Selling my soul to get to Javelina

I sold my soul to the devil at least six times just to make it to the start line of Javelina 100.  Each time I sold a soul, I wondered if I'd had any left to get me to the finish.

Remember how I vowed, or maybe just hoped, that I wouldn't spend August injured after reaching a new mileage high in July (as has happened for the past 2 years)?  Right.  I got injured.

The sharp, shooting pain in my knee began 2 weeks after Howl, when I was trying to run this local event called 24 Hours of Towers. I had no intention of going 24 hours. But I did want to attempt Towers 3 times (1,700 feet of gain each ascent) because the most I'd ever done before was twice. My quads were still sore from Howl the whole time, but on my second Towers descent, there it was, bright and white hot, screaming, searing pain on the outside of my right knee.

There was no point in worrying just yet. Javelina was 2 months away. I would get myself down the mountain, and this would pass.

Upper right: This was Will's first Towers summit. He said it made him feel tired and proud and hungry. Lower Left: Me, smiling at the top of Towers, feeling good for the last time in what would be a very, very long time. 

It would not pass.

The pain was really only there while I was running. I would take a few days off and then try it again, and sometimes I would make it 2 miles before the pain returned, sometimes only a quarter mile.  I tried everything. Rest, ice, ibuprofen, KT tape, strengthening and stretching, rossiter. I made an appointment with a knee specialist who couldn't see me for another 2 weeks, at which point, I hoped the injury would just be better.  But the pain always came back. Sometimes I could manage as much as 6 miles, by running a half mile at a time with a quarter mile walk break in between.  This felt abysmal and terrifying. I was always waiting for those daggers of pain to return, and they always came back, at some point during the run. I stayed on a miserable 1/2 mile dirt loop right by my house so that at least when the pain started, I wouldn't have far to get home.

Days passed, weeks passed. I became a very unhappy person. It killed me to see other people posting their long, long training runs and happy smiling faces. I took a leave of absence from podcasting with my friends about our journey to Javelina.  I knew I had to accept that there wasn't enough time, I wasn't going to make it there.

School started again, both for Will and me.  One of the classes I had worked very hard preparing got canceled, because whoever was in charge of putting it on the registration website had forgotten to do so, and therefore no students had known about it or been able to sign up. I guess I should have made sure that other people were doing their jobs, but I didn't check until it was too late.  Unlike real professors, when one of my classes gets canceled, I just don't get paid.  Maybe that doesn't really matter. I get paid so little anyway.  I would have said my life felt like a joke, but really it felt more like a waste.

Second grade started off somewhat promising for Will, because he seemed to like his teacher, but it was only a week until he cried when he got off the bus and asked me, "Mommy, am I dumb?" The education system tests children to within an inch of their lives (sometimes even beyond that), and Will knew that he had been placed into the lowest "reading level" of his class.

"No," I assured him, referring to the two minute conversation we'd had over the summer that changed everything. "You are not dumb. You are dyslexic."

I'd given his teacher a full week into the school year, which seemed like enough of a grace period. It was time to find out what the education system could do for a dyslexic child, and I knew, even as I tried to hang onto a modicum of calm and strength, that I was doubling down for the biggest fight of my life.

What I found out, as I went into the arena, was that it is actually possible to black out from rage. Like, literally pass out from anger at the response you get from teachers and "reading specialists" who don't do a fucking thing for the 1 in 5 dyslexic children in schools. These people often don't even "believe" in dyslexia, and they just look at you, blankly, showing you test scores that assure you your child is "below average" and then suggest that you sign him up for an after school homework club.  Sometimes, as an added bonus, they stress the importance that you make sure he keeps up on his 20 minutes of reading each night--completely ignoring the fact that he can't read because he is dyslexic and they are doing nothing to help him. 

To say that this fight has taken a toll on me is a drastic understatement. For two years I've had to listen to elementary school teachers tell me that my child is basically stupid and they can't understand why he doesn't improve with more of the same. I had to find out on my own what dyslexia is, that my kid has it, and what to do to get him help. It has been a long, long, long and very expensive road, and I am only on the beginning of it. For several weeks this fall, there were nights I went completely without sleep, days I went mostly without food, and I became a husk of a person-- feeling like I was only keeping myself alive so I could continue this fight.  In every way, I am shredded and empty.  

Outside the tutoring center. We will spend thousands and thousands of dollars on private dyslexia tutoring (not to mention, an official diagnosis) because the education system doesn't have enough money to follow the law and screen for learning disabilities or provide Free Appropriate Public Education to all children, even though this is required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. (A school reading specialist who hasn't been trained in the methodology that dyslexic children require is not Free Appropriate Public Education, but having someone called a "reading specialist" is apparently how they get around it).

