Breathless: Part 5

About nine months after I found out they were engaged, Chris and I were emailing back and forth about once a month just keeping each other up to date on our lives, wedding plans, etc. I was even invited to the wedding…which Chris had to fight tooth & nail for. Naturally, I wasn’t stupid enough to go knowing how she felt about me. It would have been a disaster.

After the wedding, I remember looking at the pictures and sensing that something was off. She had always been a great performer and having known her for more than 10 years, I could just tell she was putting on a show at their wedding. It made me sad to see him looking happy and her clearly faking it. I secretly wondered what the future held for them.

I knew how she felt about me (for no good reason, I assure you) and respected the fact that they were married now. I’d hear from Chris about every other month and eventually realized that they were moving back to Indy, where we’re all from. Chris was going back to school (a very good thing) and she had gotten a great new job in the area. Things seemed to be going well for them and because I cared about him, I was happy for them.

Another month or so goes by and I get an email asking if we can talk that night. I could tell by the tone of the email that something was wrong.  He called me later that night and pretty much laid everything out on the table. They’d been having problems before they got married and even though he wanted to, they didn’t slow down and deal with things at the time. He wanted to know how long I’d known that it probably wouldn’t work out. Of course I didn’t answer him, but since the moment they started dating, I wasn’t in huge favor of it because I knew them both so well.

They were still making up their mind as to what to do in regards to their marriage…and being the smart person that I am, I kept out of it. I didn’t want any of it to come back to me. I let him know that no matter what he decided, I would support him and be there for him in the end. But, in order to protect me (and him, too), I couldn’t be involved. He totally agreed and just needed an opinion from someone who knew them both.

A short time later, they separated and filed for divorce. We talked a bit about everything going on. I was four months into my final break-up with Jerk, so I kind of understood where he was with things. He was so devastated at the whole thing. He thought they were happy, but she was really putting on a show the whole time. Only after the wedding did the real person step out from behind the curtain. It wasn’t pretty. Chris is one of the most giving people I know. He will let people walk all over him (sadly, I was one of them once) because he wants them to be happy, but in the meantime, he is losing himself.

I asked him once if they ever went to pre-marital counseling. They thought that counseling was only if you were having issues later in the marriage. I know he desperately wishes they would have been smarter about it. It broke my heart to see how hurt and upset he was.  Especially since I couldn't do anything at all to make him feel better.

...more next time...

Why I'm in a Great Mood on Monday:

Reason #1:  Even though I had to get up while it was still pitch dark outside on Saturday morning and go run, I beat my goal!! KK and I had a slumber party on Friday night (circa 1995) and woke up to freezing temps the next morning. It was COLD at 6:30…so we walked to Starbucks and then stole a cab to get to the race. I had no idea it would be SO packed. There were people everywhere! Overall, I ran a 10:50 mile and finished the whole course in 33:37. Not bad for not running in almost two weeks! KK performed her duty as distracter perfectly and talked the entire time while I sweated it out.

 My only complaint is that the course was entirely too small for 12,000 people to run at once. At one point we were running on the Shedd Aquarium lawn. I didn’t eat anything before hand (except a Apple Spice from Starbucks) so my blood sugar dropped pretty low right after the race. Fortunately, they had plenty of chocolate fondue and hot chocolate ready! I wish I could eat that after every run! In all, it was a great race. Definitely motivated me to start running more and beat my current time!

Reason #2: My mom & Lex are in town!! YAY! I love my momma and was excited when she wanted to come up for my uncle’s play reading. My parents have had Lexie for about a month now. It’s extremely depressing to not have her around all the time. However, being her mother, I have to put her best interests first (even if she is "just a dog"). With me, she’s locked up four days a week in her crate from 8am – 6pm and went to daycare one day a week (of which she was terrified.) By the time I get home from work, it’s dark and she gets a quick walk around the neighborhood before we lounge around or I head out to some other plans.

With my parents, she gets to sleep in till whenever, she has a backyard to run around in, my parents are home most of the time (perks of working for yourself), she has our family dog, Pache, to play with, AND my mother sets up play-dates for her with other little dogs. No joke. Looking at this, it’s really no comparison that the best place for her is with my parents. I can still have her back whenever I want and can travel home as much as I want to see her. She still sleeps with me when I’m home, but the best thing for her right now is to be there. Her life is better. It absolutely kills me to type that because she is my baby and she’s a big part of my life.

