The Day You Couldn’t Wait For Comes Way Too Fast (Pt. 1)

Do you know when you put something in the calendar, like so far into the calendar, that you have to scroll or flip for a couple of seconds? It's early March, and you scroll through your calendar and mark OCTOBER 10TH - CHICAGO MARATHON. 

It is like a talisman for bad days once you have a date for something that you look forward to. You missed your bus? That's okay, OCTOBER 10TH. Got in a fight with your partner? That's okay - OCTOBER 10TH. Computer shut down and deleted your work? OCTOBER 10TH, my friend. 

So, this OCTOBER 10TH was special. It was my talisman to a year that was hard mentally and emotionally. And to prepare for this day, I had to go through some physically demanding days, training and recovering. And finally, OCTOBER 9TH came the eve before THE day. I was mostly nailing everything from sleep to nutrition to planning. The only thing left was to get my bib and stay in bed all day after that. As I ran to the Mccmorick center to pick up my bib, naturally, I did the one thing any vertically-standing thing should not do - I fell over.

****

I fell and slid head-first into a bench.

And I sat on that bench and waited for the air to come back to me. And I waited some more. And then I got up, and I ran just about a mile more.

I needed stitches. That was the expert opinion of the medic at the Center. So we struck a deal, I would get checked out at urgent care IF he would kindly bandage my head to pick up my bib. 

****

I got four stitches. The first time I ever got stitches. 

As I sat in the urgent care office, I tried my very best to recalibrate this experience. If there is one thing that helps me in a moment of pain, it's talking about somebody else's experience. So, I learned that my physician took a recent trip to Seattle. She loved the hikes and the Paramount Theater. I mentioned I knew those views well because I lived in the Lake Union neighborhood for a few months. As she weaved a thread in and out of my head, it felt like the memories of a place were stitching me up. I was grateful to be thinking of wide-open spaces instead of concrete and metal.  

****

As I write this, it is October 9th, around 5 pm.

I stopped counting down the days now because the day is here. And I will never be ready for what happens, but I will always be grateful for happenings. The thing about the marathon is that it does not discriminate when it comes to "accidents." If I had to guess, I would say that Murphy (of Murphy's Law) was a runner. 

Fortune favors composure. 

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The Day You Couldn’t Wait For Comes Way Too Fast (Pt. 2)

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is grief an ocean or a wave?