The GPS Dot of the Treadmill

Being an obese kid made gym class kind of a nightmare.  There were the required 1 mile runs that always ended the same way.  I would have a grandiose notion that taking off at a decent speed I could somehow magically run that 8:30 mile like everyone else, when in reality  I could barely walk a 15 minute mile. These runs always ended the same way.  A few yards in, I would sputter and wheeze and end up walking the lion's share of that mile.  I would try to run as best I could, but always had to stop and walk.  If I was really lucky, I could break that 13 min mark, but not without enduring the taunting and teasing from my classmates who had long finished their mile and were now witnessing this ridiculous show of physical prowess.  It was the 80's.  Most schools had the token fat kid, and in my school it was me. Childhood obesity was not what it is now in the digital age... but that is a topic for another time.

 So, I guess that is why when I started this journey into wellness 5.5 years ago, I chose the treadmill. I knew two things.  I could walk, and the tread could control my pace so I would not have the humiliating walk that followed me trying to run at speeds my body clearly could not handle.  It totally worked too.  I worked my way up from a slow 3.5 mile walk to jogging base paces and beyond.  Yeah, I saw those posts where people referred to it as the "dreadmill".  I suppose they were just haters because at the time I didn't get it. What I knew was I was on it and for the first time in my adult life I was succeeding.

This week I had the opportunity to do what us moms do best.  I got to sit down with my oldest son, who is now 23 and trying to find his way in an adult world.  He still seems to have one foot firmly planted in late adolescence and one tippy toe into the adult world, spinning his wheels while trying to figure out how to get his whole self propelled forward.  What he needed was what most kids need his age.  He needed to see exactly where he came from, figure out where he is, but more importantly set concrete goals to open up the road ahead to figure out just what this adult world held for him.

This led me to think about that treadmill again.  Yes, I could control my pace.  No, I didn't have the embarrassment of misjudging my own abilities and having to walk.  However, if I am being honest, all along, the OCD in me was tripped up with trying to use my fitness tracker while I was on the damn thing.  My watch never matched what the treadmill had to say, and the GPS was downright confused.  It would draw lines on a map of me covering the same 5 feet until the map simply had a dot on it.  No beginning and no end, just a dot with step distances that never actually matched what I was doing.  Yeah, I could track "progress" through my fitness tracker app, but knowing it was not altogether totally accurate was constantly frustrating.

I found myself using this as an example to explain things to my son.  Entering the adult world and figuring it all out was kinda like using a GPS on a treadmill.  You keep looking for guidance, for some indication of where you have been so you can figure out where you are going, but in reality you are spinning your wheels, wishing for something better, but are actually in the same place you have always been. 

Over time, I have come to join the haters of the dreadmill.  I came to understand, leaving the control of me to outside forces kept me spinning the same belt of complacency and never actually growing into new destinations.  I have come to prefer to run outside.  I get pretty GPS pictorials showing me where I have been and where I am headed and  I don't have the white noise of the fitness tracker versus a machine.  Do I still screw up my pacing, go too fast and have to walk?  Of course I do, although, now I do it intentionally.  How fast can I really go, and for how long?  This fall I actually pulled off an 8:30 pace for a brief time, yeah it hurt a little, but I  had the most glorious wheezy walk when it was over, because I knew in that moment, I was way more capable than I ever gave myself credit for.  Something the control of a treadmill could never give me.

I think the trick is for us to start to recognize that at times what starts out as progress,  becomes just like us trying to use a GPS on a treadmill.  When we hit that wall of belt spinning complacency with white noise fueling frustration, it is time to step off the machine, out of the fluorescent lighting, and enter the world relying more on the proverbial GPS to show us where we have been and where we are headed and go hard at our goals without the fear of looking silly.  I venture to say in that space we will begin to realize what lies ahead is so much better than the GPS dot covering the same 5 feet for miles. Only in that place will we see the best is truly yet to come. 

