Thursday

It is 7:34 and the sun is awake, already peeking over the horizon. I LOVE IT! It seems as if it has been over two months since I have met the sun this early and today I am. Spring is finally pushing miserable winter away.

Speaking of miserable, my eye is still in pain. I have a "cornial abrasion." Somehow I scratched my eye three days ago (probably because I can't keep my hands out of my eye when there's something in it) and now I'm using eye drops to treat it. My suggestion: Don't rub your eye, ever! I've never had a scratch before and this is painful. Light hurts it, I cant look to the left because it hurts, closing it hurts; it is just kind of impossible. But, I do think it's feeling a tiny bit better then yesterday.

Just my random thoughts for the morning. I'm putting off getting ready and I figured, what better way to do that then to write what's on my mind. That's pretty much it.

Have a wonderful day!

Word Vomit

English professors are pompous asses and that is why I will never be one.

The Ultimate Race

There are some times when I just understand why I run.
Today was one of them. I was scheduled for a 7 mile run today in my training for the Gate River on the 8th. Today's mileage was the last big run before the actual 15k. Needless to say, this week I've been looking forward to it, just because for about 70 minutes I'd have nothing else to worry about except my run. Well, I thought about doing it yesterday since it was so sunny, but I went ahead and just did the scheduled 4 thinking I would, no matter what,I'd run 7 miles today. I woke up this morning still thinking I would, but then the weather was gray and overcast and at some point it actually flittered snow. So of course the sane person inside of me said, don't worry about running, just go to the gym and use the treadmill and lift a little. Well, the runner inside of me said that wouldn't do.
So, I braved it. I bundled up, set my ipod to my running playlist (my trainer this time) and headed out to the boulevard and ran. I told myself I would at least run for an hour, maybe not all seven miles, but 6 would be good enough. Then I started running and my shins were killing me so I decided that since I was looping through the park and doing some hill work, 5 miles would be enough. Now, I stay at a fairly decent 10 min/mile pace, which is perfectly fine with me because I'll never win my races, but even though I run just to run, I still try my best and push myself, even when I'm hurting. So, I figured at my pace, and with my heart rate beating a a great level of 165, I was having a wonderful run. Who needed 7 miles?
Then I realized, I did. Today was a 7 mile day and I wanted to conquer it. I knew I could, there was no doubt about it, I just had to push my body a little bit more, even if it hurt some. My music was so powerful today that it just kept pushing me and something about running 7 miles because I could was amazing. Why should I stop at 5, or even 6 for that matter when it was so close to the goal? I started thinking about what God tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter 9:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

I look at these words and I see the runner inside of me. I have a race in two weeks and I've been training for two months. Strict training... I've changed a few days around but I've still never missed the mileage I'm supposed to be doing. Even though I can train as hard as I can push myself, I know that I won't win, but I will get a medal; yet it is a medal that won't last. I can't take that to heaven with me, and it probably won't even go through the detector at the airport when I head home. So I won't even be able to wear it. But that doesn't matter because what does is the fact that I trained and beat my body to finish the race. To keep running towards a prize even if I'll never get it. To cross that line and say I've done it. All my training comes up to that one moment where I take one last step and pass under the time clock to all the cheering. That's the way my faith should be. I'm running in this life and I'll probably never win in the world, but I still have to run. I still have to sing, to read God's word, to train myself to fight off satan everyday. With all my perseverance people will see and they will join in my run.
It'll be just like a race except we'll all be crossing the finish line at the same time. No time clock marking our progress, just our heavenly trainer cheering us on as we run into his arms waiting to congratulate us.

Not sleeping

Sometimes, she gets so tired of waiting.

Laying in bed curled up warmly, alone with a phone in her hand waiting for it to ring. Her room is so silent she can hear the rain reverberating off of the ground two stories down. She longs for another noise, a breath rhythmically moving beside her, even if it comes across a line. She lies in the bed by herself thinking the night will come when she hears his voice.

Watching a movie tangled up in her chair cradling a pillow. A love movie, by herself-- she isn't afraid to cry at all the right, sappy, perfect moments. She longs for an embrace, a simple hug, even just a touch that speaks to her.

Cooking dinner for one, she dances alone to the jazz in her living room, longing for someone to dance with her -to share her night with. To look into her eyes so she can see she matters. She waits through hours just to hear I love you and when she does, sometimes it just feels routine.

