and runs and hates cancer and works a lot and walks the dog and cooks and reads when she can and laughs and skis and does all kinds of things, really.
A little ditty from a scattered mind:
Will you remember
The sound of soft rainfall
The gilded purple waves of beach sunsets
The darkness wrapping you in its blanket as you drove to safety
Will you remember
The milk to pick up at the market
The bill that you forgot to pay (your taxes are still due)
The way the stars looked that one night in Nantucket
Will you remember
The feeling of possibility
The hope for your future
The dreams you once had
Endless possibility.
A list, in no particular order, of things I’d like to do when all this is over:
Hug my mom
Eat at a restaurant
Go to the gym and touch every sweaty weight
Get nice and drunk with friends and then drape our arms around each other as we walk home
Thank a doctor
Look into protective plastic bubbles for my parents because the thought of their mortality is too much to bear, and now that I’ve spent weeks worrying about their safety, I can’t un-think it
Go to a concert
Become much braver
Run a race with thousands of people sweating and huffing on each other...and portapotties
Touch the subway pole
Go on vacation
Go back to buying groceries 5 items at a time, once a day
Order wine, turn to a friend, and say, “Here, wanna try some?”
Rub my eyes
Have moisturized hands
Get a facial
Get this heavy weight off my chest
Have my wedding
Go back to thinking of my dumb life and its silly problems
Campaign hard for whoever runs against this monster in office
Stop crying every day
Finally train my dog not to bark at every hallway noise
Return to NYC
Defeat the mice???
Live without fear.
I didn’t intend to get a dog in the midst of also receiving a cancer diagnosis. My boyfriend and I had thought of it for months, if not years. We were edging closer and closer, working up the courage to take on the responsibility, when suddenly, astonishingly, I was diagnosed with cancer. But then I was un-diagnosed - “downgraded to a tropical storm,” as I like to say. During a joy-inducing call from my doctor, I was told by world-class hospital Memorial Sloan Kettering that their pathology team would actually *not* call the results of my first biopsy cancer. It was a scientifically nuanced call with a highly accomplished surgeon, but all I heard was: “OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE!!” and a clattering of cowbells in my mind.
Following the downgrade, my boyfriend and I believed that we had simply had a major scare. We thought the main takeaway was to eat kale and sleep more and, of course, to chase our dreams! Live our purpose! Carpe the diem! In the thick of this “no day but today!” phase, my boyfriend and I saw an absolutely adorable black fuzzball listed by a rescue organization. I replied to the post so fast that there may have been little puffs of smoke coming off of my fingertips. We made an appointment to meet her that weekend.
Two nights before the adoption appointment, I had a sudden episode of doubt. I turned to my boyfriend and said, “I know that this is just a scare, but what if it’s not? What if the diagnosis changes again, and then you have to take care of me and a puppy?” We looked at each other, blinking into each other’s eyes and the unknown. Then we laughed and said, “Nah, that’ll never happen!”
Reader, it did happen. But before it did, one night before we were to meet her, my parents were visiting. I had two quick, lil’ announcements to share: that I had to have some biopsies done for a pre-cancerous condition but that it was totally going to be fine, almost definitely, just overly cautious doctors (spot the lie), and that we were going to meet a puppy the next day but it was just a meeting, who knew what would happen (spot the lie). While I’m sure there was some concern by the first announcement, the joyousness of the second announcement gave us something happier to discuss. We overwrote fear with giddiness and spent our last night as non-dog owners eating homemade sandwiches with my parents.
The next day, the rescue organization brought a nervous baby dog out of a van and put her in my arms. She put one paw on either side of my neck and nuzzled in. I did not put her down for 3 hours. I knew she was mine. We signed the papers and walked off to hail a cab, leaving a wake of cooing strangers on the sidewalk. Eventually, we made it back to my apartment where my parents met their new grand-dog. Everyone was joyful, thoughts of scary medical tests and iffy lab results pushed from our minds by a fuzzball who might just pee at any moment, on any surface, no matter how stain-able.