Turn it Up

Once there was a thankless leader blinded by a golden ring,

Now there's no more peaceful gatherings

- Hootie and the Blowfish,"Turn it Up"

So, if I am being completely transparent here, I suppose you could say I have been throwing myself a pity party of epic proportions as of late.  Last week, I took on the Dopey Challenge.  A 5k, a 10k, a half marathon and a full marathon in four days.  Forty-eight point six miles of running through the most magical place on earth.  It was my second time around with this venture, and altogether different from the first.  My team had scored much higher corrals than I did, and I would find myself  marathon morning in the last corral just ahead of the sweepers.  It was 87 degrees with 97% humidity that day.  Despite the 5:00 am start, or in my case 6:00, simply standing in the corral, I was drenched with sweat due to the humidity.  I would take off running with the other Galloway method runners for about the first two and a half hours, until the sun was up and I literally felt like I was baking right there on the road.  I would slow to a brisk walk as I could feel the blisters forming on the bottoms of my feet.  At mile 19, I uttered a sound I was pretty sure I had never made before, when the giant blister on my right foot popped.  The runners around me all asked if I was OK.  Let's go with no on that.  Later, I would lose a mile and a half at the end of the race when the number of heat related illnesses on the course caused officials to red flag the race just as I hit mile 21.  We were diverted away from one of the parks on the original course and sent directly to the finish instead.  At the time I was grateful.  Headphones dead, phone dead, feet hurt, and I was pretty sure I left part of my soul right there in the most magical place on earth.  I found myself bursting into tears right there at the finish.  

I ended the day with the bling anyway.  I tried to take credit for the mile and a half walk from my car to the start line as making up for the shortfall of actual course racing, but somehow the bling had lost a bit of its luster, when I knew I didn't totally do what I set out to do.  Add to this the gigantic blisters on the soles of my feet making even a walk to the kitchen for coffee difficult all week.  Damn that coffee was so far away these days.  Added into the mix were other equally challenging trials of life. Yes, I had the makings of an epic pity party.  Some motivational fitness leader I was.  I couldn't even walk to the bathroom.

Take me 'cross the aisle now baby, let me see how y'all get down,

Take a  hopeful sound and make it loud

Yesterday, I decided I had to do something.  It was time to fake it til I made it.  After all, I had 367 Sharks to not disappoint.  I did my best to put my proverbial fin up and dipped my toes back in the water, and try a modified workout.  A mile on the stepper with 800 feet of elevation, plus an arms and abs workout in my home gym led by a ridiculously peppy virtual Nike trainer, oh she was getting down alright.  As I progressed through the workout,  heart rate up, a little sweat, a little heavy lifting, gradually I began to hear the slightest hopeful whisper of the beyond Dopey me that is to come.  I would follow that with a much harder power day at the gym today.  As my feet are not run ready, rowing and biking it was to be.  I was slow at first, making sure I could do this today when it dawned on me.  This class ends in an hour.  Not in six hours while the sun beats down on me, while the skin on my feet wears away to the bone....  One hour.  Not 6.  I may not have run the full distance last week, but I did slog my way through 47 miles, which is not exactly a small number.  So....I turned it up.  In fact, I turned it way up.  Power rows over 300 watts,  standing up and pedaling that damn bike at over 200 watts, I turned that shaky whisper of something better into full blown vision.  

Turn it up

'Cause I've had enough

I take a lot of teams to races.  Watching people conquer their goals is a passion of mine.  This year, though, I trained for and did a race with my management team.  A team building exercise that reminds us that it is easy to lose sight of our own goals when you are busy motivating others.  In doing so we learned crushing our own goals makes us so much better for everyone else.  When I got home today, I printed out a picture of my 2020 1DOS management team challenge.  A mountain.  A BIG mountain.  It sits on my desk as I type this.  A real time daily reminder that no matter what happened in races leading into this, this right here is on the horizon.  I am slated to take on elevation I have never experienced before, and obstacles I have failed at in the past.  I have been able to renew my resolve to give my training hell to not fail this time.  It's big and scary, and as the phrase goes on my original race shirts,"if it excites you and scares the crap out of you at the same time, it probably means you should do it."

