Go Again

Kiana and I took and with help from some of her friends and some of my adult friends we made a puzzle a day for 8 days. It was only just a way to avoid the heat since we’re mostly outdoor people but in Texas heat even the playground can be too hot to touch. We made some rules about not playing games on the ipad or etc until we got it done each day. The puzzles were progressively harder from 150 pieces to 500 and I’m pretty certain we aren’t going to become puzzle people but I was proud that we got it done. And most of them depicted Disney characters outside so as soon as we finished the last one that’s where we went, outside.

And then the next day she left to be with her mom for a little over a week to visit and I went for my first trip that was just for fun in almost 3 years. Now I’ve had some fun trips, always doing something fun near Duke when I go out there and doing the Boston marathon or weddings. But there was nothing related to a long weekend in New York other than just go the the city that never sleeps. Walking miles each day (I was originally excited about public transportation due to the driving restriction but ended spending only about $15 on subways since the friend whose foldout couch was where we crashed on lived pretty central). As with all of life, my favorite part was time with friends who were from ultimate, running, Spartan race, making new ones. But there was also something special about going through a city with that much history, catching a gigantic park, watching street performers who were incredibly talented. There were museums and statues, which I like to match and a girl with some serious curves hung on my arms and made me reconsider the George Clooney lifestyle…

I’ve been trying for months to refinance my house (mostly for financial reasons and also to get it to where it’s not a tie back to the person I bought it with) and it got finalized yesterday with a 3.25 interest rate apparently among the lowest it’s been in 30 years… between that and the medical appointments getting further apart and the legal ones almost done (there’s still one more where Kiana’s mother’s boyfriend is suing me (http://pickingupahitchhiker.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-mild-wild-west.html). Let’s just say all of this is making it easier to breathe… There’s some catching up to do but last year in March I woke up in an ambulance and had to do all kinds of tests again, in April I had my slowest marathon, in May I got fired, and last summer Kiana’s mother asked that the custody situation change to where I only have supervised visits. This year in March I won a marathon, in April things went well at Duke and I got my fastest 5k ever, in May the custody situation got signed by a judge, and this summer my house refinancing got approved and like I said while there’s still some catching up to do… I am starting to feel further ahead. I had said that I was putting a lot of my life on hold until this custody issue is settled and I have. What I’ll do once school starts again and see how Obamacare plays out in Texas… is yet to be determined but I am daring to dream some realities I didn’t even dream of may be something to start pondering…

I am no naïve idealist and usually more hopeless than romantic… when you set ambitious and perhaps unrealistic goals, there will be heartbreaks and disappointment and may not get them all but if you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time. So I am still trying to do new things or to quote a song that will be near the beginning of one of the upcoming races that I have no clue what the terrain looks like is is here I go again:

I don’t know where I’m going
But I sure know where I’ve been
Hanging on the promises
In Songs of Yesterday
And I’ve made up my mind
I ain’t wasting no more time
But here I go again

Last night I did my first symmetrical track workout with 8 400 and 4 800’s in the heat…  still training train simultaneously for the Pocatello marathon and the Brainpower 5k… Still realizing that my brain may not be all it used to be but if I can contribute by putting one foot in front of the other than I will (If you want to donate, be my hero at http://brainpower5k.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=1058997&lis=1&kntae1058997=2D46738E10494C57A5DCE5B66063815C&supId=356919075) and/or if you live in Austin come out to the opening party tomorrow night (https://www.facebook.com/events/179980068835077/)...

In the end the puzzles ended up going back in the box for another day or other people. And I suppose no matter if we cure brain cancer, there will be something else ridiculous and random that kills humans but ugliness of things like cancer that goes only destroying it’s path is things like the beauty of the human spirit that goes trying to both go at life and while going to give back. There was an odd moment when someone in central park recognized me from an article mostly because of my lion lion cub tattoo... They thought it was great that I do things like the ones above or the Gusher marathon but hanging out with my kid, trying to pay my bills, exercising, trying to raise money for what's killing me, well those are things most humans have tried to do... mine are just more gray because they're in the gray areas of my brain (yes I know that's a lame joke). But these are just basic human things to love and be loved, to take care of necessities and try to enjoy some things day to day. The artists in those museums and advertisements (there were pieces in the modern art museum that I think Kiana could compete with), the athletes at the front and back of these races well they are just at war with the obvious as one of my favorite photography exhibits ever explained. I hope to never be someone who doesn't try feed some of that affection, artist, athlete in them and only enjoy it as a spectator... to me that's when I'll have lost the obvious war against cancer for life.

I go pick up Kiana Friday and we’ll have some fun times this weekend and try to not waste any time. But when my time comes to go… I want to know that whether it was sometimes going home, sometimes going to new places or paces but that I went going.