When the moments come, she still feels like shes waiting. Like he doesn't hear the longing in her voice. The missing. The hurt. The hard. The pain. Does he feel it. Will he say it. It's been all night. She waiting and wanted. To talk. To say something. It doesn't matter if he doesn't say anything. It only matters if he's there. All she wants is for him to be there. She doesn't want to be alone.

Sometimes all shes feel like she's doing is waiting.

The Obsession of a Good Heart - part 2

* * *

It was not until the morning I ran this year that I figured out just exactly why these biker men and women wave at each other. It's 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning. The sun is barely up, as is the rest of the city. But me, I'm out running my five mile loop. I'm going along, waking up with the day, just enjoying pushing myself farther and harder. Someone else is doing the same exact thing. We wave as we pass. We wave at each other because we share something. We share the ecstasy of running. I’ve spent years telling myself I am not my father, but when I waved, I am just like him when he is on his bike.

* * *

Obsession, determination, something pushes my Father in everything he does. After about a year I hated his Harley Davidson. I hated it like nothing I have ever hated in my life. I figured when he got the bike he would be happy, enjoy riding it, and he and my mother would be normal bikers. If normal bikers was not an oxymoron. My Father did not stop obsessing when he got the bike like I thought he would, but in fact, became even more determined to have the perfect bike. He was constantly changing it. A wide tire kit here, extra chrome there, a windshield, a new faceplate, new headlight kit, more chrome, saddlebags, fringe, even more chrome, a pipe kit. That’s a partial list. Through the years he kept adding to the bike, changing it so it didn’t even look like the original bike he bought. Or so he hinted at. I hardly noticed the changes; either I did not want too, or just all bikes pretty much look the same to me. My Father paid so much attention to that damned bike, it was his third child. I felt like it had replaced me.

Every once in a while I think about the wind in my hair when he would take me out on the bike but as I held my anger in about it, the rides got fewer. I never wanted to be near it. My Mom seemed to ignore the obsession with the bike and rode a lot with him. I noticed that it was bringing them together even. They both loved being out in the air and started to ride with other couples. I remember worrying every time they’d go out that they would come back safe. I hated that bike, but I never wanted anything to happen to it while they were on it. Maybe just for the garage to collapse while we were all inside eating popcorn and watching a nice, family movie.

* * *

When I get an idea in my head, I don’t let anything stop me. I may not have run for a month, but if I want to run five or seven miles on a Saturday morning I will do it whether I hurt or not. My Mom always told me I was determined. My Father joked I got his genes. When I ran that morning, I began to think he was right.

* * *

He has had that bike for eight or so years now. Even though it was top of the line, I don’t think it was brand new when he got it. But it was close. My Father lives and breathes Harley. He obsessives Harley. He doesn’t have a beer belly or a long gray beard and matching handle bar mustache. He’s never been to Sturgis or Daytona Bike Week. But he does have leathers, a plethora of Harley pins, forty-two Harley T-shirts, most from stores across the world he’s never been too, a “biker gang” he and my mother ride with, a plan to someday visit Sturgis and Daytona and to rode trip across America, and a heart. A determined heart.

* * *

I always said I never wanted anything to do with that bike after I looked at it as his third child but over the years I found myself buying him Harley T-shirts when I came across a store he’d never been too or maybe something small but with the Harley symbol on it. I even bought him a Harley Davidson Road Atlas last Christmas complete with legendary rides and markers for every Harley store in the Nation. I do all this because I realize I am my Father and I wouldn’t want to be like anyone else but him.

Some days I count my steps between cracks in the sidewalk. I count fingers of people in the room because I want to make sure they have all ten. I align everything perfect at my desk, or at the dinner table. I’m constantly straightening and I’m constantly counting. I’m a little obsessive. But when I make goals or set my mind to something, nothing stops me because I have the heart inside me to accomplish it. Just like my Dad.

I may be a runner and my Father may be a biker but we share something. Our sickly obsessive determination and passionate love for the one thing that keep us sane. His Harley is who he is. It isn’t his third child and it never was. It was something he found that he could enjoy; something he could relate to his family too. Something we could all laugh at together, ride together, even model our family picture after while we all simultaneously wore a Harley shirt. Harley is my family. My dad could bring me home a T-shirt from some Harley store, or buy me a cap while we were on vacation in Florida and stopped at every Harley store we passed on the drive down, during the week, and the drive home. But when he did that, I knew he wanted to share his passion with me. He wanted to tell me he loved me.