I said, turn it up

When I've had enough

I wanna feel the love

Ah c'mon, turn it up

I have spent part of the afternoon revamping my training plan, finding my mojo screaming so loud in my head that I have nearly forgotten about the pain in my feet or the missing mile and a half last week. It would seem there times in life that we feel we do not measure up, the road seems too long and hard, the blisters too big and the coffee too far away.  Perhaps the trick is to decide you have had enough of the pity party and find the whisper.  Find the quiet voice that says,"Wait a minute.  None of that matters. Pick your head up, focus on the horizon, put one foot in front of the other and realize you got this," and crank that shit up as loud as it will go.  Only there will we  move forward, find our best selves, feel the love and know for sure, the best is yet to come.

There is Power in the Banana

Today, I find myself racing around attempting to put the house in order as I prepare to be out of town.  I double stocked the essentials, milk, bread and bananas.  Ah yes, bananas.  It would seem I can never have enough of these in my house as they always go quickly.  My mom had always told me that the mushy banana makes for some amazing banana bread.  I wouldn't actually have first hand knowledge of that as they never last that long.  There seems to be an art to buying bananas.  The minimal amount of green, not quite ripe, wrap the end in saran wrap to keep it fresh longer....  it's quite a process.  As it turns out, a kid school project I did, well the politically correct phrase is "helped with," taught me bananas are actually a berry, really?  What about that thing resembles a berry? They range in sweetness from the starchy plantain to regular dessert bananas and emit small amounts of radioactivity due to their potassium content.

In just a few days, my team and I will once again take on The Dopey Challenge.  It is running a 5k, a 10k, a half marathon and a full marathon in four days.  It is a fairly tall order.  For some of us it is the second time around, and for others, the first.  I have found my mind reviewing the races of last year, there was the 35 degree chilly start to the 5k, the beautiful sunrise over Epcot with a friend during the 10k, my first half running with my son, and ultimately the enduring of  that special area of hell last year during the full marathon known as mile 17.  This is the exact spot I entered ESPN Wide World of Sports for what seemed to be three of the longest miles in my running career.  Back and forth, weaving in and around all the various sports fields in 87 degree heat, but never seeming to get anywhere.  It felt never ending, and every time I would check my mileage on my watch it didn't seem to move.  It was like being trapped in a vortex of exhaustion with no end in site.

Then it happened.  Mile 19.  The single greatest thing that my team would talk about for the entire year.  The banana.  The magical banana.  At mile 19 there was a guy in a banana suit handing out bananas.  They were cold, the peel had been started and we suspect they were laced with something,  because it was the single greatest tasting banana of my entire life, any of our lives really.  I have never tasted anything like that before or since.  That banana, plus the encouragement of an amazing teammate got me exactly where I needed to be, the finish.  The glorious time of happiness and celebration with people who matter a whole lot to me. 

A couple of weeks ago, I boldly challenged the universe to hit me with it's best shot.  I was operating on the assumption that incredible growth comes out of adversity.  That adversity was really more of an opportunity.  I should have known that the universe is always up for a challenge, and in the last few days our family has lost a close member for no good reason and other extremely difficult crises have cropped up.  All these things showed me maybe testing the universe for a lesson in adversity was not the greatest idea I ever had, as the last few days have had me working my way through a seemingly endless exhausting maze wondering when it was going to end. 

As I took some time to catch my breath today, I realized that I really did have a collection of proverbial banana guys along the way.  They came in various shapes and sizes with different levels of sweetness like the flowers from a coworker, a ride home for the kids while I was at work, the silent taking over of the daily chores of my business for a bit by my partner, or the positive radiating simple texts from distant friends and family sent to light up my day.  Maybe I haven't quite seen the glory of coming out the other side of things just yet, but focusing on the banana men along the way has certainly made the struggle a little bit more tolerable. 

So, going forward, maybe the trick is to try to not get lost in the vortex of the adversity. Instead realize things may not always be as they seem, after all a banana is a berry.  That through the adversity  resuscitation of spirit can happen even in the absence of the grand gestures.  If we look hard enough we see it is the little tiny offerings of others that collectively have the power to push us forward right into the aftermath party where we can celebrate with our own banana tribe.  Because I am sure in THAT celebration it will be a whole lot easier to see that the best is yet to come.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Put up your dukes,

Lets get down to it,

Why don't you hit me with your best shot,

fire away

                        -Pat Benetar

Ah the stylings of 80's rock princess Pat Benetar.  One of the greater things about satellite radio is always being able to find big haired rock at the drop of a hat.  So, The 80's on 8 is what I chose the other morning for my 6:00 am hour and a half commute leading into my twelve hour shift.  This particular song brought back memories of the eight years I spent training and teaching tae kwon do in my 30's.  Six of those years were spent climbing through the ranks of black belt winding up at 3rd degree when we moved to another state.

