play pool and drink more than our share of beer.  In those days, we would have several hilarious capers involving a keg put in a car the wrong way causing a broken hatchback windshield, or long discussions during walks home in the wee hours.  Little did I know, 25 years later, this same friend would find encouragement in my story, lose the weight himself, complete a Spartan Trifecta this year with me and now help me run 1DOS and become a huge inspiration to many.

At one point during the workout, we transitioned to the rowers for a distance row.  I found myself next to a guy I train with often.  Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" would come on as he and I would find ourselves watching eachother's monitors trying once again to beat one another as we often do. Of course, this involves a certain degree of trash talk we have all come to love in this class. In this moment, with the references to summers at the lake, I was reminded of another time when he and I were on the rowers when he would push with such force off the foot plates he would explode the water drum causing a tidal wave that would splash onto the treadmills, demonstrating that being over 50 did not mean we were not capable.  In fact, I am not so sure anyone else has done that.  Yes, maybe hitting that half century isn't so bad.

Back to the treads we would go as "Walking on Sunshine" would come on.  Katrina and the Waves would sing out this 80's classic as my closest training friend would occupy the tread next to me screaming this was her favorite song.  It was appropriate too.  She has walked a very similar path to mine.  Polycystic ovarian syndrome, large weight loss, crushing goals she never thought possible, even scaling an 8 foot wall just one week ago at the Fenway Spartan.  She has a habit of screaming encouragement to everyone on the floor, truly spreading the sunshine wherever she goes.  To be honest, after doing several races with her, I can say my mile time only is what it is because of her encouragement.  She has a knack of reminding me all of my past failures don't matter and that any limits I have are likely just mental. 

There would be songs that appeared in other blog posts like "Wake Me Up" where I discovered that I really had spent the last three years finding myself, when I had no idea I was lost in the first place.  "Born this Way" would take me to the early days when my mom died this summer and I needed the reminder that despite her being gone, she still believed in me.

Song after song....I think maybe my trainer was right.  Rather than the badass fun playlist I made it out to be, this really was more a musical journey through my three year quest for health and fitness.  Seeing my fitness family sing along and laugh to it all reminded me how lucky I am to have people in my life who believe in me so I can do the same for others, and how fortunate I am to have come this far, while at the same time reminding me that there is so much more to do.

When the hour was up, it was finally time for stretches.  We were drenched, out of breath, and still laughing... "Only the Good Die Young"  by Billy Joel is what came on.  Why would I pick this?  Several people asked me.  Was it about good versus bad? Be bad and live forever? Not really.  Not in my mind.  It was more about playing life safe versus busting out of my own comfort zone that existed in insulation of fat I walked around in  for decades and seeing what it was the world has to offer.  For now I choose to run with my dangerous crowd of ferocious sharks and believe at nearly half a century, that the best is yet to come.

Nobody Really Sees the Underwear on the Mat, Spartan Reflections

I have a problem with the gray microfiber towel I use to cover my yoga mat.  Things stick to it in the dryer.  If I am not careful, I end up unfolding the towel in the middle of the studio only to find a hot pink tie dye pair of my underwear right there for all to see.  Let's just say it has happened more than once.  For some reason, it always seems to be the same pair of underwear.   I have had to develop a special maneuver where I quickly wad up said underwear and quietly walk out to my cubby and stash it in my shoe absolutely convinced every other student has seen this and maybe I just needed to go home and not face these people for an hour of hot yoga as they judged my underwear choice or lack of ability to successfully fold laundry.  I manage to always power through it though, as it is an important part of my Spartan Training.

As a matter of fact, this weekend, I found myself at my fifth Spartan Race, exactly one year after my very first race at the very same venue, Fenway Park in Boston.  One year ago, I was terrified.  Finally, I was winning the war of my lifetime struggle with obesity. I was 85 pounds down, and I had started to have some level of fitness I had never thought possible and I felt the almighty Spartan, would serve as my quintessential slaying of a lifetime of demons.  Later, I would learn it was only the beginning, and I had a lot more slaying to do as I took on the trifecta this year.  Nonetheless as I entered Fenway, this year, I found I was overcome by all of the emotions that flooded me a year ago.  The familiar obstacles I was so terrified of at first, followed by the shock of actually completing them.  There was the view of the first baseline where I crossed the finish line one year ago and burst into tears into the arms of my ever supportive son, suddenly realizing I could do so much more than I thought.  