Near the middle of September, Rob ran the Black Squirrel Half Marathon. After the race, I talked to one of his friends, who had also had an IT band injury, and he gave me the contact information of his physical therapist.  Her name was Teresa, and she used a technique called Dry Needling.  "I've never had an injury she couldn't fix," Rob's friend told me. And I thought, maybe this is it. Maybe I could still salvage the absolute shit show my life had become and make it to the start line of Javelina 100, the race I registered for last May when I thought that everything was going to be fine. I'd been injured for nearly a month, but I had six weeks left to train.  If Teresa could fix me right away, maybe I could make it, and maybe my life would mean something again.

I sent her a text. She replied. Her first available appointment was just a few days away, on that coming Tuesday, during the time when I had set up a meeting with Will's teacher and the school "reading specialist" who doesn't even know what the Orton-Gillingham method is. (Note: the Orton-Gillingham method is how dyslexic children must be taught in order to learn how to read. It was invented in 1930).

Rob offered to go to the meeting alone.

I sold my soul to the devil and told Teresa I could take the appointment.

Teresa lives in the mountains.  Way, way up in the mountains, like a 50 minute drive away from our house on the absolute edge of town, and she sees people in her home.  The last 10 or so miles of the drive are on a dirt road so steep that my Prius started rolling backwards at times.  She doesn't deal with insurance, you pay her in cash.  You sign a waiver saying that she's explained to you the risks of what could happen if she nicks an artery or nerve with the dry needles.  Each appointment costs more money than one of Will's very expensive sessions with his Orton-Gillingham certified dyslexia tutor.

And Teresa is worth every penny.

Sunrise on the long drive up to her house.

She spent nearly 3 hours with me on that first visit.  She figured out that my knee hurt because I have scoliosis. I've always known I had scoliosis and that my back is completely messed up, but what I didn't know was that this messes up my hips, which makes my piriformis pull on my greater trochanter, which pulls on my IT band, and I end up with pain on the outside of my knee.  She stuck needles in my piriformis so that it would relax, and she didn't hit any nerves or arteries.  It didn't hurt as bad as I expected, but nonetheless, I almost passed out. On one of the sticks, my muscle contracted so strongly that it bent her acupuncture needle.

The day after my appointment, I ran 5 miles.  And the day after that, I ran another 7.  All pain free.  None of this shitty half-mile run, followed by a quarter-mile walk.  I was running. For the first time in almost a month, I began to believe I had a chance to make it to Javelina.

My knee started hurting again that weekend, but I made another expensive appointment with Teresa for Tuesday. To hell with all the money we were bleeding out on dyslexia tutoring and physical therapy.  I would sell my soul to the devil six times over just to show up to the start line of this race healthy.

I managed a 27 mile trail run that weekend, 5 weeks before the race. I climbed up the thirteen switchbacks on Howards, and then I stood on Westridge, overlooking the mountains and Teresa's house somewhere below.  I sobbed.  I screamed.  I was so, so angry at what my life had become, at my meaningless PhD, at the future my precious child might suffer because the language processing areas of his brain work differently than that of neurotypical people. 

This is the place where I come to scream.

I made it back to my car at the trailhead almost 6 hours after I'd begun. I learned that there is a well of raw strength inside me that is far deeper than I ever thought possible.  I had eaten peanut butter pretzels during the run to keep up on calories, but I truly believed that if need be, I could run this entire race fueled by rage alone.

Every run after that was double digits. Every day. I went from zero to 50, 60, and 70 miles a week.  I reneged on my beginning-of-the-semester promise to myself that I'd use my time wisely-- develop other courses to teach in the future, keep on top of things in the professionalization workshops I was still in charge of leading.  All I did was run, and drive Will to his dyslexia tutoring (a half hour away) after school. If I was going to sell my soul to make it to Javelina, I would sell it all the way.

The family of Will's best friend invited him for a sleepover on the last night of September, and it worked out well for training.  I made Rob go with me to Horsetooth Mountain after I dropped Will off, and we ran together for 5 hours in the dark.  When most people worry about Javelina, they worry about running in the heat of the day.  I was worried about running in the dark, since I've had problems with nausea and migraines after too many hours of that bobbing cone of light from the headlamp.  Rob and I worked out the details of battery changes and pacing.  At midnight, we stopped for a minute to turn off our lights and look up at the Milky Way. It was October 1st, the day we had met 19 years ago.