You don't fight fair,

But that's ok, see if I care,

Knock me down, it's all in vain,

I'll get back on my feet again

As an instructor you learn there are two types of fighters.  The lower ranking colored belt fighters that aimed to hit with as much force as they could possibly muster.  They would take illegal shots, and pretty much do anything to take their opponent down.  Then there were the higher black belt ranks who sparred with control.  They were fast.  They had learned to look for openings and place the kicks and punches strategically to take out the other guy with a low expenditure of energy relatively speaking.  Make no mistake about it, these people could hit just as hard.  In fact, they often did when the lower ranks were swinging hard just to teach them to respect a higher rank.  However, most of the time they really didn't need to.  A match between these two?  Hilarious to watch.  The hard hitters were swinging so hard they were out of gas immediately and by the end of the round would find themselves out of breath exhausted, with their head gear spun around due to a round kick tap to the temple, and wonder what exactly happened, while their skilled opponent wore only a smile.

In all honesty, it's been a tough few weeks.  Two people in my life were diagnosed with serious illnesses that came directly out of nowhere.  Added to this was a variety of stress related to the holidays and taking on a new role at work.  All of these things began to feel  like a full on assault from this thing called life.  My gut reaction was to swing back and swing hard.  I could handle the illness.  I was a medical provider.  I could solve it with medical facts and provider speak.  Holiday stress?  I could sleep less and get more done.  Same goes for work, 100 miles an hour until I ended up just like the tired guy with my headgear on sideways wondering where it was I lost control.  It was time to regroup.

Last weekend, my Team 1DOS cofounder Karl and I took the time out to visit our sick friend, who happened to be one of our very first motivational clients.  I was prepared to deliver spot on hard hitting sympathetic rhetoric.  After all I had provided said rhetoric to thousands of patients over the years.  I was all set to put on my motivator hat and go all Mama Shark on him and convince him it was his job to fight, convince him he could kick cancer's ass.  I was armed and ready.  However, what met me was not what I expected.  It was not a sickly guy deep in depression over the situation.  It was instead, a friend proudly claiming his denial of the situation and embracing the best life had to offer, fighting back with the finesse of a high ranking black belt. Clearly my hard hitting rhetoric and motivation were not required.  What was required instead was a few laughs, relaxation and taking said friend to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

This experience has taught me that life is the type of high ranking fighter that can, at times, make perfect contact with a hit so hard that we never saw it coming.  It's times like these we need to respect the rank, stop wasting energy, end the round, regroup and go back in, only this time focusing on the openings and reserve our energy for the long haul, just like my sick friend has. 

Hit me with your best shot,

Come on hit me with your best shot,

Hit me with your best shot,

Fire away

In the end, with consistent training, and rising to the challenge of facing better fighters, all lower ranks will develop the same finesse that took them down to start with.  I suppose life is like that.  If we avoid the hard hitting struggles of life, we will miss the opportunity to develop the finesse to enjoy the best life has to offer which is truly a loss.  So, Life?  Hit me with your best shot, as I know in my heart of hearts I will move forward through the experience and see the best is yet to come.

Learning to be the Kangaroo

When I was a young teenager, one of my best friends and I would decide at various times we were going to take up running.  We would suit up in our bad 80's track suits and in my case, lace up a pair of Kangaroos.  The coveted 80's shoe that had a zipper pocket on the side.  It seemed odd to have a running shoe based on an animal that didn't run, but presumably they were named for the pocket much like a kangaroo pouch.  Why did we need a zipper pocket that was not big enough to hold anything other than a quarter or two anyway? I suppose in the pre-cell phone era we needed that to avoid the collect call from the pay phone that pissed parents off across the land.  Nonetheless, I had some bad ass Kangaroos.  We would set out from my elementary school and run/walk a mile and feel accomplished, and fashionable. This would go on for a time, then the weather would change or we would get busy with other things and stop for whatever reason.

