I have been busy today. Busy at work, busy commuting, busy freaking out over wedding plans, busy getting the invitations prepared and sent out.
What this means is that today, I do not have time to write.
Instead, I offer you this picture of my children riding a polar bear.
Polar Bear riding!
I have made no secret of the fact that lately, my running has not really been up to snuff. Due to a combination of factors – illness, hospitalization of the kid, atrocious winter weather, wedding planning chaos, and the fact that I turn into a pathetic crybaby every winter – it has been hard for me to get out for my runs. For a couple of months I was going great guns on the treadmill at the gym, but I reached the saturation point with that, after which I just couldn’t stomach the thought of the treadmill.
I have fallen a little bit out of shape – not drastically so, just enough for me to be aware of my hamstrings when I’m running up hills.
That in itself does not bother me. I have been running for long enough to know that from time to time, life just gets in the way and interrupts that training program. It’s not the end of the world. Sooner or later I always get back into it, and I find that my loss of fitness and speed are negligible.
This time, though, something different happened. I started losing my enthusiasm for running, and that was absolutely alarming. To not want to run, to not need to run, is so foreign to who I am. Losing my love of running would be like losing a piece of myself, and I was determined not to let that happen.
And so, this morning – despite the time change that cost me an hour of sleep and created its usual confusion, I got up and prepared to join my running club for the Sunday run. I last ran with them about three weeks ago. Truth be told, I last ran at all about three weeks ago. I was feeling a little bit daunted at the prospect of running with people who were no doubt going to be in better shape than me.
Here’s the thing that got me going though: I actually felt excited. I was looking forward to getting out there and going for a run in the open air with friends.
There were three of us running today – all women (Where were the guys? It was such a lovely day for running.) We decided on a 10km jaunt through a park that none of us had been in since before the snow started.
Yikes. I haven’t run 10km for weeks. I have done some insanely fast 5km and 6km runs, but not 10km.
There were hills. I haven’t run hills for weeks.
As runs go, it was not my most stellar performance. I didn’t pace myself properly, and in the last 3km or so I could feel a blister starting to blossom on my right foot.
But I finished the run. My butt muscles were hurting and I was exhausted, but I finished. That completely trumped the fact that the run was a tough one.
I feel like I am back on the road, and even though I’m hurting this evening, I feel great.
I woke up early this morning and started making a list of everything I hope to accomplish today.It is a daunting list, and I have just figured out why.
My wedding day coincides with the deadline for filing tax returns.
That is why I find myself having to organize tax documents for myself and Gerard, do bookkeeping for two businesses, and prepare and file an HST return, which is a headache in itself, all while I am printing off address labels and wedding invitation reply cards, stuffing envelopes, conjuring up missing addresses from thin air, following up on people who owe me quotes, and attempting to stay sane.
At the same time, there are other things that I have promised to do today – promises that I have made either to myself or my kids.
I promised James that we could make bread. He received a real chef’s hat at a school field trip a while back, and he takes great pride in wearing it while he helps me bake (I realize that that last statement makes me sound like Martha Stewart, but in reality, my baking happens about as frequently as a lunar eclipse).
I promised George that I would make up some math worksheets for him. The kid has a love and aptitude for numbers that is just staggering, and he cannot get enough of the worksheets. He has already completed all of the spare ones I had a home, so I have to make him some more.
I promised myself that I would bid on all of the writing jobs that are in my watch list. I have worked out that I can make a fair amount of extra cash during my daily commutes, but that’s not going to happen if I don’t bid for the jobs. I will lose some, but I will hopefully win some. Who knows where this might lead?
Before I do any of this, I have to take a shower, load the dishwasher, and throw a load of laundry into the washing machine.
I have to go now. I need to look for my Insane Wonder Woman suit.
21 August, 2001
It is a beautiful summer’s evening, but my heart is feeling heavy. I am lonely. I have been in Canada for just over a year, and it seems to be taking an inordinately long time for me to build up any kind of social support network. Barry and I split up just a week ago after dating for five months. It wasn’t the best of relationships – we didn’t really have any kind of chemistry, me and Barry – but he had represented some kind of social normality at a time when I really needed it. The breakup was awful – the kind that involves lots of arguing, accusations flung back and forth, and absolutely no chance of friendship afterwards.