19 years ago, I never would have dreamed that one day Rob would make me run up Horsetooth Mountain in the dark.

I kept running through two more weeks of big miles. My knee held up, and it seemed like a miracle. I gradually stopped worrying and waiting for the ever familiar stab of pain to return. I felt strong and invincible. Then, on what was to be a routine morning 20 miler, there was a sudden burning in my left ankle that I feared could only be explained by a ruptured Achilles. I managed to hobble home, but this knocked me down a dozen notches. It made me remember that no matter how good I was feeling, at any moment, the circumstances could change. If this had happened during the race, I would have had no choice but to drop.

A picture from that run.

I texted Teresa, but she was out of town. I panicked.  I gave it a couple of days, dosed myself up on ibuprofen, used my last pre-paid rossiter appointment, and applied massive amounts of KT tape. By sheer force of will, it held up for one more 82 mile week. 

During my last long run of this training cycle, it was 34 degrees and raining. Of all years, this year in Colorado, winter had already begun. This wasn't the best set up for attempting a hundred mile race in the Arizona desert, but it was the best I could do. I reasoned that if peanut butter pretzels and rage could get me through the heat of the day, at least I would be well prepared for the cold of the night once the sun set.  It was time to taper.

Last long run out at Lory

I tapered as hard as I had run. My body was completely beaten up. I'd accomplished everything I'd wanted to during training, but it had been so compressed due to the time I'd taken off for injury.  I was ragged, hungry, and jagged skinny.  So many other areas of my life had been lacking in attention just to get in the miles, keep up the fight as Dyslexia Mom.  My ankle was dodgy at best, and I ran very little during the last two weeks before Javelina.

Pineridge trail, if I squint and add a filter, it looks kind of like the desert.

On the Monday before the race, I wanted to do one more night run and try out the spare headlamp (i.e., the one I'd use only if something goes terribly wrong with my real headlamp).  I felt so terrible on every step of this run. I couldn't quite figure out why.

And then, there it was, the sharp, shooting pain in my right knee. 

I made it home, but I completely panicked. It was too late now to try to get in to see Teresa, or another PT, before we left for Arizona. All of this, all of this soul selling, only to be back in the very same place with the very same pain in my knee. Why did this keep happening to me? Why couldn't I just stay healthy?

Rob and his friend Stephen tried to calm me down. Pre-race jitters. It happens every time. How many races have I run, lining up on the start line with a nagging injury, even a stress fracture, and once the gun goes off, everything is fine? All of them, almost all of my ultras I have run with an injury.  This too would pass. 

I packed my bags like this was still going to happen.  After all, the entry fee had been paid months ago.  Rob's dad had already driven 1000 miles here to take care of Will while we were gone. There was nothing left to do but show up and hope that I could run through 100 miles of pain.

We left for Phoenix. Every time we got out at a rest stop or gas station, I walked around and my IT band snapped, my knee hurt. My ankle was marginal at best. I thought, you know what, I give myself maybe a 10% chance of finishing this thing.  It had happened-- I'd sold every possible soul just to get to the start line, and I didn't have any left to get to the finish.

Thanks for reading. Part 2 to come.

One year

May 19 was the one-year anniversary of our move to Colorado.  We celebrated the weekend before, with some big mountains at RMNP.

Looking out at Longs

Dream Lake

Once we were back at home, I wrapped up everything I had to finish with the class I was teaching.  Then on the 19th, Rob and I went to Horsetooth while Will was at school.

It was raining that day, as it had rained most of the month of May in northern Colorado.  Everything was wet or flooded, and the sky was foggy.  There was hardly anyone else at the trail.  I went all the way to the summit, for the very first time.

Getting to the top wasn't actually hard per se, at least not physically.  I mean, octogenarians climb Horsetooth, as do toddlers.  I just get kind of panicky on mountains, and also: The Vertigo.  My entire body was a point of contact as I slithered my way both up and down the mountain.  My arms hurt for a couple of days afterwards.

I was lucky enough to enjoy another few leisurely runs/hikes on my own while Will was still in school.

I have to walk a lot of it, but I really like the Audra Culver Trail.

I remember when we left St. Louis, I wondered if I would miss running around Forest Park.  

I have not.  Never once.  Not even a little bit.  

Even so, it has been strange to transition throughout this year.  We arrived essentially as visitors to this place, feeling--okay, it's probably a bit dramatic to say this, but-- almost like refugees.  Everything was new, everything was magic.  If I slowed down enough to stop and think about the uncertainty of the future, it was terrifying.  So for the most part, I didn't.  