When I think about these humble beginnings that would lead into decades of false starts and yo-yo dieting, it would be difficult for the obese 14 year old me to really see any level of fitness for the 50 year old 2019 me.  Yet here I am.  This week I hit a milestone.  I have begun consistently doing dead lift sets of 100 pounds and doing it well.  One.  Hundred.  Pounds.  That seemed like such a big number, so I decided I would look to see what else weighs 100 pounds.  It turns out half a kangaroo.  That's what weighs 100 pounds.  God, they were weird looking.  Gigantic feet, big belly, huge tail and had no ability to walk or run.  Again.  Why is it we needed a shoe named after these odd non-running creatures?

A little more Googling would tell me, as it turns out, nothing is as it seems with the kangaroo.  They have no ability to go backwards at all.  Their gigantic tail prevented that, and served as their balance.  Kangaroos can only launch themselves forward by powerful giant leaps, not looking back, hurling themselves confidently toward their destination at speeds over 40 miles an hour. That is why as a spirit animal, they represent the gift of speed and stamina gifted to a person as long as they are willing to move forward and not stop or look back. 

When my trainer challenged me to start getting strong this year, I took on the challenge with no real certainty where it would take me.  I learned along the way that heavy lifting changes your body.  Suddenly the 2's no longer fit because the thighs are too big and my lifelong obesity related body image issues would rear their ugly head one more time.  Nonetheless, I pushed on because as a fellow heavy lifter and friend told me recently,"something happens when I am with the weights."  I have come to learn she is right about that.  Life throws some pretty heavy bricks at times, for which I have no control, but somehow controlling the 50 pound dumbbell makes it easier to do the day to day heavy lifting required by this thing called life. 

So, maybe the Kangaroo shoe people had it right after all.  Maybe we should be a little more like the powerful kangaroo, pick a direction, run at it full force and never look back, having full faith that the balance, strength and stamina exist in us.  Only in that space will we see what we are truly capable of.  For me?  In a few weeks that same childhood friend will meet me in Florida for four days of running.  We will leave our track suits in the 80's and trade the Kangaroos for some modern high tech Brooks and take on 48 miles in four days, a far cry from the mile loop near my elementary school in the suburbs of Chicago. 

Otherwise, I am beginning to quiet the insecurities of my body image issues and appreciate the body heavy lifting is giving me. As it turns out all this lifting, and an affinity for the Matrix stepper, has my ass well on it's way to Kardashian status, which I have decided trumps any number on the scale or a clothing tag.  So, I will keep working my way down on the big girl weight rack with the goal of one day lifting a full kangaroo rather than a half.  I have a feeling that reaching full kangaroo status will teach me that an unwavering 40 mph charge at life will show me that the best is truly yet to come.

Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Out Of

I'm not afraid

Of anything in this world

There's nothing you can throw at me 

That I haven't already heard

                                                                              -  U2 "Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Out of"

Well, as of a few months ago, it became official.  My oldest son is an adult.  He landed a full time job at News 10, our local ABC affiliate, writing the news.  This made this nervous mama thrilled, as ever since the day he announced he was changing his major to English, with no desire to go into teaching, I had serious concerns over what he would do with said degree.  Then he discovered journalism.  His love of writing has landed him an amazing first job.  As part of his job, he often has to man the tip line at the station, and I love having deep conversation with him about what people call the news for.  My emergency medicine background means he is rarely able to surprise me with what people put out there.  That is, until this week.  He told me about a dog who was found by a UPS driver chained outside.  She had a large tumor on her left shoulder and had literally chewed her own front paw off.  Doctors had found bones in her belly proving this was the case.  They had felt she did this to escape the pain of the tumor they were certain was cancerous.

I'm just trying to find

A decent melody

A song that I can sing

In my own company

Cancer.  That right there is such an ugly word.  One of my best friends was handed this ugly diagnosis in the last couple of weeks.  Those of us in his circle are trying to make sense of it all and be "OK" with it.  The fact is, it has pushed all of us to consider our place in this life and how things can absolutely turn on a dime.  

