Enjoying the Journey

I think that there are people in life who enjoy challenges, who go looking for the less traveled road in life and relish the idea of conquering those obstacles. People who continue to go back to school year after year, who enjoy the rigors of higher learning. People who climb freezing mountain tops, just to say they reached the summit. People who run in insane marathons that reach from one side of the United States to the other. They rally themselves, they work hard, and they meet the challenge head on.

I am not one of these people.

I stand with that OTHER group of people. The ones who only do things they are already good at. The ones who usually sit back and dream about the things that they would love to do in life, but when it really comes down to it, we would rather dream about it than actually do something about it. I join the ranks of people who usually run away from challenges when they get too difficult, making some sort of excuse rather than admitting that we gave up. It’s not the worst place to be, but it’s a safe place. You don’t get to feel that thrill of victory if you take yourself out of the race after the first mile.

When I look back on this time in my life, I’m pretty sure that I will see it as a time of numerous possibilities. A time when I decided that I wasn’t going to stand in the sidelines any longer. A time when it seemed that anything I chose to pursue was attainable. I don’t want to give up anymore, and I don’t want to settle for what is easy and safe. I used to think that becoming a mom meant that all the dreams I had for myself would have to be packed up and put away until my children were grown. But I am realizing that being a Mom has only made me more determined to achieve my goals.

I should probabaly explain where this is all going, huh? Well there have been a lot of amazing things happening in my life lately and I’m just bursting to share a few of them:

The Triathalon

You’ll remember that I wrote back in October that I was training for my first Triathalon in March. But, of course, me being me- when my SIL decided not to do it, it was an easy excuse for me to drop out as well. The little training I had done was left by the wayside and I entered a few months of laziness. I don’t know how much I ever really intended on doing the Tri. I really wanted to do one, but I didn’t really want to do all the work involved (the story of my life).

Now my other SIL is doing a Tri in June, and I have once again started training and saying I want to do it. But this time I am fully prepared to make the effort to train for it. I actually have been training for about a month. I haven’t actually signed up yet. I just get scared that I will wuss again. I don’t want to be that person who always gives up just when they start to get close to the finish line.

Training:

I have been biking almost every day with Reese in the bike trailer. Sometimes it’s just a mile ride to the store, other times we make the 10 mile round trip to my In-Law’s house. I love the bike. I know I can do the 10 mile bike required on race day.

I have also been doing this “couch to 5K” program pretty faithfully 3x a week on the treadmill at the gym. I worry about making the 3.1 mile run required on race day for a couple of reasons: 1) I’m really a treadmill runner, not an outdoor runner. I like the air-conditioned gym and being able to see exactly how far I’ve run and how much further I have to go. 2) The run is the last leg of the triathalon and I’m worried that by the time I get to it I will be out of endurance juice. I figure though, if worse come to worse, I can always (horrors!) walk a bit.

Swimming- this is the part I’ve been dreading and putting off because I honestly did not know how I would fair in the pool. It has been YEARS since I did any sort of lap swimming. I was on a swim team when I was 10, that was probably the last time I did laps, in all honesty. Yesterday I decided it was time to face my fears. I bought swim goggles and a swim cap as the store and after leaving a screaming Reese at the daycare (still having separation anxiety issues), I entered the warm water of the heated gym pool not knowing really what to expect. The race includes a 500 yard swim in open water, which I understand is 10 laps(to one end and back) of an Olympic pool.

After my first lap I started to feel those feelings of defeat welling up inside of me. I kept swallowing water, I couldn’t get my breathing right. I’m sure I looked a mess. There was a few moments when I actually thought “Well, that settles it. You can’t do this”. I started to feel sad, that I wouldn’t be able to complete this particular dream of completing a triathlon when it occurred to me that there was nothing stopping me. Sure the first lap was hard, but not impossible. The only thing stopping me, was me! So I decided right then and there that I was not leaving that pool until I completed all 10 laps. I had to stop for a minute in between a few of the laps, something I won’t really be able to do on race day, but after only half an hour I had done it. By about the 4th lap I had gotten into a good rhythm and figured out how to breathe. The truth is, with each lap, I got more determined and more confident in myself and my ability to do anything I put my mind to. I finished the last lap and I felt like I could have done at least 2 more. I was pretty proud of myself, this being my first swim practice. I know race day will be a whole lot harder-open choppy water, cold, mass swim start-but yesterday gave me the confidence to stop second guessing myself and just do it.

Photography

Without a whole lot of effort on my part, my photography business is really taking off. I used to sit back and think-”I know I could be a much better photographer if I studied it, and learned more techniques, and practiced more, but I just don’t have time for all that right now.” The overwhelming amount of information to take in on this particular subject always sent me retreating back into mediocrity. But lately I have been voracious for any information I can get my hands on that will make me a better photographer. I have also been using willing friends and their children as subjects to try out all these new techniques and tricks. As a result-I have landed a few amazing paying gigs for the near future and my portfolio is growing in leaps and bounds. I am about to do a complete redesign on my site, including my new logo and custom watermark.

Instead of saying “Someday I would love to have my own photography business”, I am saying “What’s stopping me from having my own photography business now?”

Having a Body I Love

Of course this one goes hand in hand with all the training I have been doing. For the past year I have felt like I am in someone else’s body. My clothes don’t fit, I’m uncomfortable in my own skin, I don’t feel like I look good. Let’s be honest, rarely will you find a girl who is completely happy with her body. But I would just really love to be in shape and have a body that I am proud of. A body that fits into my clothes-not just one that CAN fit if I suck in and squeeze and stuff myself in, but a body that slides easily and comfortably into any piece of clothing in my closet. I have never lost a significant amount of weight in my life. I’ve never had to, I have always been active and normal sized. My weight has crept up over the years and now I find myself in the overweight category with no idea if I’m capable of getting back down to normal weight. I want it, I want it bad. But that’s not enough to make it happen. It takes so much work and determination to lose weight, and for the first time in my life I feel like I can actually do it, by myself. If I can do this I think I would be on the road to a fit, healthy body for life, because I would know that I can do it, and what it takes to do it.

So these are just a few of the possibilities in my life right now. What an incredible time I am having deciding which dreams I should pursue right now and which ones I will pursue next year, or the next, or the next.

Who knows? Anything is possible.