Learning from the Desperation for the Sixty-four Pack

When I was a kid, there was no such thing as the internet or really even a computer.  That would come later when I was in junior high and we got the latest Commodore Vic 20 with a cassette drive and green screen.  Nope, when I was a young school age kid we relied on things like smelly markers and fancy papers or Rockem Sockem Robots for our entertainment.  Possibly the biggest thing I remember about those days was being six and the months leading into Christmas that year.  All I wanted was a Crayola 64 Pack with a built in sharpener.  Oh yes.  I would not only have colors like burnt sienna or cerulean, but my crayons would never be dull again.  I would be capable of magical art work that would live on forever.  I spent weeks dropping the phrase "A Crayola 64 Pack with a built in sharpener" into absolutely every conversation.  I was so desperate for those life changing crayons that I was not going to miss an opportunity to get them. 

Well, as it turned out, Christmas came and went and I did not get them.  I couldn't tell you what I actually got, but I will say this,  I have yet, despite being 48, to live down that period of time.  To this day my siblings still bring up from time to time that I "harbor resentment over the 64 pack"  following this statement by one of my siblings is a pause as their eyes meet and all in unison say,"with the built in sharpener"  followed by gales of laughter. Yes, my crayon desperation has failed to die despite the 42 years that have passed.

Earlier this week, I spent some time talking to a motivational client.  She had her own desperation to see a particular number on the scale, however medical issues are preventing easy weight loss right now.  I began to recall my multi decade desperation for the same thing.  In life, I wanted two things from early on.  I wanted to be thin and I wanted to be a runner.  I had an idealistic number on the scale I wanted to be.  I was desperate to be there.  I did commercial diet after commercial diet.  It all ended the same way.  I would hit a plateau, chuck the process because clearly in  my mind it was not working, and then resign myself to failure.  When no diet could get me there, I decided to give pills a try. I had reached my lifetime maximum of 296 and was beyond desperate.   I had just moved to Dayton and found a weight loss physician in the yellow pages.  I would go to his office, but often he was not there.  A secretary would have me sign a book and hand me some shakes and a bottle of pills and off I would go.  That process did start to work but the doctor showed up less and less and on my last visit as I finally just left without seeing him, the secretary would call my cell to tell me he would meet me in the parking lot in just ten minutes if I could wait.  He pulled up in a rusted out van and handed me amphetamines from his front seat.  This was a brand new low in dieting desperation for even me.  Yes, he was a physician.  Yes, he was licensed to prescribe these, but there was probably a reason he had a supply of diet pills and was comfortable treating patients from a rusted out van.  It resembled a popular SNL skit featuring Chris Farley at the time. A couple years later, this same person would end up prosecuted for questionable prescribing practices and lose his license to practice medicine. Nonetheless,  my desperation never really ended, and ultimately would lead me to the business end of a scalpel.  I was still chasing the number I had in my head since I was a teenager, only now I was 35.  That too would work for a time, and yes I would see the magical number, for a short period of time.

In my quest to be a runner, I would watch my classmates run their six minute miles blowing past my coughing and wheezing obese self.  I wanted it to be easy like it seemed to be for them.   I can recall awakening the morning I was to run the Cooper, that fateful day in junior high.  In our school, that was a fancy name for running a mile and a half on a specific trail around the school.  We did this dreaded task about twice a year.  It proved to be misery for an obese child like me. I was last, sweaty and pretty sure I would never breathe again.  That did not stop me from waking up that morning and just convincing myself that day it would be different.  That day it would easy for me.  I would go and run and ignore the discomfort.  It never ended that way.  I would be a sweaty mess wheezing for the following two days with sore legs and not try again until the next time.

How many times do we take desperation for a number or physcial achievement and do crazy things to get what we want, or ignore the work we actually need to do and try to find a shortcut, just because we have convinced ourselves that if we had that one thing, life would be entirely different. The reality is, our well being does not come from a color like cerulean, a magical fix from a guy in a rusted out van or the shear will to overcome work that has not been done.  As I explained to my client, yes, I finally did reach that number on the scale, but what I learned along the way is it is not that magical number that gives us what it is we are so desperate for.  Our true well being will come more from the process.  I challenged her to put clean things in her body, exercise within the confines of her health issues, and most importantly put the number on the scale away and get a manicure, as those things will feed her soul and provide more satisfaction than any number.  In fact, doing what is best for ourselves amidst frustrating limitations, is likely way more rewarding than any number.

As for me, and my desperation to be a runner....    I have spent three years, with time off for a hip fracture, slowly working.  I began as a walker at 3.6 miles an hour.  Little by little, a day at a time, slowly building.  I had my eye on the chart at Orangetheory.  To be considered officially a runner you had to run at 5.5 mph as a base pace, meaning no slower through the interval blocks.  I had so many fails.   My desperation to be a runner as soon as possible after my hip fracture two years ago, would push me to go too fast, deciding a given day was the day. I was going to do it.  Nope.  I had to walk.  Months of giving in to desperation to be a runner got me not getting anywhere and making no progress to be faster.  I finally broke down and asked my trainer, how was I ever going to get faster.  The answer was tough.  Slow it down.  Build from there.  I had to take the humbling step to see I was not really where I thought I was.  I really wasn't close to being the actual runner just because I could do the 5.5 for short periods of time.  The reality was, I had to slow my base pace to a 5.1 to be able to maintain it and build.  I had to slow it all down and be patient. Once again, they were right.  Put desperation away and start at the bottom.  Today, two months after that advice,  I made it 5.5mph, officially a runner 48 years in the  making.  Learning once again desperation breeds failure, slow positive motion breeds success.   

Did I ever get that 64 pack?  I did.  In 1999, two things happened.  I turned 30 and was working as a nurse finishing my master's degree.  I would take my hard earned money to purchase the 50th Anniversary Edition of the 64 pack.  It came in fancy Christmas tin with an ornament that also was a crayon sharpener, that still hangs on my tree each year.  Somehow the cerulean in that pack was just a little bit brighter than my six year old mind had pictured, and the container would hold a place of prominence in my home for years to come.  Watching my 5 and 3 year old at the time, who had been adopted from Russia almost three years earlier,  after years of infertility, color with those very crayons brought a whole different dimension of satisfaction that would never have been appreciated had I received the crayons at the age of six.  It just goes to show that the things we think we are most immediately desperate for can often turn into something totally different and way more amazing than we ever dreamed.  The best is truly yet to come.