Going at the Speed of LIfe

Sometime last week, I got a text from my best friend.  She was taking down her Christmas decorations and realized that, with her son graduating this year and joining the military, this may be his last Christmas at home - at least for a while.  With this realization came many tears.  My son is 3 years younger than hers, so this is a situation I have never experienced.  But, being the good friend that I am (or try to be at least) I gave her the best advice I could come up with:

This is what you have been preparing for the past 18 years, although you probably never thought about it that way.  It's time to let your baby bird leave the nest, and see how well he can fly.  It will be a hard adjustment, probably weird at times, but you all WILL adjust.  And next thing you know, you'll be a proud military mama.

I really don't know how "wise" my advice was, but I hope it helped.   I also told her that she'll have to give my "wise" words back to me in 3 years when it's MY son's turn to graduate.  She'll have 3 years of experience by then, so maybe her advice will be better.  I also suggested, with a laugh, that she may be a grandma by then.  After all, he'll be 21 in three years, and both she and I  had our first child by our 21st birthdays.  I may have been joking around, but this thought brought my feet quite firmly back to the ground.  Yikes.  Are we really old enough for grandchildren to be an issue?  I certainly don't FEEL old enough. But, both of our sons are teenagers, so yes, yes we are.

Have you ever been on a long-distance drive, and suddenly realized that you don't remember the last 20 miles or so?  You think "How did i get here?" That's how I feel about life.  It's not that I don't remember the last 20 years, I just don't know how they got past me so fast.

Jogging Cancelled Due to Dust

Sounds like a ridiculous newspaper headline.  How can dust cancel a jog?  What do the two have to do with each other??  Well, I have asthma, and I am allergic to dust.  So for me, they have a lot to do with each other.  Yesterday, as part of the "winter cleaning list" at work, I crawled under 6 registers and wiped and washed away a year's worth of dust.  Knowing I am allergic, I made a point of breathing through my nose while I cleaned, in order to filter out as much of the dust as possible.  I thought I did pretty well, since I only acquired a small, occasional cough after I was done.  No runny nose, no watery, itchy eyes.  Then, this morning, I woke with a fierce cough.  It was deep, like I was trying to cough up one of my toes.  And it was constant.  My allergic reaction had triggered my asthma, and I knew, if I didn't do something quickly, that I would cough myself into bronchitis, as I have in the past.  So, I did a couple puffs on my inhaler, and found something to drink - to ease the tickle in my throat.  15 minutes later, I felt great.  So I thought about going for my scheduled jog.  I almost didn't.  I almost used the easy, right-at-hand excuse of already having lung issues today.  I actually sat in my car, in the parking lot of the track, and argued with myself.
"I don;t know if I should do this"
"Yes you should, you know you want to."
"But my lungs are already messed up"
"That's what your inhaler is for"
"I think I should just take the day off and recover"
"Typical.  So typical of you to make an excuse - ANY excuse, and sabotage yourself."
"but, but, but....."
"Excuses are how you got to where you are.  Do you want to STAY where you are?!"
"no...."
"Then get OUT of this car and GO JOG!"
"ok"

So the good news is, I got my lazy butt out of the car, and onto the track.  I have been following the Couch-to-5K program.  If I followed through the first time I started, I would have graduated from the program about a year ago.  But I keep quitting, or falling behind, and starting over.  I am currently on week 5, and today was day 3.  One solid 20 minute jog.  Well, I had already completed week 5 back in October? November? And I had already done this 20 minute jog.  Then I started a second job and (excuse warning!) had an adjustment period of "oh my god when am I going to have time to jog now?! (not to mention do anything else)"

Anyway, today was the 20 minute jog.  As I was slowly trotting around the track, I kept repeating in my head "You know you can do it, because you've done it before" and my favorite:

Now for the bad news.  About half way through, I started wheezing, and the deep, deep coughing came back with a vengeance.  I stopped jogging and walked for a lap, but it didn't subside.  So I quit.  I didn't want to be that person.  The one who faints on the track because they were so stubborn they kept pushing through all the warnings their body game them.  I was frustrated, though, because I didn't want to be the quitter either. But I knew I needed another dose of my inhaler.  So here I sit trying to figure out if I read the signals and responded appropriately, or if it was just another convenient excuse for me to quit.

On a side note, I will not be hanging out with dust bunnies again anytime in the future.