What stings the most is that Barry is not divorced at all, like he’s been telling me. He’s still married. It doesn’t matter to me that he and his wife don’t get along. It doesn’t matter that they no longer live together. The fact is that for five months, I’ve been sleeping with someone else’s husband. Even though I didn’t know, had no way of knowing, I feel tarnished. Like I’ve done something wrong.
I’m feeling sad, angry, lonely. I feel trapped in all of these negative emotions, and I have to get out. I cannot go for a run: I already ran this morning, and with my first half-marathon just a month away, I cannot afford to mess with my training.
Instead, I take a walk to High Park. As I wander into the park, I instantly start to feel calmer. High Park is the kind of place that does that. All of that luscious green, the wide open spaces, the breathtaking beauty of the flowers and the river, serves to slow my heartbeat and appreciate the world around me.
I walk for a while, and then sit on a rock close to the park entrance. I close my eyes and bask in the warmth of the sun. Gradually, I feel myself coming to life, like a flower receiving water after a drought. I open my eyes and see a man walking towards me.
I wonder if I know him, and squint to get a better look in the sunlight. No, I’ve never seen him before, and yet he is walking in my direction with definite purpose, smiling broadly as he makes eye contact with me. He is holding a bunch of flowers.
Odd. I wonder if he has mistaken me for somebody else.
He reaches me and sits down on the rock beside me. He looks into my eyes, pauses, and then says, “You have beautiful eyes.” He hands me the flowers and tells me his name. I hear the sound of my own name coming from my lips, but I am not aware of having spoken.
In an instant, Barry and everything to do with him has faded into complete insignificance. None of that matters anymore.
I am staring at this man in wonderment, this man who is a stranger and yet somehow, not a stranger at all.
We stand up, and arm in arm, we start walking.
Both of us somehow know that we are walking, together, to our future.
(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eleasa/2734011065)
Sometimes I wonder if George got his autism from me.
I don’t say that with any sense of guilt. If he did get it from me, I don’t feel bad about it. After all, I can hardly be held responsible for my genetic composition. It’s not as if I had any control over what DNA I landed up with.
I wonder about this question, though, from a purely scientific, curious point of view. Because although I’ve never been screened for it, it would not surprise me one bit if I were to learn that I am on the autism spectrum.
When I was a baby, I cried. I know, that sounds like a ridiculous statement. Of course I cried. That’s what babies do. In my case, however, I couldn’t be soothed. My poor Mom would change me, feed me, rock me, try to get me to sleep. No matter what she did, I cried relentlessly, for hours at a time, for no apparent medical reason. Mom surmised that maybe I was reacting to a feeling of rejection after my birth mother had given me up for adoption.
Adoptions in those days were closed, and no information was exchanged between the birth mother and the adoptive parents. My Mom knew nothing about where I had come from. She told me in later years that she just assumed there was some factor she did not know about that was causing all this angst in me.
When I was a very young child, it became apparent that I had notable developmental delays. I was a very late talker, and did not show signs of functional speech until the age of five. It took me a lot longer than my peers to learn how to read (although it must be said, once I did learn, it was like a floodgate had opened, and I read everything I could get my hands on).
At the same time, I had issues with motor skills. I was uncoordinated, and stubbed my toes a lot. I did not have the strength to hold a pen, and I didn’t even know, until some species of therapist did some testing on me, that I was left-handed. My hand-eye coordinatin was nowhere and I had to be taught it while other kids seemed to just pick up on it naturally.
There are certain sensory things that I find hard to handle. Flickering lights (although, to be fair, that would probably drive most people batty). The textures of certain foods. Clothing labels have the ability to make me want to chew off my own arm in frustration. When Gerard has the TV on too loud, I actually want to scream. Hearing too many sounds from too many different sources (TV, dishwasher, telephone, whatever) invokes a feeling of intense anxiety.