I miss her every day, but right now, my mom and dad need her more. They love having her around and have been spoiling her beyond reason. At any rate, mom & Lex are here through Wednesday spending time with Uncle Drew & I. Very exciting. I see lots of shopping in my future.

Reason #3: Speaking of shopping: Before we went to the play reading last night, we stopped off at the shiny new Apple Store in Lincoln Park. I’ve had a craptastic PC for the past three years and it’s been a special hell trying to fight with it. I was just going to look into which one I’d want, but ended up walking out with this beauty:

                                             

 Oh yes. It is mine. It will be my new boyfriend. Not really, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be obsessed with it for quite some time. Plus, the Apple Store will take my old PC and transfer EVERYTHING over to my new boyfriend – er, Mac. It feels good to be a Mac. I can’t wait to get home and open it up! So very exciting!

Reason #4: Finally, this pretty, married lady is back from her honeymoon!! YAY! I know it was only a week, but when you literally email/talk to someone every day, it’s a long freakin’ time not to hear from someone! She was definitely my first email this morning…I can’t wait to see the pictures from Cabo and the wedding!

Why Running is Dangerous

So, I totally forgot to mention that I’m running a 5k tomorrow! YAY! Kind of.

I finally got my act together and signed up for a race. Why would I do this? One, because I said (in April) that I would complete the C25k running program. We’re not going to dwell on the fact that it’s now November.

Reason number two: I’m not one to just up and train for anything, especially when there’s no actual deadline. Big shock. So, when my roommate mentioned the Hot Chocolate 5/15k, my little ears perked up. What? Chocolate? I can totally run toward chocolate…especially Ghiradelli chocolate. Yep. At the end of my 5k race, there’s a chocolate fondue station AND Ghiradelli hot chocolate. If you think I’m running this for the exercise, you’ve lost your mind.

If you don’t know me, I hate to look like an idiot (which is ironic considering the rest of the story). So, I started the C25k program and was kicking butt and taking names up until about 2.5 weeks ago. I was on my first 25 minute straight run. About ten minutes in I was feeling good. “I can DO this,” I thought.

Because I live in the city, it’s a little tough to find a continuous path unless you live on the lake (I don’t.) So I just run around my neighborhood on the sidewalks. Well, as I was jogging in place waiting for a stoplight to change at a busy intersection, I landed wrong on a crooked piece of sidewalk. And I went down. Way down. I totally rolled my ankle.

After I checked to see how many people had seen me fall while RUNNING IN PLACE, I limped for the next five minutes. Then, I decided I was ok enough to finish the last ten minutes. And I did. Go me.

I got home and like a good former gymnast, I elevated and iced my ankle for the rest of the night. I mean, I had run on it for the last half of my run, so how bad could it really be?

I woke up the next morning to this:

  

Um, my ankle doesn’t normally look like someone shoved a baseball in it! I couldn’t wear normal shoes for almost a week. And running? Forget about it. I could barely limp to the train; running was clearly out of the question.

So, I took a week and a half off. This doesn’t sound like too much time, but when you’ve been running three times a week for 6 weeks, it really takes a toll! I’ve gotten back up to 25 minutes without dying. I figure that once I get out there tomorrow that I’ll get psyched up and really just go for it. Plus, I won’t want to look like an idiot in front of the 30,000 people also doing the race.

I don’t like doing things alone, so I enlisted the help of my friend, KK (the one who runs marathons for fun) for this race. Her exact words were “I’M GOING TO ANNOY THE CRAP OUT OF YOU FOR THREE MILES!” And she will…but it will motivate me.

Motivation is something I’ll definitely need at 7:30am on a Saturday in November!! Who schedules a race that early!? It’s not even light yet! And it’s only 35 degrees! Totally sucks. But, I paid good money for this and dangit, I’m going to run this stupid race before I eat my weight in chocolate!

My ultimate goal is to not walk AND to finish in less than 35 minutes. That’s more than an 11 minute mile (my average is 10:30). So that’s all I got.

To recap: Running in place is dangerous, but running toward chocolate is good. Very good. Amen.