Race Day looked totally different this year though.  My son Jack and I were back, however this year I brought a team of ten,  six of whom were new racers with me, and I was the team captain.  I even had the honor of having our Spartan trainer Juan run with us.  As I reminisced in my mind about my experience one year ago, I was able to size up the emotions of my newbies.  There was J, she is six feet tall, yet she spent the days leading up to the race voicing her fear getting over the eight foot wall.  There was K, with the history of gym class fails, voicing sincere doubt about completing the rope climb despite successfully doing it in our training.  There was M, a distance runner who had no confidence she could do any of the walls as she felt she lacked upper body strength.  There was L, our oldest racer who doubted she would finish and feared she would hold us back.  There was D, a power lifter who doubted her agility to navigate the course.  There was K number two, who at a very young age had a stroke and has spent recent years fighting her way back to good health, but still had fears and doubts about the race, and then there was C.  He was our youngest runner, at 16 who was not so sure about any of it, and with a foot injury was not altogether sure he could finish but wanted to try.  

As we set out in our matching shirts that stated the motto of our Team 1DOS, "If it excites you and scares the crap out of you at the same time it probably means you should do it."  In my year of racing, I must say fear is involved every single time, and I believe today was no exception for any of us.  However, little by little, obstacle by obstacle we worked together.  A mighty team of sharks that was so much stronger as a whole shiver than any single one of us would be on our own.  We would witness J conquering the eight foot wall and begin screaming and jumping up and down as she said,"I DID IT!  I DID IT!".  K would conquer the rope like she climbs every single day, M would toss over the four foot walls all by herself with a look of surprise as she handled them easily.  L would go to the ball slams and pick up a men's 25 pound ball and complete the challenge without even realizing she could use 15's.  K2 would get on the z wall and zip across like a champ.  Finally C would cross the finish line with his mom watching suddenly convinced if he can do this at 16 there were probably much harder things in life he could do.  My son Jack would nail the multirig despite there being a cleverly placed baseball instead of a ring toward the end.  Juan, our fearless trainer would patiently wait for us and guide us along with advice, motivation, making obstacle racing look easy and provided a ton of laughs.  Personally speaking, for the first time in 5 races I would land the spear throw.

There were so many great things that happened that day, on that field.  Every fear that my newbies had were my fears one year ago, and I got to be there as they pushed past them all.  Just when I thought a race could not get as emotional as the Beast in WV, watching them all win gave me an emotion of pride and joy I don't think I have ever experienced before.  However, to be fair, I did know before the race none of these six ladies really had anything to be worried about.  J is tall enough the walls are no big deal, K can climb a rope, I have seen her do it, M has upper body strength as I have trained with her and seen it, L has the stamina and ability to complete a two a day workout at Orangetheory so clearly a one hour Spartan is well within her wheelhouse, D is a fantastic runner as I have trained next to her and watched her go faster and faster,  K2 has accomplished so much in her recovery since her stroke becoming a fierce advocate for breaking through the limits of what stroke patients were thought to have while encouraging others, and C? He began his Spartan training on day one months ago with a 6 mile run and pole climbs.  So many self imposed fears and limits that are simply not reality and not visible by anyone else.

Which brings me back to the hot pink tie dye underwear that seems to appear on my yoga towel.  I began to wonder how many times we convince ourselves that everyone sees every single insecurity we have and then take those insecurities as fact? How many times do we fail to take someone telling us we are capable of things at face value and believe it?  Just like I put the lost underwear away in the cubby with no one the wiser, these ladies put their insecurities, real or imagined away to run this race with a grace and style that truly humbled me as their captain

I realize, I need to be careful about checking my towel before I leave the house, but even if I miss the freeloading underwear, it does not change my willingness to once again attempt a successful eagle pose based on who sees or doesn't see.  At the end of the day, it is just underwear, much like our insecurities are just insecurities not paralyzing monsters that take us out of the game.  Seeing six people learn that very thing reminds me once again, the best is yet to come. 