When I’m stressed I rock back and forth. I find it calming, I find that it can sometimes stop the stressful feeling from escalating.
One of the most telling factors in my musings, however, is my social awkwardness. I have had this problem throughout my life. As I get more comfortable with specific people, my social ineptness becomes less apparent, and I work hard to hide overcome it in my day-to-day life.
Social gatherings can be excruciating for me. High school was just torture – I so badly wanted to fit in, but I couldn’t be social enough and my attempts came across as awkward and embarrassing. The only person at school who I felt completely comfortable with was my friend Jenny, who remains my best friend to this day.
There are certain social situations that make me feel even more uncomfortable: conflict, meeting new people, situations where I unexpectedly have to make small talk, anything to do with telephones.
Gerard has remarked several times that I seem to have a special connection with George. When he is having a meltdown, I seem to have the ability to just know what to do, to know what he needs. It can take a long time to calm him down, but in most cases, I can just know – without explaining how I know – how he needs to be spoken to, held, comforted, soothed.
And I wonder why this is.
Is it a normal motherly instinct?
Or do I, in some ways, inhabit the same world George does?
(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/53416677@N08/4972850923)
This is a continuation of the series I started last week…
The six weeks prior to my departure passed in a whirlwind of frenetic activity. I had never traveled internationally by myself, and I had assumed that all I had to do was book the tickets, pack a bag, and show up at the airport two hours before the flight was scheduled to leave.
I had not factored in things like getting my passport renewed, undergoing the requisite medical screening, obtaining foreign currency, getting travel insurance, and visiting with friends and family to say my goodbyes. I could barely find the time to pack.
Packing was an ordeal in and of itself. Cramming all of my essential belongings into checked baggage did not turn out to be easy. Of course, now that I am a seasoned traveler, my idea of what is actually “essential” has changed dramatically. But back then, the list of things that I just had to take was staggering (most of these items would end up getting jettisoned over the course of my travels).
My Mom tearfully helped me pack. Her sadness was, I think, twofold. There was the normal Mom’s angst about the prospect of saying goodbye to a daughter who was bound for a faraway land and didn’t know when she was returning. And there was the fact that the last time I had left home for any length of time, I had come back damaged and jaded. She implored me not to make any stupid decisions. If you get into trouble, she said, just get on a plane and come home.
Before I knew it, the day had arrived. My parents got me to the airport four hours prior to departure time. I was flying El Al: the Israelis, being understandably nervous about who and what they were letting onto their planes, had a rigourous screening procedure years before 9/11. They made me light one of my cigarettes (I was a smoker in those days), take a picture with my camera (using the flash), and make my alarm clock go off. I got questioned at length as to why I was wearing my blue fedora-style hat and whether I had purchased the contents of my luggage myself.
Eventually, me and my luggage were deemed fit to board the plane. I had a final cup of coffee with my parents, and then, when it was time to go, they hugged me fiercely and tried to fight back tears. I waved at them until I could no longer see them, although I knew they would stay at the airport until after my plane had departed. As I found my way to the boarding gate, I pictured my Dad with his arm around my Mom’s shoulders, comforting and being comforted. I felt my chest constrict with anguish at what I had put my parents through, and for a moment I had the urge to turn back.
I resolutely continued. I needed to do this. I knew it in my gut, and I believe that my parents knew it too. I had lost myself over the last few years, and I needed to spread my wings and give myself the space to find my way back through the woods.
In the departure lounge, I found myself chatting with someone called Wayne, who like me, was traveling on the Kibbutz program. He asked me what had prompted me to go, and I told him that I needed to get away from some bad stuff that had happened. “Same here,” he told me.
At boarding time, we joined the line at the departure gate. Further screening ensued (really ahead of the curve on airline security, the Israelis), and we got through the chaos of boarding only to discover that our assigned seats were beside each other. Neither Wayne nor I could possibly know, at that point, that this was the beginning of a wonderful friendship that would still be enduring almost two decades later.