Breathless: Part 4

Make sure to catch up on Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3...

After graduation, I moved to Nashville and still hadn’t heard from Chris or my former best friend.  I did know through the grapevine that he had moved with her to Minnesota to chase her career. In the meantime, I met Jerk and kind of forgot about all the drama. Well, about a month into our relationship, Jerk & I broke up (it should have been for good, but it wasn’t). I had been putting angry away messages up for a few days when I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. It was Chris. Apparently, he had always checked my messages and was really worried about what was going on. At this point, I hadn’t heard a word from him in over 6 months.

He stayed on the phone with me for over an hour while I caught him up on what was going on. He told me I deserved better and that I was doing the right thing. For a while, we stayed in touch via email…even when Jerk & I got back together. Eventually, she got ticked that we were still friends. Did I mention that she hated me? Kind of key to the story. She despised that Chris and I had been so close and could talk about anything. She hated the fact that I had known him longer and had dated him in the past. So, out of respect for her, we stopped talking.

Sometime later, I was at the grocery store with Jerk and got a phone call from one of my friends, Jess. Her exact words were “You need to hear this from me. Chris & Amy are engaged.” Being the good friend she is, she knew I needed to hear it from someone with my best interests in mind and not find out through Facebook or the grapevine. My heart dropped. Of course I had been expecting it, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear.

...to be continued...

In A Funk.

This past weekend was Ann’s wedding. It was gorgeous. She was absolutely stunning and everything fell perfectly into place. The food was delicious, the photographer was fun and everyone had a great time. My groomsman and I were the one ones who didn’t bring dates, which worked out pretty well! Between him and one of the ushers, I always had someone to dance with.

Funny story: Our dresses were fitted and had a built in bra. After dinner I had the other cool bridesmaid, Jamie, loosen mine up a bit real quick at the table. Dave, the usher, saw this and goes “what the heck?” I said “I can’t breathe!” So later we were dancing and he goes “Let me know if you can’t breathe…or if I just take your breath away.” I almost tripped on my heels I was laughing so hard.

After the wedding ended, a bunch of people were going to go out to a bar down the street, but they were taking forever. It was freezing, I had a huge bag and had been up since 7am…all I wanted to do was go home. So I did. I traipsed up the stairs, scrubbed my face, took out all the bobby pins and poured myself into bed. And slept for 10 hours.

I woke up the next morning in a funk. The only person I talked to the entire day was my mom…and that’s because I called her bawling. As thrilled as I am that all of my friends have found the right person for them, it’s that much more glaringly obvious that I haven’t. It’s still just me. I can still go an entire day without seeing anyone and no one would notice. That’s really depressing.

A few weeks ago, I had coffee with a great girl, Megan, whom I met from this blog. We ended up talking for two hours about everything from the fabulousness that is Chicago to how unfair it is to be the oldest child. She’s also single and made the comment “It’s not that I’m unhappy with my life, but it would be nice just to be dating.” I couldn’t agree more.

I’m not looking to get married tomorrow at all. But is it too much to ask to go on a date with someone who’s not only interesting, attractive and available, but also feels the same way about me? Because if it is, I quit right now. Both Megan and I are gainfully employed, smart, funny and totally normal, good girls. And, BONUS: we’re not unfortunate looking at all. So, why are we both single in one of the most populated cities in the world? We should be beating guys off with a stick. Seriously. I really don’t understand.

I called my mom yesterday crying my eyes out because it sometimes just feels hopeless. She reminded me that it’s not hopeless and that God has a plan. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. To be really honest, I think this plan sucks right now. Where is the lesson in me being miserably alone? I’ve been playing that game for more than three years and it’s getting old, real fast. Patience has never been my strong suit. I’m sure God is probably up there just shaking His head at me because He sees what’s ahead. But, I don’t. I don’t know that it will all be ok. I don’t know that I’ll ever get married or have kids. Actually, forget marriage and kids…what’s a girl got to do to have a decent date!?

Sorry for the Debbie Downer post…I know I’ll snap out of this funk eventually. But for now, that’s where I’m at.

"If he's out there somewhere I would give everything just to know.

Just to hold and to finally have him take me to sunrise from indigo."

~Sister Hazel