Lessons from a Foam Block

It's a funny thing about noise.  As a 47 year old mom of five, I think I have honed my selective hearing skills.  There are my school aged kids playing  a game, or running through the house.  My middle schooler knee deep in an online/cellphone game of Minecraft with his buddy, and my 21 year old with complaints about college professors or his work schedule.  My work life is no different.  In the ER, we have monitors going off, phones ringing, yelling drunks, essentially a whole other set of noise I have learned to selectively tune out.  However, there is another set of noise that is a bit more challenging.  That is the noise that exists in my own mind.  Those nagging thoughts that remind me of all of the things I need to get done on an off day like I had Sunday.  It was my only day off, day four of a seven day stretch containing six ten hour shifts otherwise.

There is the laundry, groceries, tasks related to my business, school projects that really involve me more than the two kids that had them, getting the house in order for the two days I had to work following that, not to mention trying to reintroduce myself to my children in a meaningful way after working a long stretch on the heels of being out of town.  Interwoven into all of this is the stressors of life's unanswered questions served up in the low lying nagging grief  associated with the sudden death of my mom a few months ago.  This is the noise that it is a little harder to be selective about.

Despite all of these things, I have a race in three weeks.  The Fenway Spartan Sprint.  As team captain, with a team of predominantly newbie racers, my training still needs to be consistent, and the tightness and soreness of my right hamstring told me a trip to yoga was probably the best step that day.  Besides, my 21 year old happened to be home and he was feeling a stretch today too.  I have to admit, I am not generally a yoga person.  I tend to take my stress and go balls out on the rower, or lift something heavy, which is quite a change from my younger days, when coping looked more like food.  Nonetheless, yoga, for me is the place to stretch and lengthen, the balance the soreness associated with balls out workouts.  Admittedly, I do choose to wear yoga pants with skulls on them hidden in a floral print to show I am really more badass Spartan racer, and a little less yogi.

What met us in the studio today, was the usual heat associated with the Baptiste style we go to.  There truly is something helpful about more than 90 degree heat to stretch out tight hamstrings even if it does mean saturating the microfiber towel that covers my mat. As class got started we downward dogged and reclined our warrior with the best of them and just got moving through the flow.  It was about this time the class changed. We were asked to use a yoga block.  This brown 4in x 6 in x 9 in block of  foam was to be our focus, or "drishti" in yoga speak.  Every movement we did we were not to take our eye off this block.  Forward fold, downward dog, chair pose, so many others....  I began to notice my block had a small scrape, an abrasion really.  My brain took note of the dimensions, 1cm x 3cm.  Being in medicine for as long as I have, with a large part of what I do being laceration repair,  means estimating abrasions and lacerations is as ingrained in me as breathing at this point. As I pondered this and the depth of said abrasion my body was moving. Up and down, balance, breathe, don't take your eye off the block... Over and over until it dawned on me the movement and drishti had silenced the noise that ran over my whole brain most of the day. I began to think about how many times I probably let my own concerns over life's unanswered questions stop me from truly moving through the flow of life. That nondescript brown abraded block had suddenly become the sound absorber to my otherwise chronically busy noisy brain teaching me that sometimes, turning the noise off opens up new possibilities for forward motion.  Pretty soon, the movements of Sunday's flow seemed to be coming from somewhere other than stretching a tight hamstrings.

My son and I would emerge from the studio, refreshed and ready to take on my personal challenge of crafting an epic Sunday dinner.  This is my throw down to myself on the Sundays I am off.  With my Green Egg lit, my butterfly chops marinaded and my wireless speaker going, I was deep in the throws of chopping sweet potatoes when I became suddenly aware of the lyrics coming from the speaker.  The Eagles would give me the gentle reminder to "take it easy, don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy."  Yes, guilty as charged, and advice well needed.   Tomorrow, after my balls out Orangetheory workout,  I will go to yoga, perhaps  this time a little less badass and a little more yogi.  Somehow I think that stack of brown blocks in the corner will look entirely different.

