Sunday, February 22, 2009

Past, Present and Future...

...but not necessarily in that order...

I just got home from four days in Ocean City, where I will be training, working, living this summer!!! We found a place. It's three bedrooms (enough room for all our gear and our dogs plus visitors), two blocks from the beach, and cheaper than we were planning to pay. I'm super stoked!!! (Did you see that sunset?)

Saturday was a day of negotiations and running around and training and playing and visiting. 45 mins on the bike in the gym, 45 mins in the water, an hour run on the boardwalk, a stop for coffee at Dunkin' Donuts, a visit with a local rower, and then dinner with Graham again. We stayed at his place last night, since he was in town and got up this morning to head back home...where we found it to be 20 degrees cooler! Crap! I'm so sick of this cold...but I'm so glad that right now, I'm in my room after a hot shower and not feeling guilty about a rest day :)

So, I've joined in on the game. I asked Judi to interview me. Here goes:

1. what is that tattoo about on your wrist?
On the inside of my right wrist, I have inscribed "hope". My middle name is Hope. As a kid, I hated it. A couple years ago, I came across this article in Vogue in which the author stated:
"I'm not going to sit here and say somethnig to the effect that hope
is an onion that gets peeled back layer by layer by the rough hands of
experience, etc. I don't know what hope is. I only know that it is a force whose
meaning, like that of so many fundamental forces in life, is truly appreciated
only when it appears to be extinct. And I don't mean endangered. I mean
extinct."
I thought I knew what hope was, but I didn't really know until I thought there was none left for me. (See #5 for more info...) Now, sometimes, I just catch a glimpse of my wrist. I'm reminded from where I've come and how a little hope was the only thing that got me through.

2. if you got another tattoo, what would it be?
I'm not sure. I'm far too fickle for something of no meaning and far too spontaneous to plan it out much.

3. besides q'ing for kona, what are your personal goals for 2009?
Um...to grow the balls to leave a job I hate just because it pays well...to appreciate the people in my life...to spend more time thinking of others and less about the stupid shit that doesn't really matter...to not give others power over my emotions...to keep and gain faith...to try to stay in right now as much as possible and not dwell on what already happened or what's about to happen...to not settle...

4. what is the 1st thing you think about when you open your eyes in the morning?
Wow. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, "4:30 already?!?" and most days "time to run (or get on the trainer or go to the gym)".

5. tell us about the last time you drank.
Hmm...September 25, 2006. A Monday. The day after I finished my first HIM- the Toyota Challenge at Deer Creek. It was the first night of my capstone class for grad school. We met the prof, got our assignment and were dismissed. Several of us headed to Christie's for a few drinks out on the patio. Most left after just a few. I didn't. I never did. Several pitchers, jagerbombs, vodka tonics later, it was determined by my only companion that it was time to go. It was before 11pm, but I'd been drinking for almost five hours. And I didn't exactly like to eat back then. I remember being in the bathrrom. I remember some deep conversation with a boy. The next thing I remember were steel-toed shoes kicking in my windshield, people screaming, me coming to, my car on it's side, me hanging from the seatbelt and asking God why I was still alive. I was horrified. I'd totalled my car for the second time in a year. I'd just gotten divorced. That was my third DUI. I was dead on the inside, existing in this shell that walked the earth, only acting as though I had everything together.
I spent the night in jail. I dumped all my alcohol. I cried for four days straight...and then intermittenly for four weeks.

Oh, i don't think anyone does, but just in case anyone reads this and wants an interview, just ask.

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