Things worked out, at least in the short term.  One day last fall while I was getting groceries at the Safeway, my phone rang-- it was essentially a job offer, to teach a primate behavior course at the university here.  The pay was low and there were no benefits, but I wondered how on earth I had gotten so lucky.  This was the thing I could do, the one thing, without having to start my whole life all over again.  I jumped at the chance.  I did it, and I loved it.  These students were some of the best I have ever worked with.  The department has been amazingly supportive, and while I cannot be entirely sure what will happen next, it looks like I will continue to have teaching opportunities in the future.

I've never lived in a place that I intended to make my home, as in--for the rest of my life.  But here we are, this is it.  That thought is far more comforting than it is unsettling.  There's no rush to see all the sights, do all the things, figure everything out, because we have the next several decades to continue making sense of it all.  For the first time in my life, I finally have an answer to the question Where do you see yourself in five years?  In ten?  I see myself here.

And not just here, in Colorado, but here in this house.  This house that's not perfect and has given us a fair share of happy little surprises, but we somehow managed to get it even in the crazy real estate mess that's pushing practically everyone else out.  We were so lucky.  I don't know why the sellers chose us over the dozen or so other offers they already had, but they did, and we're here.  No more moving vans or boxes, ever again.  I will grow old in this house.  I am here to stay.

Thank you, Colorado.

Thanks for reading.

Things I will miss about St. Louis

I was going to go sit on the couch and write this, but then I remembered our couch is no longer here.  It is buried somewhere beneath piles of stuff in the moving van parked at the end of our driveway.  In fact, the only things left inside the house are our air mattress, a few last minute boxes, and a lot of empty echoes.  It is strange how much the house echoes when all our stuff is gone.

We’re leaving tomorrow, and I’m not sad.  Every once and a while, I get this nagging pang that maybe, just maybe, I didn’t try hard enough.  I didn’t give St. Louis a chance.  But that isn’t true.  I did.  I gave it almost four years of my life, and in the end, it didn’t work.

What I’m left with is a list, a very short list, of the things I will miss when we leave here.  Tomorrow morning.

1. Forest Park

I ran here, almost every day (aside from the last several months of stress fracture/tendon injury) on the gravel paths that perimeter the park.  It must have added up to thousands of miles.  I knew every stretch of the loop.  It’s really the only place to run in the city.  The only place where you aren’t constantly stopping at stoplights and in the thick of traffic.  I think if I wouldn’t have had Forest Park (and lived within running distance of it), we wouldn’t have lasted here nearly as long as we did.

Forest Park was the first place we went after my job interview, almost 4 years ago.  We were thinking, St. Louis?  Could we really live here? And we had a picnic by the fountains and considered all the miles we could run on the crushed gravel trails, and we decided, let’s give this a try.

I took Will back to that same place last week so we could say goodbye.

 

2. Wydown Road

This is about a 2-mile long stretch of multimillion dollar houses that has a wide multi-use path (i.e., bikes, foot traffic) on either side of the road.  Even when there is a 4-inch sheen of ice covering everything else in the city, the multi-use path on Wydown Road is clear.  In the winter, sometimes it is the only place you can run.  What makes Wydown even better is that there is a grassy median in the middle with a worn-down dirt footpath.  Because of the dirt path on Wydown, and the crushed gravel at Forest Park, I’ve been lucky to do very little concrete and asphalt running even in the city.

I ran a lot of miles here in the wintertime before the sun came up.

3.  Our house

I liked our house, I really did.  It was in a great location, and it had character.  It had a red door.  I loved that.  I’d never lived in an old house before.  In its 88 years of existence, I often wondered what kind of people had lived here and what kind of things they had done.  I never found any old love letters or anything, though, so I guess I’ll never really know.

 

4. Our neighbors

Our neighbors are good people.  There are a lot of kids close by, and Will was just getting to the point where he was becoming friends with them.  On nice days, we would go out to the park and Will would play stomp rockets or superheros or ride bikes with his friends.  I know he will make other friends in Colorado, but it is going to be really hard for him to let go.

 

5. These people

I hope they don’t mind my posting this picture of them.  I love these people.  These are some of the best people on earth.  They are my former co-workers/colleagues, and there are of course others who are not pictured in this photo.  These people were my family while we lived here, and even after I quit my job, they made sure that I got through the last few difficult months.  I am so lucky to have met them, to forever have them in my life.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, for always being there for me.

