Confession is good for the soul

Time to come clean.

I am scared.

And not just a little.

Though in my youth, fear was a concept with which I was breathtakingly unfamiliar (as all of my siblings and several extremely gullible neighbor children can attest), I am now becoming intimately acquainted with the gut churning, throat closing, heart pounding, gasping for air sensation of being truly afraid.

One week from today I will be participating in my first 5k event.

Though I actually have a glorious past that included playing competitive sports, running track and racing the boys in my neighborhood so I could beat them and watch them cry because 'a girl won', my adult life was marred by the choices of a drunk driver and the descent into depression that followed. To a degree, I self-medicated my sorrows at what I no longer could do with another spoonful of 'comfort food', which any self-respecting addict will tell you never involves steamed vegetables or lean, carb free choices.

Now, that phrase about repenting at leisure has come home to roost and the droppings aren't pretty.

I have been in training in earnest for this event for several MONTHS now. Though I have been accused of occasional forays into the delusional waters of DENIAL, I can plainly tell that though I have made progress on all fronts (endurance, wind and speed), I am not the athlete who won that nice box of trophies in the top of my closet.

When I started this, walking from my house around the settling pond across the street and back was enough to compel a two hour nap from sheer exhaustion.

Now, though sweaty and most assuredly unpleasantly perfumed, I am up to about 3 1/2 miles without really straining. So why am I afraid? There must be a reason.

There is a time limit on the 5k.

I almost cried when I realized they weren't kidding about that.

And today, my eyes watered up just thinking that I might fail in this attempt to do something I haven't done in a long time.

This isn't about winning. This is about FINISHING.

I hate the ravages of time! Add it to the pain and frustration of seeing what was once a lean, muscled body ready to take on the world, drive the lane, race the wind, stretch a clean double into a triple be forced to sit for months in casts and endure therapy for months only to hear the orthopedic surgeon tell me that the damage done by someone else may cost me my leg's ability to make all of the above movement possible - the equation may balance, but it hasn't been in my favor. I politely told the doctor he wasn't God and went home and cried. But that sad event was over 20 years ago and what I have done to myself in the interim cannot possibly be laid at the feet of a drunk driver who is probably dead by his own choices by now.

Now I have to look in the mirror and see the old, graying woman with more than one chin and sadly, more than one belly, and try to picture that athlete that used to look back at me from that silvered glass. My son Thomas told me in his latest email from Germany that from the pictures of the family that I sent to him that there is 'less of me' now than when he last saw me. That made my heart smile.

Though I will never again be competitive in the way I once was, I'd like to believe I can become a convincing "finisher".

I can't predict wildly brilliant showings of time that sets land speed records for someone in my age category. I can't even predict the brilliance if I were in competition with toddlers! What I would like to predict is that I WILL finish. That my battered body will carry me through it all and I will survive it to try again another day.

I am already committed to this in my heart and mind and with my body.

Pride alone will make my desire strong. What I worry about is whether "pride goeth before a fall" in this case. I cannot foresee the future with any degree of accuracy or sophistication.

I did have a bizarre dream last night about riding a miniature goat during the 5k.

While I am not sure how that fits in nor what that odd rendering has to do with the trepidation I feel when I think about letting Beth down or more importantly, letting ME down, it did give me a bit of an odd feeling to think that I would be compelled somehow to press some weak and tiny animal to carry me along instead of propelling myself to an inglorious but none the less final time for the event.

Maybe others don't express it this way, but we all have felt the fear of perhaps not being able to measure up. Not being able to toe the mark or come out of the gate cleanly.

Though it isn't possible to remove the fear completely from a mortal life, I'd sure like to be able to harness it in some way that makes my feet ready, my gait steady and my ability to do this seem more a reality than a wish.

Pray for me.

The headline for the Tribune may well read "Stupid, ill-prepared, fat Southern woman collapses on roadway blocking participants in 5K".

Should that happen, I will sign your copy of the paper as soon as I find where I might have mislaid my lungs.