I never thought you were a fool

But darling look at you

You gotta stand up straight

Carry your own weight

These tears are going nowhere baby

For me personally, it came down to owning my own shit.  I had to rat myself out that my training was lack luster.  Five years into my fitness journey, exercise had become a box that I checked off.  It honestly was more routine than challenge.   I was doing enough to be equipped to race, sure, but I looked at my race times as well as previous recorded challenges at my gym and realized I had not gotten any faster.  I was lifting heavier for sure, but weights are something I like. I had stalled out in the things that were harder for me, like running.  I had lost the focus of it all and just checked the box.  I took more rest days than I cared to admit with a million reasons why.....  I work 12 hour shifts, I'm on the road and the equipment sucks, I am not a morning person, so early workouts suck,  working out only at home is fine.  It's still 3-4 days a week.  Yeah, no.  This was all an ever snowballing pile of bullshit and I knew it.  My drive of the early days had faded, and the excuses as much a part of me as one of my legs.

In was unconscious , half asleep

The water is warm 'til you discover how deep

You've got to get yourself together

You've got stuck in a moment

And you can't get out of it

I was stuck.  Just like the chained up dog with the ever snowballing tumor.  Wading in the comfort of the warm water, not recognizing I was drowning.  With my 50th birthday approaching, and my friend diagnosed with cancer it was time.  I ratted myself out to my accountability partner and recommitted to what I started out to do, to become the best version of myself.  We are now 24 days into the month, ten days past my 50th, and I have worked out 22 times.  Many of those times I went from a one hour OrangeTheory class to the regular gym to wean up using the stepper, as I have a mountain race on the horizon.  I have shown up for myself and pushed the limits of what I can do.  I learned some important things along the way.  I learned  I really can get up at 5:30 and go to the gym and still work a 12 hour day without something awful happening.  It just takes a round of coffee and angry music to get there in the morning and relinquishing my night owl ways.  I learned I can run faster, I just have to run faster, and today? Today, I fearfully allowed my accountability partner to dictate my work out.  That way I was sure to be out of my comfort zone.  So, 45 mins on the stepper after a full hour at OrangeTheory it was.  It sucked but when I got it done, I felt like I could do anything.  A feeling that has faded a bit in recent months.  As it turns out, the simple act of showing up for myself has brought my mojo back.

It's just a moment

This time will pass

I have a hard time not being a little uptight about lost time, but the reality is our own complacency sets in slowly like that slow growing tumor on the now famous German shepherd until one day you find your ever expanding excuse laden comfort zone is not a truly useful appendage, but a big ugly tumor that clearly needs to go.  Maybe the trick is to recognize when we are stuck in the moment and ruthlessly cut off those things that cause us pain and stunt our progress, be it toxic people, bullshit excuses or other perceived obstacles.  Only then will we truly find a new direction.  I saw the dog on the news again today.  She has had the tumor removed, which ended up being benign, and proudly prances around on three legs with a whole new spirit, not seeming to miss her fourth leg at all.  She is off to her forever home where I have no doubt, like me, she will see the best is yet to come.

https://www.news10.com/news/ny-news/vet-dog-likely-chewed-off-leg-to-escape-chain-owner-arrested/