 

Well, that’s about it.  Everything’s packed (almost, at least).  There’s nothing left to do except try to get a good night’s sleep and then head west at first light.

 

Thanks for reading.

Why Fort Collins?

Ever since we announced our decision to leave St. Louis, a lot of people have been asking us… why Colorado?  Why Fort Collins?

Good question.

Strangely enough, the answer begins around a year ago, when we went back to Nicaragua for Fuego y Agua.  Some big name runners were there, including a guy who Rob told me lived and trained in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Fort Collins?  It sounded horrible.  Like the kind of place where the air is too thin to breathe and everyone walks around wearing coon-skin caps, with rifles slung over their shoulders.  

“No, it actually seems pretty cool,” Rob told me.  He mentioned something about mountains and bicycling.  Whatever.  I wasn’t interested.  I didn’t think about it again until some 5 months later, in July, when somebody I follow on Twitter posted a link to this LA Times article:

 

Fort Collins?  Happiest place on earth?

I was intrigued, because life in St. Louis was pretty freaking bleak at the time. My job was what was keeping us here, and Rob reminded me that he could work from just about anywhere the world (including rural Nicaragua, where we lived for a year while I was doing my dissertation research).  If we were really that unhappy in St. Louis, we could stop complaining about it and actually make a change.

I started doing a little research, and I found out that Fort Collins was no stranger to Major Awards.  It was ranked the 11th bike-friendliest city in the US, with some 300 miles of bike paths connecting the entire city and bike lanes on most roadways. In 2006, it was voted the Best Place to Live in the US, and it has remained at least in the top 10 since then. The indicators used to make this assessment include weather, commute times, access to park space, and incidence of stress-related diseases. Fort Collins, or Fort Fun, as some call it, was on the good side of all of these.  And, AND, in 2013, it was voted the safest driving city in the US— moving up from third place in 2012.

BUT WAIT.  IT GETS BETTER.

Fort Collins has on average, 300 days of sunshine per year, and it is the largest producer of beer in the state of Colorado-- home to at least 10 different breweries, according to my calculations.

OH AND DID I MENTION?  It is only about an hour away from Rocky Mountain National Park.

Things were looking pretty good for Fort Collins.  We had been thinking we’d try to go to the Grand Canyon for our summer vacation, but we quickly changed course and headed for the Rockies instead, with a list of things to check out in Fort Collins on the way.

The Rockies certainly did not disappoint:

 

But Fort Collins… was kind of… meh.

It was like Champaign-Urbana (a place we happen to love, but can never call home again), except bigger/hotter/drier, and every once in a while you could see some very brown, desolate looking mountains to the west.  

But true to expectation, everybody was on a bike.  I actually started sobbing when I saw kids riding their bikes home from school, because it is the kind of thing I want for Will so badly.  This would never happen in St. Louis.  Ever.  First of all, nobody goes to their local public school—everybody sends their kid(s) to a $20,000 per year, private, Catholic, college-prep school that you have to take 3 interstates to get to, in your SUV.  And second of all, the traffic in St. Louis is just too damn bad for anyone to ride their bike (safely, at least).  Fort Collins doesn’t have these problems.  Rob and I realized, as we were driving through the city, that people were actually following basic traffic rules.  Such as:  stopping at red lights, and going at green ones.  It really took all the terror and mystery out of driving.  And it was a beautiful thing, to be able to get from Point A to Point B without being sideswiped or run off the road, or suddenly encountering a vehicle driving towards you in your lane.

So there were a lot of things Fort Collins had going for it, but my assessment was, it wasn’t really as spectacular as the articles on the internet made it sound, and it certainly wasn’t the kind of place I was going to quit my job and move to.

Shit.  Back to square one.

After we got returned from our vacation, my work situation declined so completely that the only way I could deal with it was to make a spreadsheet entitled “Escape Plan,” where I compiled a list attributes important to us (Climate, Cost of Living, Schools, Running, Cycling, Public Transport, Airport Accessibility, Traffic, Politics, Altitude/Mountains) and ranked various relocation possibilities accordingly.

Eugene, OR: The public schools seemed okay and the cycling and politics were good, but it was too rainy, too far from the mountains, and would be hell of expensive for us to get back to the midwest to see our parents.

Ashland, OR: Closer to mountains but a surprisingly high cost of living and ditto on the difficulty of flying back to our families.

Bend, OR: Mountains and a little bit of altitude, but ditto, again on the expense and distance from our families.

Portland, OR: While I love Portlandia, I can never live in a big city again.  Also: rain.

