My husband Tim and I are very good at fighting. We're a very hot-and-cold couple; we're either passionately lovey-dovey or fighting with equal passion. And while the fighting times can be stressful, I always know that we'll figure out how to get through it. I know this because we always do, but also because my husband was married before, and when we got married, he said,
"Divorce is not an option. Homicide is, but divorce is not."
And he laughed his big huge laugh, which is a good thing. I don't want you thinking my husband has homicidal tendencies. He simply didn't want to go through the pain of divorce ever again. Makes sense.
Last night, we got into a pretty good fight, but I was exhausted from a crazy week at work and decided I didn't want to give it 100%, so I went to bed angry. I like to resolve things, and truly believe going to bed angry is a bad thing, but last night it wasn't in the cards to get to a cozy resolution. As a result, I woke up angry. What a terrible way to wake up! I rolled around in bed, mad as a wet hen, and then laughed at myself for thinking that for the first time in my life, I related to John Boehner and Rush Limbaugh. Man, I was angry! Grr!
And this morning, all of that anger motivated the hell out of me. The first thing I did was make a beeline for my new hot pink sports bra. (Did I mention that it's a size smaller than my other ones? And it fits?!) Unable to find it in my workout bag, I stormed topless into the living room, where my husband sat cheerfully on the couch. I should mention that Tim cannot get over a fight quickly. While I'm completely content to fight it out, get super ugly, and then make up directly afterwards, Tim doesn't work this way. While I need to get to a happy place, Tim needs space and time. And for Tim, his definition of time and space has something to do with sleeping. Give that man a few REM cycles, and he wakes up as cheerful as a Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher. It's as if nothing ever happened.
As I entered the living room, topless and angry, Tim bellowed, "Good morning!" This was followed by a wolf whistle. See? It's as if nothing ever happened!
Unaffected by his friendliness and his appreciation for my half-dressed state, I found my sports bra in the pile of clothes waiting to be folded on the dining room table (yeah, we're that kind of family), and waved casually in Tim's direction, as if he were no more than a simple stranger sitting in our living room. I poured some water for the road and went and got dressed to run. Still angry. While dressing, I considered that I could make up with Tim. It wouldn't be hard to do, especially after that wolf whistle. But I wanted to see if this anger would help fuel my morning run. It was already a steamy 80 degrees outside, and I'd slept an hour later than I'd hoped. I needed motivation.
I headed to the front door, earphones already in, sunscreen applied, rocking my new running shorts. I have to document this so my sister can benefit from ten straight minutes of hysterical laughter. I do NOT do shorts. I haven't really worn shorts much at all since 8th grade. They look terrible on me. But lately, I'm a bit of a sporty individual, and at 7:00 on a Saturday morning in a college town, not many people were up to see me anyway.
"I'll be back in a while," I said casually to that common stranger on our couch.
"Enjoy your run!" the man said, in a familiar cheerful Sunday School teacher sing-song voice as I slammed the door.
Normally, my weekend runs are the same for the most part. I either run/walk around the golf course near my house, which is a little over a mile, and I do as many loops as I can before pooping out. It's not exactly consistent jogging; I get lazy and walk a lot. Or I do some variation of that route near my home, figuring if I need to pass out, it should be close to my house so my family can come save me. But this morning, I went on a mission. Fueled by anger and a sudden stubborn streak, I logged on to my two walking/running apps, and said out loud to nobody but myself,
"I'm going to run to the Capitol."
For some, like the mother of one of my daughter's friends who seriously runs like 4,000 miles a week, swims about half that distance, and bikes around 8,000 miles a week, this would be no big thing at all. But I'm not an athlete. I'm just trying to get healthy here. However, it should be noted that the course from my house to the capitol is, in my opinion, quite hilly. The hill by the UT stadium nearly kills me, and that's just when I'm walking. I've never jogged up it before. Because I walk this route nearly every day, I know where the mile markers are. Mile one ends at the base of that killer hill. I got that far without collapsing, and thought about what was coming next. I looked up at the top of the hill, looked down at my legs, and then I thought about Meredith.
Meredith was recently featured on an episode of Extreme Weight Loss. If you haven't seen it, it's Extreme Home Makeover for big bodies. And come on, everybody loves a transformation story, especially if it's extreme. Would you spend an hour of your life watching the story of an average Joe who dropped five pounds? Never! It has to be massive and extreme weight loss to get our attention. As a result, Exteme Weight Loss is completely addictive.
Meredith's story is perfect for this format. She's beautiful (at all sizes in my opinion). Blonde with curly hair and a radiant smile, we love Meredith because she's overweight, but we can see how pretty she'll be once she's thin. I really hate that, but it's how we are. We want that extreme change. And also, we want to see someone get healthy. I have to remind myself that those weight loss shows are also about health, and not just looks.
Of course Meredith was adopted as a baby, and spent her life feeling neglected by her birth mother. Because she was overweight, she never felt fully accepted or part of her adoptive family. Watching, I got annoyed with her for being kind of a sad sack about the whole deal, as her adoptive family seems great, but it makes the story juicer.
I was totally sucked in. What else would we learn about Meredith? How about this: as a kid, Meredith wanted to be on Baywatch. As a child, Meredith's dream was to "run around in a bikini as a lifeguard on the beach." You can't act like you don't love a kid who's biggest dream is to be a mini Pamela Anderson.
The Baywatch dream was enough to keep me watching, but it got even better. Of course Meredith struggled with yo-yo dieting. Of extreme proportions. Meredith got up to nearly 400 pounds at one point, and lost down to the 200s. When she did, she got a tattoo on her belly that reads this:
"Believe it. Be it. 155."
155 is Meredith's goal weight. There are several scenes where she proudly displays her belly tattoo for the entire viewing audience to see. The bravery!
I will not give away all of the awesome details, but I do suggest you watch the episode. It's truly inspirational and super extreme. But this morning, at the base of the hill, I thought about Meredith's journey. I thought about the distances she was able to run, and how hard she worked, and that crazy belly tattoo. And I kept going. And going.
About two tenths of a mile away from the capitol, I nearly quit. There's a hill there that's nice and deceptive, and it was kicking my ass. But I kept going. I jogged through my anger. I jogged for Meredith. I jogged thinking about Charity Miles, and how all of the causes they support are things so difficult to face- getting clean drinking water, fighting cancer, getting an education -- and I powered through that last little segment.
And I made it.
I know two miles is not a big huge deal. I've actually jogged two miles several times this summer while training for this daunting 10K I'm doing in August. But today's route was such a big personal win. I said I was going to jog to the capitol, and I did it. I did some pretty ridiculous Rocky-esque celebrating. I snapped a quick picture of the capitol, turned around, and headed home. I won't lie; I thought briefly about taking a bus back home, but after I caught my breath, I started jogging again, and did another mile before I decided that walking the rest of the way home was completely okay.
By the time I got home, I was no longer angry with Tim. What were we even fighting about? When I came inside, and my terrific husband was standing in the living room, folding clothes on our dining room table, he looked a little amazed.
"How far did you go?" he asked.
"Four and a quarter miles," I said, proudly. "I ran to the capitol."
I can't say that being angry is the only reason I was able to complete my journey today -- I have been working at getting in better shape since the first of the year -- but it did get me going. So from now until I face the daunting 10K coming up in August, I may have to pick a few more fights with Tim. Perhaps if I keep up the angry running, I can run across the beach in a bikini sometime in the future and bust out my best Baywatch move. Surely Tim won't mind that.
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