Big Wheels Keep Turning

You know, every now and then

I think you might like to hear something from us

Nice and easy but there's just one thing

You see, we never ever do nothing nice and easy

-Tina Turner

Last night I found myself sitting around a table with 12 members of my Team 1DOS Sharks Fenway Spartan Sprint team.  Ah... Fenway.  Such an iconic race for me.  It was my first four years ago, fresh off an 85 pound weight loss, with no race experience whatsoever.  It would be the scene of my first, not last, ugly finish line cry.  Since that time, I have taken teams to 12 other Spartan Races and now I had once again brought a team of 5 newbies, and six more seasoned racers to Fenway. At the post race dinner, we would sit around, medals clanging, sharing adult beverages and excitedly trading war stories from the course.  The newbies had a level of excitement I have come to expect at these things.  One newbie, after conquering her absolute fear of heights  (yes, she may in fact be my sister by another mother) was heard to say,"What a feeling!  I can't wait to do it again!" Another newbie, was more quietly telling me it was going to take her some time to process what she achieved, as she has come so far in recent years.  She was simply overcome.  This is a quiet sentiment I have come to love as well.  All of this was all made more special to me by the serving of a butterscotch bread pudding, complete with candle as I was reminded that this is the week I turn 50.  It seems like such a big number, and me being me, had to take the time to see what else was turning 50.  As it turns out, not only is my mother's iconic song,"Sweet Caroline" 50, so is "Proud Mary".  To be all technical about it, really it's the CCR version that is 50, but Tina is more my jam.  When I stop to think about the fifth decade of my life, there were so many things that yes were nice, but certainly not all that easy.

Left a good job in the city

Working for the man every night and day

And I never lost one minute of sleeping

Worrying 'bout the way that things might have been

At forty, I found myself leaving the comfort of my ten year career as a nurse practitioner in neurosurgery.  For eight years, I had my trusted mentor.  We worked very well together.  We had a system and hit our groove with brain tumors and spine surgery every day.  It was comfortable, and it worked.  However, as I hit 40, we had moved to another state, the trauma group I joined had a brutal call schedule, put me in the OR assisting with traumatic brain surgeries in the wee hours, and a work life that no longer fell in line with home life.  I suddenly had to worry about a whole career move, and the switch to the ER proved to be a steep learning curve.

Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis

I pumped a lot of tane down in New Orleans

But I never saw the good side of the city

Until I hitched a ride on the riverboat queen

As I hit 45, we moved again, only by this time, I was comfortable in my emergency provider role, but would have the sudden realization I had placed myself in a box.  Years of trauma parenting had taken a toll, I was obese, as until that point, food had been my lifelong coping mechanism.  In a defining moment, I would suddenly realize what role my obesity played for all of those around me, and my part in keeping that role alive.  It was fear of relationships changing, and learning to become the one thing I said I wanted to be, but in reality was terrified to become, thin.  Nonetheless, it was time to fight the fear and get to work.  The work was hard and the progress was certainly not a straight line to the top.  I had a hip fracture that derailed my training for a bit, and two years ago suddenly lost my mom.  Yet, despite it all, I held on for the ride that has now taken me within days of turning 50.  Holding on for that not exactly smooth trek over the last five years has given me things I never thought I could have. I am fit and healthy, an avid racer with 14 Spartans, 4 half marathons and one full marathon behind me, telling me that I am way more capable than I ever gave myself credit for.  Yes, my relationships changed, but gaining of 366 motivational clients and a foundation to help others achieve their own best versions of themselves has been fulfilling in ways I cannot even describe.

If you come down to the river

I bet you gonna find some people who live

And you don't have to worry if you got no money

People on the river are happy to give

As I looked around the table last night, it occurred to me that every single person at that table came from a different place, now digging into their own hard work and grabbing hold of their own riverboat queens.  Each of them have had their own demons that kept them in their proverbial job in the city for decades never dreaming that they could be in this place.  There were several, like me, that suffered lifelong obesity, another who had been caught in the opioid spiral for years better known as "pain management", now free and scaling walls instead. There were still others at that table, I would venture to say, fight battles we know nothing about, yet freely share their success, encouragement and experience as a way to pay it forward to the next person stuck in their own box.

Big wheel keep on turning

Proud Mary keep on burning

And we're rolling and we're rolling

And we're rolling on the river

Tell me one more time

Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river

One thing is for sure, not a single person at that table got there by staying in their previously determined comfort zone.  They got there by busting out of their own box, fighting the fear of the unknown, putting in some hard work and grabbing hold of this thing we call life and absolutely giving it hell.  As the rousing chorus of,"Happy Birthday" rounded out it was time for me to blow out the candle.  Yes.  I made a wish.  I wished that big wheel better known as the next 5 years,  will continue to turn the way it has in the last and Proud Mary will keep me rolling right on down the beautiful river as right now the view is fantastic.  If the last five years is any indication of the next, I know that the best is yet to come.