At the moment of take-off, I pictured my parents standing at the big glass windows in the airport terminal, watching and waving, and wishing me Godspeed as the plane lifted into the air and disappeared into the night sky.
(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10037058@N08/2779012499)
Several weeks ago, I got a letter in the mail from Toronto Public Health, informing me that if George’s vaccinations weren’t brought up to date, he would be suspended from school. There is a series of shots that he was due to receive when he turned six, and due to a number of logistical factors, including the retirement of our doctor and George’s phobia of anything medical, we just hadn’t gotten around to getting them. I called the number listed on the letter and spoke to a very nice lady who told me that the six required vaccinations could be administered with just two needles.
While two shots certainly seems more manageable than six, we have still not been able to get this done. Since our doctor retired, we have still not been able to get another one. There is a dire shortage of doctors in Ontario, much less doctors who are good with children who have autism. There is a walk-in clinic that we’ve gone to frequently enough for them to know us, and they do carry all of the vaccines, but it’s one of these first-come first-served places.
Jabbing needles into the arm of my child with autism is something that requires epic planning. We would have to find a doctor who we could make an appointment with. We would have to secure the very first appointment of the day to guarantee no waiting. We would have to prepare George, ourselves, and the staff at the doctor’s office. The whole thing would have to be done much like a military strike: go in, do what needs to be done, and then leave.
You can’t do that at a walk-in clinic. There, you show up and wait your turn, which could give your child up to two hours to have a complete meltdown and make dents in the drywall with his head (I ain’t kidding about that, by the way).
In between our phonecalls to locate a suitable doctor, we have been doing research on vaccines.
I should say at this point that I have never believed in the connection between autism and vaccines, and I still don’t. Whenever I admit this within my autism circles I create a bit of a stir, because it would seem that most people do not agree with me.
I would never presume to speculate on what does or does not cause autism in other peoples’ children, but looking back, I knew that something was not right with George from a very young age, before vaccines even entered the picture for him. If I were to guess at the root of the problem, I would say that it is a genetic roll of the dice combined with certain dietary elements.
Much to the horror of many parents (whether they have children with autism or not) I chose to vaccinate James even after I knew about George’s autism. That’s how much I do not believe in the vaccine/autism link.
So the research we have been doing is not from an autism angle. It is from a general health and wellbeing angle. Some vaccines apparently (depending on which websites you believe) contain potentially toxic ingredients that really don’t need to be there. These ingredients can do things like challenge the immune system and create a propensity to getting mild upper respiratory complaints.
And as convenient as it may be, we are debating the wisdom of administering three vaccines per needle, all in one session. That is a lot of stuff to be putting into the human body all at once. I’m no doctor, but I’m not sure that the human body is designed to be blasted in such a manner.
We fully intend to get all of George’s shots updated. We may just take our time and spread them out. It will involve more trauma for George, but there is a chance that it will be better for his long-term physical wellbeing. When James turns six, we will have to make the same decision for him.
In the meantime, while we are waffling around trying to decide whether to get George his shots, the Toronto Public Health deadline is upon us. With just two days to go until imminent suspension, we decided to apply for an exemption. We completed a Statement of Conscience, which basically says that we believe vaccinations are not the right option for us at this time.
It just buys us a little time to do this properly, without pressure bearing down on us.
Several weeks ago, I got a letter in the mail from Toronto Public Health, informing me that if George’s vaccinations weren’t brought up to date, he would be suspended from school. There is a series of shots that he was due to receive when he turned six, and due to a number of logistical factors, including the retirement of our doctor and George’s phobia of anything medical, we just hadn’t gotten around to getting them. I called the number listed on the letter and spoke to a very nice lady who told me that the six required vaccinations could be administered with just two needles.
While two shots certainly seems more manageable than six, we have still not been able to get this done. Since our doctor retired, we have still not been able to get another one. There is a dire shortage of doctors in Ontario, much less doctors who are good with children who have autism. There is a walk-in clinic that we’ve gone to frequently enough for them to know us, and they do carry all of the vaccines, but it’s one of these first-come first-served places.
