The wise man said, "Hell is other people." More specifically, hell is other people's voices in your head. I was obsessing over a post the other day debating whether plodders have a place in a marathon. Some guy who I’ve never met and should care less about got inside my head and started rattling me. He said to anyone running over a ten minute mile in a marathon, “get out.” We are ruining the marathon. We are being disrespectful of real runners. For some reason this got inside me the way some other posts like it have not. If he had been an actual house guest I would have ignored him as much as possible until his odious little self left, but inside my own head, well, I pulled up an easy chair for him and told him to stay awhile. I’m not sure why. Maybe it tapped some hidden insecurity. Why should I care if this guy (who has, by the way, never run a marathon) thinks I shouldn’t be doing it? Well, my mother cornered me the other day and asked me, “So I noticed you’re running more…are you training again?”

Shit.

“Yeah,” I barely mumble and try to think of a subject to change to but nothing is coming to mind.

“What are you training for?”

“Traverse City,” I hedge, “It’s a race in Michigan. Seems really pretty. We’re planning on bringing the girls up for a three-day weekend. It should be fun!” I’m trying to bury her in words about Michigan and the weekend and re-direct her attention. It’s not working.

“But what is the race? A 5K? A half-marathon?”

“Um…it’s a full.”

“Marathon?!”

“Yeah.”

“Juli!” she gasps as if I’d just shown her my new lip piercing and My Little Pony tattoo on my left boob. I am the epitome of bad judgment right now in her view. She lets a moment of silence pass before she begrudgingly says, “Good for you.” It’s clear, though, that she thinks this is foolishness. And possibly dangerous foolishness. I will never make her understand why this matters to me.

I will never make people like that David guy understand why his words are poison.

Yesterday was a long run and it was really really difficult to get going. I’ve never felt more like, “what is the fucking point?” My husband sweetly offered to take the girls out and entertain them while I ran. I got pouty that he got to “have fun” while I ran. Yeah, watching two toddlers is always a load of fun. I know better than that. I apologized and he ran some errands with them while I dragged my feeling-oh-so-sorry-for-myself carcass out the door. Well the day was beautiful. The sun was bright and the snow sparkled and gleamed in the light. The sky was brilliantly blue. It was a perfect day for a winter run. Around mile five I passed a very athletic looking man in Oakley sunglasses and fancy running clothes hiking through the snow. We exchanged smiles. At the turnaround I passed him again and he said, “You’re doing good! Really good!” It was so patently false that I had to laugh, but it was just the right thing to say and so kind. It restored my faith in humanity. On the Northwestern campus trail I saw a heart someone had drawn in the snow. Sometimes you get little gifts when you’re least expecting it. And need it most.  

As Joan H said- trying to "defiantly find the beauty in all this white"