Castle on the Hill - 30 Year Reunion

There is something wholly appropriate about Ed Sheeran releasing,"Castle on the Hill" this year.  Those of us who grew up in Glen Ellyn, IL, a western suburb of Chicago have always referred to our high school Glenbard West, as the Castle on the Hill, so why not have the song released just in time for our 30 year reunion this past weekend.  The school is a beautiful place resembling a European castle somehow placed in the middle of the Chicago suburbs.  To an outsider, it may seem a bit out of place, or even odd, however, to us alumni it just looks like home.  

Thirty years.  That is not a short amount of time, at least by most standards, however, those of us this weekend might argue that point, as in a lot of ways it seems like the blink of an eye.  The reality was I was excited to see my friends, but with that excitement came the baggage of being brought up in a family of overweight adults, and me, an overweight child with a long history of bullying and failures in the physical realm. Last to be picked for teams in elementary school and first to be snickered at in gym class when there was little chance I could keep up with my peers.  Not this weekend though.  I got to go back as an emergency room nurse practitioner who works in two emergency rooms and three urgent cares.  I started a motivational health and fitness company this year after finally learning to be healthy, and that seemed to be going well. I was a badass Spartan racer who no longer attracted ridicule for my inability to climb Hernia Hill in junior high. I had run the 20 mile Spartan Beast up and down the mountains of West Virginia just one month ago.  Hell, I had successfully resusitated a guy on an airplane two years ago and I even had tattoos.  I was hardly the shy, fat girl who lacked any semblance of confidence who emerged from here in 1987.Yet there it was, leading up to the weekend, that emotional space that my brain occupied between the chip on my shoulder of who I had become and the crazy underconfidence of where I come from.  

What greeted me this weekend, however, was hardly what I expected.  Yes, I loved the time I had with my friends, many of them now my clients, but it was the people I was not friends with growing up who surprised me the most.  It would seem the clique lines really no longer existed.  Those had died with the fat underconfident girl that I used to be.  We were moms, dads, professionals, all successful in our own rights.  We had scattered all over the world.  However, this weekend we clung to a group of people who so wholeheartedly understood where we all came from in a way outsiders could not totally grasp.  We were home.  

We drank too much, unleashed the rebellious badasses we had all become at some point of our youth, but have had to tuck away for some time, and enjoyed the escape from our respective day to day adult realities. Old friendships were renewed, and new ones forged between, what we would have thought years ago to be, unlikely matches.  We grieved the loss of former classmates who had gone before us and realized just how short life is.   We found ourselves so much closer over the course of two days and completely in mourning as it all came to end.  We are all now realizing there is absolutely no way we can wait another ten years, opting now for two.  

I would spend my morning Sunday before my trip to the airport driving around Glen Ellyn.   I became acutely aware of the loss of my mom earlier this summer, and suddenly grateful to her for insisting we grow up here.  She must have seen the beauty that I see today all those years ago.  Yes, I would find myself listening to Ed Sheeran as it was only fitting, and as I trek it back to upstate New York, all I have to say is until next time Glen Ellyn, take care of the Castle on the Hill as, I can't wait to come home.

Finding a Unicorn in a Sea of Color

As of late, there seems to be some sort of crazy obsession with unicorns.  I guess I don't really understand the cult like popularity of the mythical creature. A fake horse with a big horn.  Seems a little bit out there.  Nonetheless, it has taken over everything from makeup to apparel to a rather controversial drink at Starbucks.  Nonetheless, the color palate of pink, blue, yellow and purple seems to be the thing that identifies something as "unicorny" in modern pop culture.  I was thinking about that as I passed through the welcome arch of Color Me Rad today, with their seeming representation, perhaps unintentional, of the one horned wonder horse.  There was something a bit surreal about standing in the festival area splashed with these colors on a 37 degree morning waiting for the 5k to start.  I found my thoughts going back to the last time I stood on this spot.  It was two years ago.  I was preparing for a 5k I was not totally sure I could do.  It was only my second in my life, and the first was a mere weeks before and quite different.  It had been the Insane Inflatable 5K.  That race was easy.  I could use the obstacles as rest periods and never really ran more than a quarter mile.  However, running a sustained 5k without stopping, that was something I was not altogether sure of. 

