Overcoming.

I decided awhile back - in fact, I cannot exactly pinpoint the moment - that I need to just stop. Just stop. A lot of my days are shrouded in anxiety and fear. A lot of what I do - or what I don't do - is steered by my anxieties. It's a really lousy way to live your life - take it from me. I have a lot of anxiety-ridden days, but I have been trying to overcome that. How? By facing my fears. Maybe not the thing that I am anxious about on that one particular day - but by facing another fear in another place in my life. 

It's been kind of exhausting but also pretty exhilarating. And some times mortifying. (I'll get to that.)

I decided that I wanted to run a 5K. A friend of mine convinced me to sign up for one in early May. I started walking months and months ago but just couldn't get the stamina up to run. Then April hit and everyone was plagued by sickness in our house and training took a back burner. Before I knew it, it was race day but I had resolved that I would just walk it. I wasn't sure how many people would be running it but I figured at least some people would be walking it. 

Yeah. I was wrong. I ended up running a third of it but walking the rest. I was dead last. It was out in the country, quite windy, raining and about 48 degrees. I ran across the finish line to the cheers of like three people and the champions soundtrack playing from the deputy's cruiser pacing behind me. I did not appreciate that by the way. Mike wasn't there because he had to stay home with the kids as my parents were out of town and I was relieved that he didn't see his wife fail so epically. As I crossed the finish line, I wheezed out a "Well I guess someone has to be last." What a total and complete failure. I resolved I would never do one again. That night I had to deal with terrible chest pains - apparently I need an inhaler - and then that week I came down with bronchitis. 

Mike told me that I was still faster than the person on the couch. I still haven't been able to shake what a terrible experience that was. I actually think about it every day because I am still embarrassed. But I guess the point is - I overcame a fear that day. In the process I might have also created a few more fears - ha! - but that's another matter altogether.

For brevity's sake, I have also:

- Lost 25 plus pounds. I knew that my thinking about food had changed when I thought a candy bar sounded good and put it on my grocery list, and I completely forgot to get one then at the store. I have another 10 I would like to lose then I am back to what I was when Mike and I got married.

- Wear shorts. Out in public. Haven't done that since 2004 - MAYBE 2005. I wore them the drug store today and out and about to my dad and mom's. Victory!

- Walked back to my old neighborhood where I grew up. My parents sold my childhood home about seven years ago, and it's in the neighborhood next door to ours - in fact I can catch a glimpse of my childhood home when the fields are plowed from my front lawn. I avoided going back to the neighborhood for about four years, then about three years ago when we were looking for houses, we frequented that neighborhood a lot and it made me CRY every single time. Huge crocodile tears and sobs! So I resolved to walk back there from my house the other day - and I did it! Walked right past the house, right past the spot where Mike kissed me for the first time - and I didn't cry! It felt good. :)

- Been around a sick person. Don't laugh guys - but seriously - I have a very big fear of vomiting. I was actually around someone who had been recently exposed to the stomach bug and I lived to tell about it. 

- And this is tongue in cheek - but I am now driving a Dodge. It's been MANY YEARS - like since 2001 - that I have driven a car that was not a Mazda or a VW or a Honda. But a Dodge Durango with captains seats and a hemi caught my eye so we traded my ailing Pilot in for it. I will always be an import girl at heart.