“I think what neither of us is really saying here,” Rob said, “Is that we belong in California."

True.  But I looked extensively and there is no place in California where we could afford to live that would be a place where we actually wanted to live.  Plus: the political climate of northern California (that’s where we would want to be) is scary, and that’s saying something, considering that I currently live in the state of Missour-ah.  California never even made the list.

Some of the other places that we considered included Asheville, NC and Boone, NC.  I am intrigued by both, but I just don’t see us heading east at this point in our lives. We also mulled over Flagstaff, AZ. The city is the right size for us (not too big), it is at a decent elevation, is mountainous and supposedly beautiful.  Another draw is that there is some interesting stuff going on with ultrarunning in the region, but I don’t know— there are a lot of things about Arizona that kind of terrifiy me, and I’m just not sure if it is the type of place Rob and I belong.

Rob included a few suggestions of his own for the list:  Vermont, Maine, and Alaska.

Cold. Colder. Coldest.  I vetoed all three.

Was there no place to go?

I cautiously added Fort Collins back to the Escape Plan.  After all, it is affordable, has great public schools, and has a very active running and biking (and really any kind of outdoor activity) community. It's at almost 5,000 ft elevation and in the mountains.  Granted, these are not the beautiful snow-capped mountains of the Pacific Northwest; the mountains of Colorado’s front range are desert-brown and make you think of heartache and loneliness and panning for gold.  But it’s close to Rocky Mountain National Park, and even though it’s about 1000 miles from our families, that’s not as far as Eugene or Bend.  You could drive an hour to the Denver airport and get on a semi-direct flight to the midwest.  Plus, Fort Collins is home to Colorado State University, where I’m deluding myself into thinking that I might someday be able to find a job, if ever I could fathom working in higher education again.

But.

It snows 9 months of the year there.

And politically, it’s no Boulder (which we eliminated due to cost of living and an unexpected dislike for the vibe we experienced there during our brief visit); yet still, I couldn’t quite give up on Fort Collins.  If you line up all the variables on the spreadsheet I made, it is the perfect place for us.

By October, my job went from bad to worse to worst.  “I have to see it again,” I told Rob.  I wanted out of my job, out of St. Louis, but we had to have somewhere to go.  And it needed to be based on something a bit more concrete than a vague hunch that the bike paths and breweries in Fort Collins were the direction that our lives were supposed to be headed.

"Fort Collins is orthogonal to this situation,” Rob said.  “Quit your shitty job and let’s get out of this shitty city.” I couldn’t get past his usage of the word orthogonal, and I thought, Cara and Aimee, I wish you were here to drink a glass of wine with me right now.

So I bought a new, super-warm winter coat (it’s a game changer), and we went back to Fort Collins over Thanksgiving.  

As soon as the mountains came into view, I felt like, my god, I am home.

From the city, the mountains you see are the foothills: brown, raw, and heartbreaking.  It is more desert than montane, but then again, what makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well. 

What I came to realize on our second trip to Fort Collins was that the starkness of these mountains is exactly what I need.

It is what we all need.

But actually making this happen would be far more difficult than just speculating about our imagined lives there.

I would have to quit my job and start all over.  I’d have to pull Will out of pre-school.  I’d have to move 1000 miles away from my parents just as my father was experiencing unexplained vision loss that turned out to be a brain tumor.  

It was all very overwhelming.  Could I really do this?  Was quitting my job the right thing?

Rob and I looked at some of the pictures from our recent trips.  He smiled softly, closed his eyes a little bit, and said, "Blue sky."

 I sent a letter of resignation to my boss, and just like that, I was free.

 

As it turns out, once you make the announcement that you’re moving to Fort Collins, everybody has a Fort Collins story or connection.

• Fort Collins? Hey, that’s where I’m from!  It’s beautiful, you’ll love it.
• My cousin played basketball at CSU!
• Friends of ours just moved to Fort Collins from Seattle, they say it’s great.  
• Oh hey, I’m moving to Boulder next month.  Let’s me know if you ever need anyone to babysit Will!
• Fort Collins? I went there for a quiz bowl tournament once when I was in high school. It was pretty cool.

We also have a handful of friends and family scattered throughout the Front Range, many of whom have already helped us out during our visits, and all of whom have offered continued help and support as we move.  Let me just say: we’re going to take it.  We are going to take every little bit we can get.