By that point, I was ten months into my weight loss journey, and only 6 months into my Orangetheory Training and I suppose by then I could wear the term "jogger" loosely.  Yes, I had lost 55 pounds by then, but my left hip hurt.  I would find out many months later it was a stress fracture from the very activity I would try to do that day.  I had not really run in weeks by then,"preparing".  I had instead chosen the bike.  With all of this worry, plus my history of gym class bullying due to my obesity and inability to keep up, I was a bit of a wreck at the start line.  However, I took off with my son, Jack.  My very patient trusty sidekick, who jogged at my slow pace and walked when the hills hurt too much to run on.  We did it.  It may not have been graceful or lightning fast but we did it.  Just about the time I was frustrated with certain aspects of the run, and a bit shaken with the battle of the hip pain, I found my guy had posted this.  When I look at this picture, I see all of the insecurities I wore at the time and recall the uncertainty of a hip that had honestly hurt for two  months by then.  However, these words would remind me I had made a promise to this guy when he left for college.  This was a promise that I would finally get healthy, and he had become invested in supporting me through it.  Time to press on.

To be honest, I had forgotten a lot of that until I was standing on that spot again today.  This time, my hip didn't hurt, I had a titanium compression screw and a well healed fracture that took care of that.  I was no longer a somewhat "jogger" at Orangetheory, I was teetering on the brink of "runner," and after doing a 20 mile Spartan in August I was pretty sure I could cover the distance. So, those aspects of today's race were covered.  Now, to conquer one more fear.  Once again, I was with runners that were faster than me.  That proved to be mentally devastating at my last 5k in June as my irrational fear of being last, leftover from tough junior high and high school days, reared its ugly head. Today,  I found myself pulling the other runners on my team aside and explaining to them, that me slowing them down was just my fear, and that the only one who cared about that was me, as they did not.  They of course, laughed at me and once again said, the pace did not matter.  We run together a lot and truly this did not need to be said. I think I was just trying to convince myself once again, simply running this 5k with my team mattered and nothing more. 

As we took off in the sea of humanity,  I found myself on a familiar course only, I was not the runner I was two years ago.  I seemed to be running without pain.  I took on the hills and pushed away the voices that love to tell me,"I can't" and did it anyway this time perhaps a bit more gracefully than the last time, as this time my running mates did not have to say,"you got this" even once.  As I chatted with my team, we joked about this being an agility course as we found ourselves weaving in and out of the walls of walkers enjoying the sunny day and the excited crowd.  We would find ourselves in color stations where the corn starch based color hung so heavy in the air, we could not see the runners a foot in front of us.  We would laugh about having to call out to one another in the middle of a cloud of purple and would have to blow the dust off the sunglasses before we could get going again.  It became obvious in the passing of two years, that although the course was familiar, my experience was all new. Fear and anxiety was replaced by laughter, and the hip pain replaced by the ability to run some hills.

Pretty soon, I would hear Jack say,"wait.  What?  We're done?"  There it was, the finish, already.  I found myself speeding up for a strong finish, with the voice of my favorite trainer playing in my head,"take it home guys.  Take it home."  Due to the crowded course it would take about 34 minutes for us.  Not super speedy, but certainly a comfortable 5k for me.  We would go on to join the after party that involved a lot of dancing, and color bombs for days.

 I began to really reflect on the last two years.  The agony of a broken leg with a long recovery, the unadulterated happiness associated with completing the 20 mile Spartan Beast and everything in between.  I began to wonder what would have happened if someone told me when I started all of this, nearly three years ago, that it would take this long and be a winding road full of hills and battles. Would I say it was just too hard? I had given up many times in the past, why wouldn't I give up then?  Three years.  Devastating injury.  Tough surgery.  Hard recovery, and the uphill battle of the 85 pound weight loss staring me in the face, ready go. Knowing that up front probably would have made me believe that it was about as possible as seeing a mythical unicorn in Saratoga today.  Yet, a total of nearly three years, a team of people not willing to let me fall, mostly my sidekick Jack, and I find myself learning a little more about myself with each passing race, and today embracing the pink, purple, yellow and blue culture with the best of them actually beginning to wonder what horned creature lived in the billows of color, proving that at times good health may seem as likely as a unicorn in Saratoga, but not impossible.