Jabbing needles into the arm of my child with autism is something that requires epic planning. We would have to find a doctor who we could make an appointment with. We would have to secure the very first appointment of the day to guarantee no waiting. We would have to prepare George, ourselves, and the staff at the doctor’s office. The whole thing would have to be done much like a military strike: go in, do what needs to be done, and then leave.
You can’t do that at a walk-in clinic. There, you show up and wait your turn, which could give your child up to two hours to have a complete meltdown and make dents in the drywall with his head (I ain’t kidding about that, by the way).
In between our phonecalls to locate a suitable doctor, we have been doing research on vaccines.
I should say at this point that I have never believed in the connection between autism and vaccines, and I still don’t. Whenever I admit this within my autism circles I create a bit of a stir, because it would seem that most people do not agree with me.
I would never presume to speculate on what does or does not cause autism in other peoples’ children, but looking back, I knew that something was not right with George from a very young age, before vaccines even entered the picture for him. If I were to guess at the root of the problem, I would say that it is a genetic roll of the dice combined with certain dietary elements.
Much to the horror of many parents (whether they have children with autism or not) I chose to vaccinate James even after I knew about George’s autism. That’s how much I do not believe in the vaccine/autism link.
So the research we have been doing is not from an autism angle. It is from a general health and wellbeing angle. Some vaccines apparently (depending on which websites you believe) contain potentially toxic ingredients that really don’t need to be there. These ingredients can do things like challenge the immune system and create a propensity to getting mild upper respiratory complaints.
And as convenient as it may be, we are debating the wisdom of administering three vaccines per needle, all in one session. That is a lot of stuff to be putting into the human body all at once. I’m no doctor, but I’m not sure that the human body is designed to be blasted in such a manner.
We fully intend to get all of George’s shots updated. We may just take our time and spread them out. It will involve more trauma for George, but there is a chance that it will be better for his long-term physical wellbeing. When James turns six, we will have to make the same decision for him.
In the meantime, while we are waffling around trying to decide whether to get George his shots, the Toronto Public Health deadline is upon us. With just two days to go until imminent suspension, we decided to apply for an exemption. We completed a Statement of Conscience, which basically says that we believe vaccinations are not the right option for us at this time.
It just buys us a little time to do this properly, without pressure bearing down on us.
When I was sixteen, I started smoking due to peer pressure. Although I was not quite a pariah in high school, I was not exactly popular either. I was one of a handful of girls who who kind of hung around on the fringes while the pretty, popular, sociable ones traveled in packs. All my life I have suffered from social anxiety, and high school was, for me, a time filled with awkward social angst.
Many of the popular girls would go to parties and smoke. They made it look cool, like the thing cool kids do. And so, in a misguided attempt to fit in with this crowd, I started smoking too. Throughout the next decade, I made the occasional token attempt to quit, but these attempts were never really sincere. They were driven more by guilt than anything else.
It was a lot easier to be a smoker in those days. You could legally smoke just about anywhere: in bars and restaurants, in airports, in shopping malls. You could even smoke in the workplace, although out of respect for my non-smoking friend Gary, who sat in the workstation beside mine at the office, I refrained from smoking at my desk. If I wanted to light up, I went to the communal coffee area and smoked there.
Shortly after I turned 26, however, something in me changed. It was a something that would prompt me to try quitting for real. It was not a concern for my health, even though – as my parents pointed out to me many times as they desperately tried to get me to quit – several family members had died from smoking-related illnesses. It was not the cost, which even back then was astronomical. It was not the nagging to quit that my family and friends subjected me to (in fact, because I can be stubborn and perversely bloody-minded, the nagging was probably my biggest deterrent to quitting).
I simply woke up one morning and realized that I was tired of being a smoker.
That was all it took.
I knew that I was not the kind of person who would just be able to go cold turkey. And if I was going to quit, I wanted to do it properly, in a way that would ensure that I would never smoke again.
