Musings from a 9-hour flight, part 1: The journey continues

With the fantastically organized perspective of the teenage girl, I, like many, once viewed my life in nice, neat chapters. Married by 22 (to Sting, but that's beside the point). Fabulous career. Have family. Raise family. For some reason, it always faded from there, but you get the point. As I grew older, subsections squeezed in: run a marathon, qualify for Boston before I'm 40. The order of things started moving around. Then I dwelled way too long in one place and jammed up everything behind it. My nice neat chapters blurred into one big complicated story line. Goals for 40 became goals for 45.

And now, one day into 44, I find myself sitting on a flight back from London, 3 months or so from starting all over again with a new baby. I can't even wrap my ahead around what to expect, except I know we're about to be really tired and really stressed. I feel lucky and moderately terrified. I had fantasies about how if I ever got pregnant again, I'd run right through it. Instead, I've got a belly that already looks like I swallowed a VW, ankles that are just a little too similar to my 83-year-old mother's (just in time for summer), and a body that seems to have given up early. I'm torn between trying to start something, anything, and just riding out the next few months on Chik-filet chocolate shakes and stinky cheese.

The journey of late -- coming to terms that I love my job and don't want to leave it, coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy and a very surprised spouse, coming to terms with what the kids needs (at least for now) and addressing that on their terms, not mine -- has been immensely personal and not something I'm even tempted to try to chronicle. Suffice to say, it has been and continues to be humbling and many (by that I mean most) days I want to just crawl back in bed and sleep it all off. I seem to recall things like prenatal yoga and swimming and napping during my pregnancy with Jake. This time around, I am sitting with my feet up in the air on a plane trying to recover from wearing heels on the cobblestone streets of Stockholm, tired from trying to keep up with work back in the states and preparing to face some really uncomfortable issues at the office next week, and hoping to god that volcanic ash doesn't keep me from Em's first ballet recital. Perhaps most unexpectedly to me, I like this version. I feel more complete, more prepared, and more engaged with being a mom than ever.

For the two of you that read this blog back in the early days, the seminal point of its inception came from a letter to the editor in Runner's World that disparaged an article about Ceci St. Germaine (running mother of 6!) because she had help. The fact she had help somehow negated her achievement. It's taken me a long time to ask for help. But I get it now. And I got some help. It feels decadent, but it is also a reflection of my, and Mike's, acknowledgment and willingness to invest in where I am right now. I'm 44. Time for the kids is worth investing in. Time to talk to Mike about hockey and soccer instead of cleaning the bathrooms is worth investing in. My job is worth investing in. Next investment is all me: I still have a goal to run a 2:45 marathon some day. I still want to quality for Boston. I want to run hard to the point where there is nothing left. I want my ankles back. I carry no small amount of pride that I am at a point where I am making that investment -- it's scary. All my life I wanted someone to fix it for me, to buy it for me. At 44, my best gift is that I can do it for myself.

So, this is the absolutely most ridiculous time I can think of to start running. But maybe it's the perfect time. My days are an impenetrable wall of shit to get done. I can't get far enough away from anything to think straight. It's time. It's not going to be pretty. And it's not likely even going to be actual running. But I don't want to wait until the pregnancy chapter ends before the chapter where I get a finger-hold back on running starts because I know that's the part of the story that reminds me I might be able to pull all this off.