The Audubon

How do I do it?  This is a question I get asked a lot.  How do I raise five kids aged 6 to 23, one of whom has her own child, work two jobs as an emergency room nurse practitioner, train for races, run a motivational health and fitness company.....?  Well, I get asked this enough that I have several prepared answers depending on who is asking.  "One foot in front of the other" for a stranger, works well.  "Like the guy spinning plates on the sticks" for others who know my propensity for multitasking a little bit better, and "pedal to the metal" for those who know I just may have a bit of intensity with the way I go through life.


Yes, that's me, pedal to the medal.  It's like those fancy German sports cars zooming on the
Audubon at breakneck speed amidst the beautiful scenery.  Balls out bad ass intensity much of the time...or so it seems to most people.  I am not alone in this lifestyle, in fact, the fitness world has even designed workout days for people like me who don't seem to slow down.  We call these "active recovery days".  It's the "lesser" workout sandwiched in between the balls out sessions we are used to.  To be fair, these are the compromise days we take when we cannot seem to take a real rest day. 

It all sounds fantastic right?  OK lets be real.  Why can't I take a real rest day?  Why don't I slow down?  The answer is not as glamorous and sexy as a joy ride down the Audubon.  The answer is fear.  Keeping the house afloat fuels long hours.  Keeping the kids sane and on track in school when they are from different countries and have different needs fuels long outside work hours.  Running the motivational company is fueled by the fear of a missed opportunity that I may be able to help someone else navigate their way out of the prison of obesity or an unhealthy lifestyle and stay stuck the way I was.  Crazy workouts fueled by a fear that magically one rest day will bring back all 85 pounds and I will be back where I started.  So, no.  This pedal to the metal is more like a car on the test track at breakneck speed headed for the wall.

The wall.  Yes, I do hit the  wall.  Routinely I hit the wall.  Fortunately, I do not resemble the crash test dummy with the yellow and black squares.  My wall instead, looks like the sudden realization I began my day six hours before my ten hour shift even began, I am finally home post shift, standing over the washer doing laundry and I am suddenly struck by the notion that I cannot do one more thing and it is time to collapse until I can go again tomorrow. 

This brings me to yesterday.  I got up in the morning after a day that resembled the one above and I found myself at Orangetheory.  My exhaustion had been pushed away, fed by my routine fear of lost gains which kept me safely from taking  a rest day as usual.  The workout was a quick run, a quick set of reps, a quick row, another quick set of reps then repeat.  The runs increased, the rows decreased.  The bottom line was I could not get my heart rate up to get a huge calorie burn.  Maybe it was the runs and rows were too short,  or I was simply tired.  I found myself increasingly frustrated and a little bit desperate to make it work and get my obligatory 12 minutes in the orange zone, until the words of a very wise friend came to mind.  "Be present."  These two words are such a struggle for a balls out multitasker like me. In order to do that,  I had to let loose of the notion this would be my usual pedal to the metal workout, fight off the fear of losing gains and just let it unfold.   I began to work on pushing away the frustration by focusing on the glow of the orange, the sloshing of the rower, the feel of the 20 pound dumbbell in my hand,  the rhythm of my own feet on the treadmill and the music.  Side note:  my  trainer has a propensity for Kanye, so "now that don't kill me can only make me stronger..." may have helped some too...  Suddenly, I was here, no place else.  I pushed the frustration and the noises of life out of the way for an hour.  When I was done, I discovered I had only burned 323 calories, I usually get over 400, with only 2 minutes over 84% of maximum.  In reviewing the stats, I realized this must be truly what was meant by active recovery.  Shutting down the intensity to revitalize the spirit of exactly what was happening in that room in that moment.  I found I was not completely exhausted, in fact, just the opposite.  I was renewed, a lot more settled, and no longer afraid of losing my gains or really anything else.   