Throughout the first 6 weeks of dog mom life, I continued to need more tests. More confusing appointments with the doctors. More chew toys. More bites from a sweet-but-vicious little badger in my apartment. We signed up for puppy kindergarten. I scheduled a lumpectomy for a pre-cancerous condition. I played on the floor a lot. I told every nurse at every appointment that I had a new puppy. I looked at pictures of her on my phone in waiting rooms. I pulled all kinds of foreign objects from her mouth. When I was lying face down in a clanging MRI tube, focusing on not freaking the fuck out, I thought of her wiggly little body waiting for me on the other side of a baby gate as soon as I got home. I thought of how tumultuous her short life had been, getting dumped at a shelter and then loaded in a van before finally finding a home. She was so brave. So resilient. So happy in the moment.
The denouement of this hectic and uncertain phase came when I went to an appointment to remove my lumpectomy stitches. Instead of a quick snip and a “see ya in 6 months!”, they informed me that I had cancer after all. I’d spent the last 2.5 months trying to outrun this fate, believing desperately in my youth and health and vitality. And I was wrong. I wept for three hours straight, going through whole boxes of rough hospital tissues as nurses went through processes and details that I could barely absorb. When I got home, puffy-eyed and hollowed out, I told my boyfriend we had to talk, but first we had to go to puppy kindergarten.
If you are wondering whether a puppy kindergarten graduation can overcome the most earth-shattering news of your life, I am here to tell you: yes, yes it can. I spent the next two hours transported from my troubles by the antics of 6 puppies, in a room full of adults mostly just focused on if someone was going to poop inside.
Of course, this was all just the beginning. I not only got the horrible news, but then I had to live the horrible news, too. Throughout both the discovery of bad things and the living of them, the transformative effect of my wiggly little mutt never failed me. She was always my portkey away from scary thoughts and towards simpler ones. Concerns over whether the cancer had spread were replaced by concerns over whether her playful exuberance made her a pest to other dogs. Heartbreak over not being able to have children when I wanted to was replaced by an urgent trip to the vet to find out if kitchen sponges, when eaten as snacks, were poisonous. Nights that I should have been lying awake with racing thoughts were replaced by nights where I collapsed into bed, exhausted by the effort of training and loving my new, furry dependent. Ultimately I found that raising a puppy is a consuming endeavor, always focused on the next nap, the next potty break, the next meal. It left little room to worry about the bigger picture, like if I’d get to live the life I wanted, or if I’d get to live much of a life at all.
It has been 18 months since that difficult time. The dog is now trained, the cancer defeated. Still, it can be hard to think back on those uncertain months. In fairness to myself, the uncertainty continues. It continues through imaging and check-ups and a buried fear that lurks beneath every ache and pain: could this be disastrous, too? To this day, though, every time I become fearful or uncertain, I think of my wiggly, joyful little dog. So brave, so resilient, so happy in the moment.
The moment I knew she was mine.
The only cure for heartbreak: puppy kindergarten
I made it to work the day after my diagnosis. Why? Because I told coworkers that I would bring her in on that day. She kept me going. (This is us in a cab, en route to the office.)
10 days post-mastectomy. I would barricade myself with pillows and she would come snuggle. My therapy dog <3
I never imagined that I would get breast cancer in my life, let alone in my early 30s. In the fall of 2017, I felt strong and healthy, coming off of a summer spent training for triathlons and doing hard hill repeats in Central Park. Then came the Bad Things. It started, as these things do, with a call from my doctor.
When I hung up after that first terrible phone call, deep down I believed it was a mistake, some huge mix up. Maybe they had swapped some of my tissue with someone else’s, or maybe even my files? Perhaps a drunk pathologist? Some misplaced paperwork? Bad doctor’s handwriting? Hallucinations? Something could explain this, I thought. Resolute in my denial, I hung up and walked into a conference room and led a meeting. I felt no need to panic over this mix up that would surely be easily explained away.
Turns out, it was not a mix up, and it was anything but easily explained away. I’d learn that over the course of a full three months, in which my diagnosis shape-shifted, the bottom falling out over and over.