Adolescence made me see things a little differently and my resentment made me miss out on some really fun summer days we could have spent riding. But I know now why my father waves every time at a biker, and why it's a universal gesture across the world. It's because we're all a part of something, we’re all passionate about something. Whether biking or running, we acknowledge and encourage each other through a small gesture. We share our passions.

My Dad and I are passionate beings and I have his soul in me. I cannot wait for my future husband to have a motorcycle, knowing my dad it will have to be a Harley, so we can ride alongside my parents. He always joked with me about getting my own motorcycle license but I’ve never found the time to do it. I will one day, possibly in my midlife like him. My brother did, and even though he has a sport bike he still rides with the gang. Maybe when I have my first baby girl, I’ll name her Harley, because when I think about it, it’s no obsession with a motorcycle. Harley is my Dad passionate about his life, having fun, and loving. In all of his glory, living the way he knows how.

The Obsession of a Good Heart - part 1

The Obsession of a Good Heart

I am running. I feel the slam of my feet on the concrete, the hard, aged ground my enemy as it reverberates back up through my leg: left foot pounds, sidewalk hammering right back. Left hip sensing the shock, but right foot pounds anyway. I know the sidewalk will hammer right back again as my right hip braces for that shock, the joint grinding, circling around in the socket. My feet pace the concrete one…two…three…one…two…three, but it feels more to the rhythm of a song: Oh… what… a… beau…ti…ful… morn…ing…, ,oh… what… a… beau…ti…ful… day. I feel the pace start to fall into itself as the first light breaks through the trees; my leg rotates through my hip joint like a well oiled machine, even through the pain. The whole body aware now of the pounding of the pavement as it fights back, but running on. I don’t feel the pace anymore, the counting stopped some odd steps back, and my breathing is just a current, a natural air flow. I lose the pace because I just run. It’s automatic.

Halfway down the boulevard I see another runner coming my direction. Nonchalantly I move over to the right side of the bike lane so he can pass on my left. Note: get some brighter running shirts, especially with all this early morning running. I notice the bright fluorescent green shirt he is representing this morning and the dark gray I’m wearing. It just screams to the sparse traffic “moving target, open for practice.” As he gets footsteps closer, like me, I see the foolish grin on his face. It’s the breath of an awakening morning on a runner’s face that can’t help but produce a smile as each step racks up more distance. I hear his random thoughts mimicking mine: I am a damn fool to be out this early on a Saturday morning. Kids aren’t even awake yet. Are there cartoons on anymore? Did I turn the coffee pot off? Hell, focus. This run just feels good. I figured like me his mind was racing all over the place trying not to think about his pace, or count his steps or breath. Then it is out of the corner of my eye I notice, as he is passing, his left hand, mid-swing, as it reaches the peak out in front of him, gloved in UnderArmour, jerks out. It is a small gesture. A wave. And a friendly one, which I only understand by the smile and half nod he gives me as he follows through on his steps past me. I jerk my hand out too, as a response, but by that time he has already run another half mile up the road. Idiot, you could’ve at least acknowledged him.

I continue on my run and as I round the boulevard, through stoplights, and watching the neighborhood wake up, I find green shirt guy and myself are not the only fools out running this morning. I pass a middle aged couple, pacing slightly slower than myself. Two men, trying not to outdo each other; working hard to stay at the same pace. I can tell the one on the right, in the bright blue fleece is a natural athlete; he is one step ahead but is trying to hold back. Ten minutes later I pass a woman, about six or seven years older then me, enjoying every moment of her run. That’s what I want with my running, not to dread it, but to enjoy it, even down the road. It becomes clear to me after I pass her that with every runner I have come across, their left hands did the little jerk motion. The wave. But so did mine.

It was as if after green shirt guy, I had an epiphany about running. As I came closer to each runner, I watched how their pace was, their form, and how they interacted with their partner. Then, I concentrated on how they’d react to me. It was always that wave, at the same exact moment when we all pasesd. That little wave wasn’t just two fools acknowledging each other in the early morning, but instead, two runners connecting and sharing the ecstasy of running itself. One thought came to my mind: Oh Lord, I am my father.

* * *

It’s a delicate unraveling this fact that I am like my father. Or somehow understand my father. For several years of my young adulthood I’ve wrestled with the fact that I am not like him, but I am. I am him.

My Father rides a motorcycle, but not just any motorcycle, a Harley Davidson. If I ever said it was just a motorcycle I have a feeling the big guy on a Harley in the sky would smite me with his backfire. With that bike my Father is the top of the line, true rider. He at his ripe old age of forty-five is a biker. Maybe not a Hell’s Angel, but a biker nonetheless. He first got a motorcycle when I was younger, I cannot remember how young, but old enough to know. To understand what this was bringing.