This caused me to think a lot about my crash test pedal to the metal ways.  Maybe the answer was not push until I hit the wall, while giving off the impression I am on the Audubon, but instead pursue some personal active recovery time.  Surely there had to be something between the test road and the wall.  Today, I have chosen a comfy set of sweats I make no apologies for, an adult beverage, because it all cant be about kale, lit several fall scented candles and selected an appropriate chick flick (yes I will cop to "You've Got Mail" because a classic never dies, and besides, who doesn't enjoy the retro sounds of dial up serving as a back drop to a classic Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks romcom?).  I have tossed the to do list aside and traded crash dummy impact with the wall for active recovery of my soul, reminding me once again life is more about balance and less about speed.

Finding the Eye of the Storm

Every time I get near a TV in the last five days there is hurricane coverage.  Pictures of Irma destroying the south and areas of the Caribbean.  Home after home, shorelines destroyed, families displaced, animals lost.  I suppose you could say I have had my own hurricane these five days.  Four family members in the hospital in five days.  Two with life altering surgeries, two with life altering diagnoses.  There would be medicines and healing, grieving and trying to grasp the enormity of all of it.  Day in and day out, I have pounded with questions and concerns and tried to answer it all, as I am the token family medical provider.  I think the harder part of this role is knowing from a professional perspective what is happening.  I know the negative side of all of these situations and when family wants answers, sharing said answers is not always easy. 

Outside of this there would be other issues with those in my life who chose now to give me a run for my money on other issues, plus the routine stressors of running a household.  This was all infused into three very long work days that ended Monday morning at almost 2:00 am, followed by a short 4 hour nap before I had to be up and running to the hospital for yesterday's familial medical issues. 

Last night, after being at the hospital all day, racing in to feed kids, do homework, baths and all of the other evening responsibilities, I found myself on the couch early.  I felt my head spinning with the events of the previous days.  I was reminded again, how nice it would be to call my own mom, who was a nurse, but the reality of her death two months ago came to the forefront again.  The TV was on, but I was not totally paying attention, until I saw, once again, the footage of the storm chaser in Florida.  He stands nearly horizontal, hand in the air desperately trying to stay upright and measure the windspeed.  I decided this is how I felt.  The winds of my own storm blowing hard directly at me as I size them up and try to decide what to do with the umpteen situations I was facing at that moment.

I began to wonder what would assault me next, and what the ramifications would be.  In the meantime, I was trying to be motivational to my own clients when really the walk from the couch to bed last night seemed like climbing a mountain.  However, I did what I always suggest to them, fake it til you make it.  I gave them happy memes and motivational words, that to be quite honest I am not sure I believed myself.  I finally gave up and just went to bed.

After a full night  of rest last night for the first time in more than a week, I got up with no more answers than I had when I went to bed.  Two remaining family members were in the hospital, one going home today.  As I was organizing my day in my head,  once again the news was on, and I saw some footage of the eye of the storm.  Here stood the newscaster on a street with downed trees and damaged buildings.  However, it was eerily quiet.  No wind whipped past the microphone.  You would never know he was in the center of the image that is shown above.  It came to me in that moment, that maybe instead of being that guy above, sizing up and fighting the storms of life that are completely  out of my control, I should instead, find the center, control what I can, and let the winds of adversity not take me out in the process. 

I decided to resurrect an old quote to share with my clients. 

This began to give my day some steam.  Today, I got to choose what kind of day I had.  I suddenly remembered it was a superhero themed day at Orangetheory.  I put on my favorite Batman tank, because why choose a female cutesy superhero in a titanium bra, when you can be a badass Dark Knight?

I would get to Orangetheory and find two members of my Spartan Team along with some of the greatest workout friends I could ask for.  We would climb hills, do balls out rows, lift heavy, bust out our dance moves to our favorite tunes, cheer one another on, and most importantly laugh a lot.  

I am not sure if it was the superhero vibe, the endorphins of conquered hills and rows or the simple realization that by choosing to be present in my own life this morning, I had found the calm of the eye of the storm.  The winds still swirl around me, as most of the circumstances of the last five days I have no control over, but now I realize I do not have to try to expend all my energy to stay upright as they pummel me.  I can choose to control what I can, and find my place safely in the eye where my own peace, much like the safe haven of the Bat Cave lives and breathes.  Now, if only I could find a dapper English Manservant named Alfred and trade my Suburban in for a kickass Batmobile.