Before all of that could unfold, but after some follow-up mammograms that left me weeping all over various locales on the Upper East Side, I returned to a state of denial and defiance. It was the weekend. I had a cute dress to wear, and the fall weather was nice, and friends had invited me to a wine bar where I could eat something called a “Pig’s Ass Sandwich.” Somehow, I also decided to run a duathlon Sunday morning. Feeling cornered by an uncertain future, I fought back by doing all I could to reclaim exactly the life I wanted: full of friends and wine and fitness.
So, I woke up early Sunday and walked up to the race registration table and paid in cash. I sent silly pre-race texts to my Dad and fixed the numbers to my bike. Then, I raced my heart out. In the hard work of the race, I found my denial started to fade. My feet pounded along to the drumbeat of cancer cancer cancer. I chased down women who had no idea what I was facing. I wondered where I would be in a year.
I crossed the finish line 6th overall woman. As I celebrated a strong, spur-of-the moment race on a beautiful fall morning in Central Park, a part of me was convinced that this meant that nothing could be wrong. Cancer patients don’t run duathlons.
But of course, something was wrong, and denial couldn’t cure it. Months’ worth of surgeries and medications could. Throughout my treatment I fought fiercely to live the life I wanted, the one that felt like “me.” I told as few friends as possible, preserving their image of me in order to preserve my image of myself. I went back to work as early as I could after every procedure. I was promoted. I took trips. I got a dog. I worked so hard to remain my own woman, the one I wanted to be, the one who wasn’t diseased or sick, the one fully in control of her life and her body.
I didn’t realize that I had failed until July. Finally on the other side of pre-planned procedures and recoveries, I started to run again. Every slow step hurt. As I trudged through those early 2-mile runs, it hit me: I had clung to the idea that this experience would be –bloop!- over once the surgeries were done. Instead, I found that I was a different person in innumerable ways. I’d put on 10 lbs and my clothes didn’t fit. I used to fill my days with activity and socializing, but I found myself exhausted and headache-y almost all of the time. My sleep was haunted by both side-effects from medication and the occasional bout of paralyzing terror. When I looked down in the shower, the scarred body wasn’t mine. My future, my bank account, my body, my psyche - cancer had ugly fingerprints on all of them. I had fought to remain my own woman, but I was not. I was a new, cancer-owned person.
I slogged through summer runs. They slowly got longer, but not much faster. Suddenly, it was fall 2018, the anniversary of all of the Bad Things: the first ultrasound, first biopsy, first astonishing call from the doctor. Those memories obscured another, happier anniversary of a beautiful fall morning spent racing around Central Park. I barely remembered it, but a friend texted me to come out and watch this year’s race. I thought of my bike, collecting dust on the wall, last year’s number still attached. I thought of my unconscionably slow runs. Then I looked up last year’s slowest finishers and decided I could join them.
With this goal in mind, I walked up to the registration table and paid in cash, just like last year. I took the line, started with the back of the pack, and found myself passing people. During the bike leg, I found that I was passing even more people – 6 women, to be exact. On the final run, I caught 3 more. I finished 9th overall.
In the hard work of the race, I didn’t wonder where I’d be in a year. I didn’t feel tired, or even especially slow. I just felt the force of my body, legs pounding on pavement, searching for strength that I had forgotten. I felt like myself - competitive and somewhat fast. Active and healthy. Owned by no one and nothing, not even cancer itself. Cancer patients don’t run duathlons.
Post-race joy with my puppy.
This past September was busy and hard in the most pedestrian of ways - I was busy, I had too much travel lined up, whine whine whine. Anyway, I was feeling a little bit stressed. To counteract that feeling, I retreated to a beautiful land, set in a time when the idea of insane grifters in power was merely a punchline: 30 Rock Season 3. I was lying down and watching the magic of Tracy and Kenneth, Jack and Liz, when I absent-mindedly draped a hand across my chest.
I felt a lump.