Common sense told me that in order to break the habit, I would need to replace it with something else. Instead of having a cigarette with my morning coffee, or after my meals, or during my work breaks, I would have to do something else. I also realized that my endeavours would be a lot more effective if I took steps to ensure that I wouldn’t actually want to smoke.
So instead of quitting there and then, I picked a date six months in advance and decided that I would quit then. I used the six months to prepare myself, mentally and physically.
I took up crossword puzzles, to get into the habit of doing something else with my hands, and also, quite frankly, with my mind.
I told everyone I knew that I was quitting and when, to ensure that I would be mortified by embarrassment if I didn’t follow through. This also had the advantage of securing support from friends and family.
I recruited a friend to quit on the same day as me, just so that I wouldn’t be doing it alone. I have since lost contact with that particular friend, but I have heard through the grapevine that he has quit several times since then.
Most importantly, I made changes to my general lifestyle. I tend to be an all-or-nothing kind of gal: if I was going to improve my lifestyle in one area, I might as well go all-out. So I cut back on the junk food and started eating fruit. I kicked the Coca Cola habit and switched to water. I couldn’t bring myself to give up coffee entirely, but I did go from eight cups a day to about three.
It was at this time of my life, while I was preparing myself to quit smoking, that I started running for the first time. To be fair, the term “running” is a little grand for what I was doing. Bear in mind that I hadn’t exercised in years. I was overweight and unhealthy, and the smoking had put ten years’ worth of crap in my lungs. When I started running, I was really putting in about thirty seconds of wheezy plodding for every ten minutes of walking.
My friend Gary (the same Gary for whom I had given up smoking at my desk), who happens to be a marathoner, said to me, “Some day you will be running races.” Gary was unbelievably supportive of my venture to quit and be healthy. While other people at the office were telling me that I would never quit, Gary had complete confidence that I would succeed. He gave me tips on improving my lifestyle, and he provided me with beginner training programs that would help me make the metamorphosis from “plodder who can barely put one foot in front of the other” to “runner”.
At the same time, I was drinking in advice from my Dad, who had been a marathon runner in his youth. He showed me how to pace myself, how to breathe while running, how to handle hills.
I gave up smoking on the day I had scheduled, almost fifteen years ago. I have not picked up a cigarette, or even had a craving since then.
One day, about four months after I had quit, I woke up and went for a run. By that time I was walking and running in more or less equal proportions. I would walk for five minutes and run for five minutes. I felt myself making progress, but I still didn’t really feel like a real runner.
Anyway, on this particular morning, I set out on my usual route, and I found myself focusing a lot more on how I was running. I set myself little targets: just get to that traffic light. Just run as far as that tree. You can make it past those apartment buildings. I gradually became aware that my breathing, which had always been a little jagged from all the years of smoking, was now regular and strong. I took stock of how my legs were feeling and realized that the gradual build-up of exercise had made me stronger.
Eventually, I looked at my watch, thinking that my first five minutes of running must have elapsed by now. I was stunned – for the first time ever, I had run for ten consecutive minutes without stopping, without even slowing down. I took a one-minute walking break, even though I didn’t feel as if I needed it, and then ran my second set of ten minutes just as effortlessly as the first.
That day, for the first time ever, I felt that I had earned the right to call myself a runner.
When I was sixteen, I started smoking due to peer pressure. Although I was not quite a pariah in high school, I was not exactly popular either. I was one of a handful of girls who who kind of hung around on the fringes while the pretty, popular, sociable ones traveled in packs. All my life I have suffered from social anxiety, and high school was, for me, a time filled with awkward social angst.
Many of the popular girls would go to parties and smoke. They made it look cool, like the thing cool kids do. And so, in a misguided attempt to fit in with this crowd, I started smoking too. Throughout the next decade, I made the occasional token attempt to quit, but these attempts were never really sincere. They were driven more by guilt than anything else.
It was a lot easier to be a smoker in those days. You could legally smoke just about anywhere: in bars and restaurants, in airports, in shopping malls. You could even smoke in the workplace, although out of respect for my non-smoking friend Gary, who sat in the workstation beside mine at the office, I refrained from smoking at my desk. If I wanted to light up, I went to the communal coffee area and smoked there.