 

Our house in St. Louis officially goes on the market February 22, and our realtor doesn’t think it will take long to sell.  I hope she's right.  I am ready for this, so ready.  My dad breezed through brain surgery with flying colors, and he’s going to be okay.  I’ve ordered my parents a guide to retirement and senior living in Fort Collins (surprise, mom and dad!), because they’re going to move out there with us, aren’t they?  I can’t really be 1000 miles away from them.

 

It’s going to be great, it has to be.  And I guess if for any reason it’s not, well then look out Eugene.  Or Bend, or Ashland.  Or Flagstaff.

 

Thanks for reading, and keep sending me stories about Fort Collins, or about how you once quit a shitty job and it turned out to be the best decision you ever made.  The thing that’s getting me through this is support and inspiration.

The things you don't regret

A week ago, my dad was heading home from the hospital after having brain surgery.  He had been diagnosed with a meningioma—a brain tumor— in early December.  For a long time, as much as several years, he had been having blurry, fading vision in one eye.  Optic neuropathy, the doctors called it, but they didn’t know why it was happening.  Finally, my dad had an MRI and they found the tumor.  Right on the optic nerve.  Leaving it alone would likely mean total blindness in a matter of time.  But taking it out would mean… brain surgery.

This diagnosis came at a moment when I was poised on the edge.  My job had basically imploded, and I was trying to decide whether I would stick it out for the remainder of the academic year, or whether I would give my two weeks notice and not return for spring semester.

The meningioma did it.  I sent my letter of resignation the morning after I found out.  We didn’t know what would happen next with the brain tumor.  Surgery was risky and terrifying.  I didn’t want my parents to be alone through this.  I didn’t want to have to parse out vacation days from a dead-end job I was planning on quitting anyway if I could instead just be there for them, indefinitely, if that was what they needed.

When news of my imminent departure got around the department, one of my coworkers told me, “You won’t regret this.  Time with family is so important.  You have to do whatever it takes.”  It was unspoken between us, but I knew she said this because she had lost her father a few years ago, and my situation rang familiar.  I wish I had been able to tell her how sorry I was for her own loss, but at the time I couldn’t.  It was all I could do to maintain a modicum of composure, and I didn’t want either of us to have a break down in the hallway, in front of people, on a workday.  I think I managed to thank her for her for her words of support, but what she said has stayed with me. I am grateful for that.

My dad's surgery went well.  Amazingly well.  As well as you could possibly hope for brain surgery to go.  And I was there for it, only by the grace of Rob’s bravery and driving prowess:  we were hit with over a foot of snow and ice and wind chills of negative 33 just days before the surgery was to take place.  Roads were still nearly impassible when it was time to leave.  The interstate was like driving on a sheet of ice for 4 hours, but Rob got us to my parents’ house safely.  Because he did that, I was able to be in the pre-op room before they took my dad away, and I was able to sit in the waiting room with my mom while we managed to pass the time until the neurosurgeon came to tell us that everything had gone well.  They had gotten the whole tumor, and my dad was in recovery.  We would be able to see him soon.

When my mom and I finally went back to the house that evening, I took it upon myself to get out pots and pans, make dinner, make everybody sit down and eat a solid meal for the first time all day.  Grandma Florence would have been so proud of me.  We washed up the dishes, and then I crashed.  I fell asleep out of pure relief and exhaustion.  This was behind us now.  Everything was going to be okay.  My dad was unlikely to get his lost vision back, but at least he would not lose any more, and my parents could pretty much resume their lives as normal.  

I held Will in my arms, and I slept for twelve hours straight. 

The relief and gratitude I feel now that this is over is immense, but it also gives me time to reflect on the drastic changes I have made to my life and the uncertainty of what will come next.  Will is no longer in daycare or pre-school since I quit my job (he is not eligible for his former pre-school, as it was offered through my employer), and I am at home with him full time.  In the past few weeks, we have definitely had our ups and downs, but the good news is that the ups are on the rise.  Before, everything was a rush.  Quickly, quickly, get up in the morning and brush teeth and get dressed and eat breakfast and go to school so that I can go to work all day; then in the evenings, it was always quickly, quickly make dinner and eat dinner and take a bath and read a story and get some sleep so we can do this all over again in the morning.  It was a never-ending cycle of emptiness and frustration.  Now, things are more laid back.  There is no rush.  We have all the time in the world.  You can brush your teeth now or 10 minutes from now.  You can play with this toy until you are done with it and then move on to the next one.  We take things as slowly as we want.

The support and encouragement that people have given me throughout this process have been tremendously helpful.  On my last day of work, one of the graduate students, who was a stay-at-home dad for the first 5 years of his son’s life, shared a key insight that he learned through his own experience.  “No matter what happens next,” he told me, “You won’t regret the time you spend with your son."

