KALB 5k

51:54.

6:39 less time than the Pioneer Day 5k.

And the reason for the faster time?

How many of you have ever had a personal cheerleader?

I'm not talking about having someone in your family who cheers on the team for the win.

I'm talking about a personal cheerleader who is a combination of a perky cheerleader with a sunny disposition and a pitbull (I truly mean that in the nicest way.).

When I didn't think I would be able to keep walking, because at one moment I didn't have any feeling in my feet and one buttock . . . the cheering was ever present "You CAN do this!"

When I am quite sure I lost a lung on a turn because I was wheezing like an old pump organ on its last gasp . . . the encouragement kept whispering "It's not much farther!"

I can't take credit for this.

Sure, I did my part with sweating and walking, but this finish time is all Beth's.

Without the pom-poms, she still cheered. Although at one point, she did do some cheerleader dancing moves, it was mostly just the field chatter that makes you believe anything is possible.

So today I completed my second 5k.

I'm kind of proud. I'm not dead yet. We got a private police escort (because when you bring up the rear and everyone else is DONE - they sort of want to make sure you don't get lost or run over by someone who doesn't believe you are part of the celebrants who are ready to pick up their awards and go home) and I finally dragged my carcass over the line.

Other than needing some water and a quick deep breath to make up for the asthmatic lack of oxygen in my lungs, I'm fine.

While I am convinced that oxygen normally fills my lungs, there were a couple of times I felt for all the world like I did when I was a kid and almost drowned in a swimming pool. The rain this morning left a humid, dribbly calling card that made it hard to breathe.

Fortunately, Beth was breathing for us both.

Now, I need to find my next goal. I need to get another 5k lined up in the sites and keep training. Otherwise, I totally know I will revert to the comfort loving slacker that my genes most certainly are compelling me to be. It must be genetic! Why else would it feel so good?

But I digress.

I'm actually pretty proud of being able to do this. Although the people who run are always going to be an inspiration to me, I am enjoying the process that goes on for these events.

While it is always a challenge, it is sort of what makes it worth it. Though slow and rusty to respond, there is still enough competitive DNA to make me want to succeed even if I have lost a lung, am breathing through a straw, am in pain and can no longer feel my limbs.

The athlete buried under years and pounds and scar tissue still wants to do well.

Thanks to God the Father, who has blessed me to want to keep trying, and to Beth, who makes it seem like a fun thing to do when decent people are drooling on their pillow, it's becoming something I am looking forward to doing.

Who knows what the future holds? Although I have no way of looking into the future, I do want it to be on my feet and not in some sort of buggy because I can't move myself anymore. I just hope this process will make life longer, fuller and continue to be the blast that it usually is.

Even when it hurts, just knowing that I can do something to make things better through the pain is worth it.

Now, if you will pardon me, I'll be in the bathtub marinating in Icy-Hot. I'm sorry to say you will have to get your own, as I don't believe there is any left in the house...

Valley of the Dolls

On the back of many cleaning products years ago was a dislaimer that the product contained 'harsh abrasives that may damage surfaces'.

Perhaps I should bear the same warning.

Though I never set out to offend or cause people to be wounded in any way, there are days I am not master of my domain when it comes to my tongue or my thoughts.

Oddly enough, I thought that was part of my mortal journey to learn to control that part of me which isn't up to snuff. But in discovering there is still a broad chasm which I am not even part way across in no way minimizes the damage that has been inflicted upon more tender souls than my own.

Years ago, I read a fairly useless novel entitled 'Valley of the Dolls'. When Daddy walked in the house and saw me sprawled in the chair reading said book, he commented, "You really must be hard up for entertainment if that is the best you can do."

The one thing I came away from the book with was an understanding that there are people who prefer that everyone else in their life act according to their own personal desires and level of tolerance and that anything that might upset their personal apple cart was not to be condoned. With a careful substitution of mechanical women, the men in the story had an idyllic life (to them) and managed to keep their own desires and choices at the forefront of life.

In the scriptures, there is a passage that talks about the tongue being a sharp sword (see Psalms 57:4). How many times has that part likening a tongue to a sword been applicable to me?

Though other people are allowed to express themselves in ways that are not socially becoming, I am beginning to learn that I am expected by other people to never have a bad day or a moment in which I fail to meet the invisible line of personal expectations set by them for "other" folks.

The truth is that I do get angry, frustrated and hurt.

I also am hurt sometimes by the things that OTHER people have wounded me with in their 'off days', but I try really hard to keep that from distracting me from seeing who they really are the rest of the time. I attempt to make allowances and keep a decent perspective even when I am licking my wounds that their own sharp tongue inflicts in me.

But I have started to realize that the ability to understand and compensate for the fact that everyone has a bad day or a bad experience from time to time is something that is hard for others to deal with or understand. IT's like 'it's okay that I'm having a bad day, you will understand, but YOU can't ever have any lest you hurt MY feelings.'

I am not perfect. I have tried really hard to not pretend I am.

I reach out in the writing and speaking that I do mostly out of a sense of profound loneliness in my life that is frequently due to my own actions. I have a tendency to drive people away when they get too close because I truly am afraid that I will disappoint them and never be able to live up to the measure of expectation in their eyes. So, I strike first. Preemptive and unpremeditated on a conscious level, but nonetheless, still a strike.

Compelled to speak when my opinion doesn't matter to ANYONE but me, I haven't yet learned that even on my own blogspace, my words can wound.

I worry about going to hell.

There isn't anything so frightening to me as the idea that I would be cast off forever from my family and what few people have thus far tolerated my presence.

And I am concerned that my lack of self-control where my thoughts and actions are concerned will be the tipping point when the day of judgement comes. There appear to be abundant witnesses to all the bad I have done who can testify in open court about the lack of redemptive material substance in my life.

Somehow I am not convinced that nursing a sick kitten back to health will add up to a lot when stacked against the sinking balance of the pain and hurt and verbal violence I have brought into the life of tenderhearted souls who are suffering under their own personal load. Then I have come and, instead of lifting and consoling and helping, I make the burden heavier and worse to endure.

I'm sorry I get angry about things that bother me. I truly wish I had an unflappable gene that made every slight or misplaced moment mean nothing to me due to my long-range views of an eternal meaning that kept minor annoyances below the sweep of the radar.

I'm sorry that I mouth off about the moments in my life where I feel let down by circumstance or the choices of others. I should be so much more understanding of their choices because I am practically the patron saint of mediocrity and worse.

I'm sorry that I seem to create a list of offended parties whom I have wounded. The worst part of it is that there are many of them who will not accept an apology when I truly mean it.

I don't have a delete button in my personal life. Though my blog has the ability to delete postings and turns of phrase that are objectionable content to the people wading through mortality with me, my life lacks that crucial click of the mouse that can remove offense without leaving a scar.

So, by way of apology to every single person whom I have ever hurt or offended, I am sorry that my lack of proper self-control has hurt you. I apologize most humbly for the suffering and wounds I have inflicted in your heart and soul. And most of all, I apologize for falling short of what I should be, not in your eyes, but in the eyes of Father.