Shortly after I turned 26, however, something in me changed. It was a something that would prompt me to try quitting for real. It was not a concern for my health, even though – as my parents pointed out to me many times as they desperately tried to get me to quit – several family members had died from smoking-related illnesses. It was not the cost, which even back then was astronomical. It was not the nagging to quit that my family and friends subjected me to (in fact, because I can be stubborn and perversely bloody-minded, the nagging was probably my biggest deterrent to quitting).
I simply woke up one morning and realized that I was tired of being a smoker.
That was all it took.
I knew that I was not the kind of person who would just be able to go cold turkey. And if I was going to quit, I wanted to do it properly, in a way that would ensure that I would never smoke again.
Common sense told me that in order to break the habit, I would need to replace it with something else. Instead of having a cigarette with my morning coffee, or after my meals, or during my work breaks, I would have to do something else. I also realized that my endeavours would be a lot more effective if I took steps to ensure that I wouldn’t actually want to smoke.
So instead of quitting there and then, I picked a date six months in advance and decided that I would quit then. I used the six months to prepare myself, mentally and physically.
I took up crossword puzzles, to get into the habit of doing something else with my hands, and also, quite frankly, with my mind.
I told everyone I knew that I was quitting and when, to ensure that I would be mortified by embarrassment if I didn’t follow through. This also had the advantage of securing support from friends and family.
I recruited a friend to quit on the same day as me, just so that I wouldn’t be doing it alone. I have since lost contact with that particular friend, but I have heard through the grapevine that he has quit several times since then.
Most importantly, I made changes to my general lifestyle. I tend to be an all-or-nothing kind of gal: if I was going to improve my lifestyle in one area, I might as well go all-out. So I cut back on the junk food and started eating fruit. I kicked the Coca Cola habit and switched to water. I couldn’t bring myself to give up coffee entirely, but I did go from eight cups a day to about three.
It was at this time of my life, while I was preparing myself to quit smoking, that I started running for the first time. To be fair, the term “running” is a little grand for what I was doing. Bear in mind that I hadn’t exercised in years. I was overweight and unhealthy, and the smoking had put ten years’ worth of crap in my lungs. When I started running, I was really putting in about thirty seconds of wheezy plodding for every ten minutes of walking.
My friend Gary (the same Gary for whom I had given up smoking at my desk), who happens to be a marathoner, said to me, “Some day you will be running races.” Gary was unbelievably supportive of my venture to quit and be healthy. While other people at the office were telling me that I would never quit, Gary had complete confidence that I would succeed. He gave me tips on improving my lifestyle, and he provided me with beginner training programs that would help me make the metamorphosis from “plodder who can barely put one foot in front of the other” to “runner”.
At the same time, I was drinking in advice from my Dad, who had been a marathon runner in his youth. He showed me how to pace myself, how to breathe while running, how to handle hills.
I gave up smoking on the day I had scheduled, almost fifteen years ago. I have not picked up a cigarette, or even had a craving since then.
One day, about four months after I had quit, I woke up and went for a run. By that time I was walking and running in more or less equal proportions. I would walk for five minutes and run for five minutes. I felt myself making progress, but I still didn’t really feel like a real runner.
Anyway, on this particular morning, I set out on my usual route, and I found myself focusing a lot more on how I was running. I set myself little targets: just get to that traffic light. Just run as far as that tree. You can make it past those apartment buildings. I gradually became aware that my breathing, which had always been a little jagged from all the years of smoking, was now regular and strong. I took stock of how my legs were feeling and realized that the gradual build-up of exercise had made me stronger.
Eventually, I looked at my watch, thinking that my first five minutes of running must have elapsed by now. I was stunned – for the first time ever, I had run for ten consecutive minutes without stopping, without even slowing down. I took a one-minute walking break, even though I didn’t feel as if I needed it, and then ran my second set of ten minutes just as effortlessly as the first.
That day, for the first time ever, I felt that I had earned the right to call myself a runner.