This is so true.  I think of these words everyday.  I don’t know if we will ever really make it to Colorado, and if we do, I don’t know that we will be happy there.  I don’t know that I will ever be able to find another job, much less another career, again.  But at least I know that I am claiming these moments I otherwise would have missed.  Like when the cold front finally passed earlier this week and the snow began to melt— Will and I went outside to play.  He got tired so we sat on the front porch, and he laid down with his head in my lap.  We both looked up at the blue sky and soaked in the sun.

These are the things you don’t regret.

Thanks to everybody who helped out my parents during this process; thanks to my aunt for texting, thanks to the friends, family, and neighbors who made sure that all needs were met. And thanks for your continued support of my giant leap into the unknown. 

Staring down the brilliant dream

In case you missed it, I quit my job.  We’re moving to Colorado.

It will be a while before we can tie up all the lose ends and get out of here, but when we do, we’re heading west and not stopping until we get to Fort Collins.

Although this news may seem like a shock, it was a long time coming.  You all know how I feel about St. Louis.

There is a smile on my face in the picture, but in truth, these have been very difficult days and many, many months of sleepless nights.  

In the end, I was just done with this.  Done, done, done.  Done.

It didn’t help matters that the temperature was 8 below (they had that Siberian Cold Front) in Fort Collins on the day I sent my resignation, but I did it anyway.  

Friday was my last day:

My co-workers threw a going away party for me, even though I had asked them not to.  They gave me gifts and wished me well.  I will miss them terribly. (I already do).

This is tough because I have no idea what lies ahead.  I’ve got no job and no plan.  Not where I thought I’d end up in my 30’s.  I mean, I was a high school valedictorian.  Phi Beta Kappa.  Magna Cum Laude. I have a PhD.  But I’ve been staring down the brilliant dream for too long.

After I had a child, I knew I couldn’t handle, didn’t even want, and wasn't qualified for an academic career.  I tried to stay in the game with an office job tangentially related to my degree, but I only ended up burned out, exhausted, and jaded beyond all belief.  

I am overwhelmed at the thought of having to pick up the pieces and start completely over, but at least when I do, I will have Rob and Will and a place with an amazing view.  Raw, desolate, beautiful.

Thanks for reading.

Things I did after work today

1 load of laundry (but did not fold)

Made dinner (okay, I really just reheated some leftover refried bean and cornbread vegan casserole, but I had to make a completely separate dinner for Will because he wouldn't eat that)

Cleaned downstairs bathroom

Cleaned up kitchen, including scrubbing sink and stove

Packed my lunch for tomorrow

Made 1 tube of vegan lip balm, for myself (I had run out).

Attempted to fix my beloved, broken Asics running hat (that I won at a Body N Soul ladies night, circa 2004 and have worn on virtually every run I have done since then) with super glue.  (The material covering the brim of the hat has become unstitched, has since unraveled and steadily worn away).  This did not work and in fact, formally ruined the hat.

Attempted to fix Will's falling-apart Soft Star vegan shoes with the same super glue.  Was slightly more successful than with my hat.

Scrubbed kitchen and dining room floor, on my hands and knees

Bathed Will and brushed his teeth

Removed Will's 3T clothes from drawers and replaced with his new-to-him 4T clothes from Cousin Logan, while Rob reviewed animal names in Spanish with Will

Read Will Ask Mr. Bear

Scrubbed tub and bleached shower curtain and bathmat (yes, I know bleach is bad)

40 crunches on exercise ball

Helped Will go to the bathroom, again, and put him back to bed

Listened to about 20 minutes of Rob's new podcast (which you can download here).  It is good.  Really good.

Graded ~10 essay exams (note: I am not paid to do my job when I have to do it "on my own time," which is frequent)

Helped Rob search for an image to use as the cover of his new podcast, Race Condition.  This* is what we came up with: 

*50 points to the person who can identify where and when this photo was taken!

 

All of this was after having gotten up at 6am, run, and worked a full day.

I am burned out, and really f*cking exhausted. 

The laundry still needs folded, and I still have 21 more essay exams to grade.  It is now 11:32pm and this whole thing starts all over again at 6:00* in the morning.

*Edit: Actually, I got up at 5:20 the next morning for a grand total of 5 hours of sleep!

Oh yeah, and by the way, I signed up for the Frisco Railroad Run.  So I'll be running a 50 mile race in 4 days.

Something's got to give.