When in doubt or turmoil, think about running

I woke up at 4 a.m. and could not get back to sleep. Why am I making myself so wound up about going to the unemployment office today? Ugh, I am dreading it -- being talked down to, getting nowhere, it's Christmas week, blah blah blah. I picture it to be a cross between the post office and the DMV. A couple of weeks ago I had an unpleasant experience with a CTA (that's our transit system, for you non-Chicagoans) worker. Long story short, she was going to ticket me for pulling my car up behind a disabled bus and was rather nasty about it when I explained I was dropping off my kid to catch his bus to Iowa. But she then disappeared and left me standing there, feeling like a dummy, and when she finally returned to her car she wouldn't answer me or even look me in the eye when I asked her if she was still going to ticket me or could I go now? I hate, hate, hate that frustration of being talked down to, as if I am no one.

So, when one is not sleeping and feeling all angsty, what do you do? Think deep thoughts and search for metaphors to make sense of it. (Oh lord yes, I do need to remember to take some Tylenol PM tonight and spare the world too many of my poetic outlooks on life, haha!)

I think what is driving me a little crazy is that by most accounts, things are hanging in there, despite my losing my job. The baby's healthy and coming in less than three months. The little toddler man is wonderful and adorable (and now can say "Da Bears" and "Cago Beers", his way of saying "Chicago Bears", very cute!).
The teenager's a teenager, haha, but mostly behaving :-). Of course, everytime I think of him I think of how he's been accepted to the University of Iowa (so unbelievably proud of him) and then I have a panic attack on how we will finance this. OK, back to the positive: I've had some very interesting job interviews lately, which gives me hope. So I keep telling myself, as do others, that it's not that bad. And yet I fret, fret deeply, new knots twisting themselves inside me despite my mental attempts at telling my critical and over-thinking brain to SHUT UP.

I keep a log of my running mileage. Lots of runners do. I'm already at my highest mileage year since I started really running regularly (and logging the miles in a ratty notebook) in 2007, the year I attempted my first marathon, the ill-fated Chicago marathon. (That's the one that was hot and got canceled midway. I still say I woulda finished it otherwise!)

2007: 735 miles (Year highlights: my first half and full marathons. Oh, and quitting smoking after 15 years. Woohoo!)
2008: 718 miles (Year highlights: pregnancy miscarriage first week of the year, decided to do the St. Louis marathon in April and finished it, yay! Juggled injuries to knees from what I would later learn was a really weak core. Got pregnant that summer with the little toddler man. :-) )
2009: 600 miles (Yes, I crammed in a bunch of miles in December to get to an even 600. Weird, I know. Highlights include giving birth to the little toddler man in April; running a lousy half marathon in July because I overestimated what I could do post-partum; but ran a PR in a half marathon in September, woohoo!)
2010: I'm at 916 miles right now, and figuring I'll get another 32 miles made up of 4 and 5 mile runs by the time all you non-pregnant folks are toasting at midnight. Yay, record year for me! I ran nearly two marathons (see below), three half marathons with a PR in June at one of them and two halfs during my pregnancy with the current wee one. It was a really good running year.

In thinking about 2010, I come to my little metaphor that helps me keep some perspective. I revved up at the beginning of the year to train for the Lincoln, Nebraska marathon in May. My home state, the race starts and ends at the beloved U of N stadium, home of the Cornhuskers. I marched on that field in high school (I was a flag girl with the marching band, cheerleader skirt and boots and all). It was going to be my post-partum marathon comeback and more.

Unfortunately the race was a disaster. I could not stop overheating on the sunny and nearly 60 degree day. I made a lot of mistakes, going out too fast, not fueling enough early on, and I think running through winter I just wasn't ready for "warmer" temps. I dropped out at mile 17, tearful and discouraged. After sulking and fretting for a day, I signed up for the Rockford, IL, marathon to be held two weeks later. The Rockford marathon wasn't pretty, but I finished it. So I'm telling myself that this whole job/unemployment thing is just another Lincoln/Rockford marathon chapter. You just don't know what's going to happen during a marathon when you line up at the start line that morning. But if you stick with it, you'll eventually finish that damn race, even if it's not the race you dream of having. That's my two cents from insomnia world. If you've actually read through this whole thing, I am touched. And wondering about you a little bit, haha. Thank you. :-)