New Things To Say

So with nothing to train for, I only went out and did one of the group's workouts last week. I'm a goal oriented guy so it's tougher to be running just for the love of the game... I can do that with sports where the goal is so obvious (make a goal, basket, etc) but with running until recently it had just been a way to cross train for sports. It's when there are races coming up or with someone next to me or a time goal that it's become a "sport." (Can you tell I'm competitive?).

I keep thinking about signing up for a new race to have something to train for and focus but in less than a month I start coaching a marathon training group and that will come with some regularity and a goal again. Last week a friend of mine who is photography producer asked if I would be part of a photoshoot for a day of the dead thing they are doing... it had nothing to do with cancer or sports, just a photo shoot. I was amused that I would be posing unrecognizable as dead after all the other media things that have occurred. (Me with serious make up on, check it out http://instagram.com/p/Y1EqqMANGo/)

During one of the media requests... they asked if I just had the same lines over and over again. If you've watched them, you know that's not true but the reason I don't is because of my memory problems I just answer things as they come. I actually prefer the edited versions where they make me sound a little more eloquent than I am. If you listen to the straight up ones, I do more saying things like "you know", "what i mean by that" etc because in simple frankness, a guy who used to win the debates in college is now trying to buy time to get his act and memories together. Close friends (and Kiana always) have pointed out those short term memory problem when I repeat myself sometimes and sometimes I think I may have done it, other times I suspect I may have and others, I don't recognize it. They aren't horrible or dysfunctional, they just aren't what they used to be. This makes me nervous of how much of my own life I'm missing. It's why I accept some limits  hoping that if I catch more of life and especially more of Kiana's that I'll miss less of it in general and remember it more. Maybe that only makes sense in my own  head. It's part of the reason why there's so many pictures in this blog... because I talk too much here but the pictures are frozen moments where we catch the hope and meaning and beauty of life (at least mine anyway). How do you describe instead of show when in the middle of playing in the playground, a perfect rainbow is over Kiana's head? During those moments, with or without cancer, I don't understand why I can see more kids watching tv within eyesight of the playground than there are kids on it. But then again, I pay to run 26.2 miles and my brain is screwed up...

But I've made a decision that for at least a couple of weeks I'm going to not sign up with some future goal in mind of a race but just enjoy the now a little more. I start coaching the marathon group I train during the summer at the end of May and there's track meets coming up again this summer which I'll sign up for and see if I can't repeat breaking that 5 minute mile. I have an ultimate tournament this month. And while I'm a creature of habit,  here in May, I'm going to do somethings I've never done. I signed up for a 5 de Mayo race last Saturday at the last second and got my fastest time ever (17:36) without a pre-designed playlist and the wrong gear on (it was also perfect weather and a pretty nice course) I played in a floorball tournament and turns out even if you're in marathon shape, lateral motion and something new can make you super sore. I am doing my first adventure race ever because the spartan race read the story and was kind enough to give me one. Last November the first month I didn't see any medical staff for cancer, I went and a tooth fix that had had a cavity for way too long. This year, I'm fixing some cavities around the house. There was a leak under the sink that a friend helped me out with and it's great now. My deck needed some work and me and some guys who know far better what I'm doing started fixing it yesterday and they pointed out I should clean my fence and until we did so, I had no clue fences and dirt were different color. It's interesting, when I start becoming open to life feeling more settled, I become more domestic. Shortly after the Duke surgery I started painting the house etc... In the first month with a break from medical apppointments, I got kitchen plates and Kiana got some new things in her room. This time I'm cleaning up the backyard and Deck some. In each of those I've had a variety of help... but my life, while long from  being settled perhaps like my cancer, is feeling more stable, more like home. So I try to let my home reflect that.

I thought the baby mama drama was about as goofy as possible until in the middle of that photo shoot Thursday I got a call that Kiana's mother's attorney was asking to be excused from the case without her client's permission before all the mediation paperwork got finalized. I honestly have no clue what's going on there but I don't think attorneys do that often. Court is set for tomorrow and of course I'm worried but how often do you see attorneys who don't want to keep representing a client? I've apologized as privately and as  publicly as I can for screwing up my marriage, mention the affair I had several years ago in here, mentioning how I totally screwed up this diagnosis originally in that Livestrong video (www.livestrong.org/iram). I was glad to see a picture that when the past calls to let it go straight to voicemail because it has nothing new to say.

There are some things that I have continued to say to certain people like I love you or the spanish version, te quiero/te amo but even now a couple of years after all this started, I don't say it nearly enough to nearly enough people. And somehow while that's not something new for any of us to say, for me it keeps being a way to renew.