See, he is an amazing man; he is determined or a little Obsessive Compulsive or possibly some of both. When he gets ideas or goals, nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing stops him and everything is constantly about that idea. It is all he thinks about, all he talks about, all he researches until he attains it. Previous to the Harley I lived through a year or two of “boat talk.” Every conversation somehow had the dropped hint of us getting a boat. Why life would be better with a boat, why we needed a boat, the cheapest yet nicest boats he could find in the weekly trader. Needless to say in his midlife that boat idea, boat obsession, turned into a motorcycle. His first bike in fact was not a Harley but that only lasted a year; he traded it in for the king of all bikes, a burgundy, year 2000 Harley Davidson Fat Boy.

When he first got it, it took a couple of months before I could go on rides with him; he wanted to make sure he had the hang of it, before putting our lives on the line. It was a pretty big bike. After a couple of months my father and I headed out on the open road, the highway, Route 45 that passes right outside my small town of Tuscola, Illinois. We had corn fields on either side of us. It really was the open road. When we were out there for the first time, I noticed that when my father passed another biker going in the opposite direction, he would stick out his left hand in a half wave and kind of nod. At first I thought he was just being nice; waving and all. But then, it kept happening. Every time we would pass a biker he'd wave again, and they would wave back. I thought maybe it was just the nice thing to do so I stuck out my left hand, half waved, and nodded as well. I wanted to feel like a part of his bike obsession.

As I got older and got my own license, I realized it was not just my father. I would be out driving my car and watch two motorcycles pass each other. It did not matter if they were cruisers or sports bikes, they would still wave at each other. I thought maybe it was just because they all rode bikes, a little secret motion or something. Like a biker club thing.

To simply love

It's just been this past month or so that I've found my self Valentine's Day so much. Yeah, it's commercialized, it's overdone, it's expensive, and well, I've never had a good one. But when I think about all that, I'm not really seeing it for what it is. It's a National Holiday to LOVE. I mean, what other day is devoted to telling someone, you're significant other, your family, your friends that you LOVE them.?Not a birthday, not an anniversary, just a holiday all about love. Yeah, sometimes it's cheesy and overdone with the bright pink singing teddy bear, or the heart shaped box of chocolates, or the gold dipped rose that will eternally last, but really, when you get down to the heart of it, Valentine's Day is just to love.

When I looked up love on Bible Gateway there are 69 topical references, 31 instances, and that's not including the million verses associated with each one. Christ tells us that the greatest commandment is to Love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind and to Love our neighbor (Mark 12: 29-31). Love comes from God (1 John 4:7), is patient and kind and not boastful and not proud and not rude and not self-seeking and not easily angered and keeps no records of wrong and does not delight in evil and rejoices in the truth and always protects and always perseveres and always trusts and alway hopes and NEVER fails. Love is the greater than faith and hope (1 Corinthians 13). And my favorite, LOVE is stronger than death (Song Of Soloman 8:6). How can I hate Valentine's Day when it's simply a day to love and love is all these things?

All commercialized things thrown aside, God ordained this one day, one day a year, when we can express how much we love those people in our lives; and maybe even show love to someone we don't know. Valentine's Day has a lot of preparation for some people, they make it a week long, a month long thing. It makes me think about how much love goes into one day. Why on earth would I want to miss that? A simple chance to love. A chance to smile at all my cheesy love movies. A chance to be romantic, to not care if someone sees me kiss my lover. A chance to be moved by the love around me. A chance to express how I feel and a day dedicated only to that. Only to Love.

Love is a beautiful entity. A creation from the perfect artist, a gift from the ultimate lover. If we all loved, just simply loved, how beautiful this world would be.

I think I'm actually falling in love with February...
Maybe I'll even by some red balloons.

a simple night

i have good friends.


great friends.

i think i've done more this weekend so far then i've done in any other semester. and you know, i have friends over and it gets late and they make fun of me because i go to bed early and i hate kicking them out to do so, but they never seem to get upset by it. they just know. i go to bed to i can talk to my fiance and they never get angry because i don't want to hang out later.

God has blessed me with some great friends. i really love you guys and i love hanging out. no matter what we're doing. life is more fun with you.


this time though, i really am going to bed for me. my headache is back and my vision is spinning. probably not good.

muah!