Huh. The marble-ish thingy moving around beneath my skin was surely just a cyst or a gland or something, right? Aren't my boobs far too small to develop a dangerous condition? They've barely even developed, amirite (hardy har har)? The questions flashed through my mind in one jolt before I almost immediately landed on the conclusion that I'll be fine. I’d read an article once in O magazine that most lumps are benign, and it turns out that anything Oprah has even slightly endorsed is enough to keep me calm. Just to be sure, I did a Google search, where I found out that women under 40 are very unlikely to develop breast cancer. Thus comforted, I did what anyone facing a potentially life-changing discovery should do: I rolled over and went to sleep. I figured that if both of the Gods of my life (Google and Oprah) had confirmed what my own instinct thought to be true, then I was probably in for an easy explanation from the doctor.
I was not in for an easy explanation from the doctor.
I was in for months of painful testing that led to an ever-changing diagnosis, eventually landing at Stage 1a breast cancer. They also said I was lucky. (Okay, well, one doctor did say that I will "die from the disease" if I don't cure this now, but most stuck with the "lucky" messaging.) I really had no business finding that lump, which turned out to be benign, or the cancer that surrounded it. So how did I, a woman with no risk factors and no practice of self-examination catch the disease at a treatable stage? Quiet time with my dark-haired jokestress, Tina Fey, and fortuitous hand placement. You can put that on my tombstone, preferably in 2080.
It's actually the second time that my Sweet Tsarina of Snark saved me. Years ago, I was in a toxic work environment. Things were hard-charging and stressful, and there were times when I felt like a failure as a person because of my shortcomings in the office. Note to self: never feel this way again. It was a spiritually trying experience that frequently left me crying myself to sleep. And at my desk. And at friend's apartments. And on the sidewalk...I did a lot of crying in that time period. Enter: my bespectacled angel and her sacred text, Bossypants.
I started reading this book and, like any human with a pulse, it made me laugh. Almost immediately, it clarified something else for me: I was not put on this Earth to sell shit. I was put on this Earth to laugh and make others laugh; to try hard and often fail and still keep trying; and to chase my dream of writing stories that reflect misadventures in the prior two categories. I kept a copy of Bossypants on my desk for the remainder of my time at that company. When office life got me down, Tina's delicate forearms stared back from the cover of the book to remind me that I should do my thing, and not care if they like it.
But back to the present time. Doctor after doctor has told me that I have “an interesting case.” I get the feeling that we stumbled upon something at a stage when most women don’t have the opportunity to fight it, instead needing to wait until more dire symptoms appear. There was something about the specific placement of my hand that evening that feels fortuitous to the point of being barely conceivable. Perhaps I was guided by the divine. Perhaps the divine is…Tina Fey.
I need more time to achieve the life goals revealed to me via the sacred text of Bossypants. I need more nights in the blue light haze of 30 Rock re-runs, laughing when I should probably be worrying. Tina Fey, Shero of the Upper West Side, has illuminated my path and
It started, as most psychotic breaks do, with a pair of PJ bottoms. And in my defense, these weren't just any ratty pair of Kohl's pajamas. These were my specialty-PJ-designer, luxuriously soft, wildly priced, gifted-to-me-for-convalescing, multi-hyphenate PJs. It had been an unseasonably cool and rainy Sunday and all day I thought, "Mmmmm puttin' on my luxxxe PJs ta-NITE!" (I live a small life; you have to give me these indulgences.)
One thing led to the next and then it was time - PJ TIIIIIIME. I opened the PJ drawer. I dug around for them, and dug some more. I took tattered tshirts out. I put tattered tshirts back in. And then I realized: My beautiful baby blue PJs were gone. Gone like the summer wind. Desapareció. Ripped from my pajama drawer and therefore my dreams, never to be returned, dooming me to life of ratty Gap Body flannel from 2010.
That's the moment when my sanity, threadbare like an old PJ tee, really failed me. I went on a spectacular rant, forging ahead undaunted even as my boyfriend openly fell asleep instead of dealing with me. "I've never lost a pair of pajama bottoms in my life, so why would Iose these pajamas? The nice ones?! Are you fucking kidding me? " I continued to drop F bombs over pajamas as I turned our bedroom upside down, lights blazing, sleeping man in the middle.
Finally, I gave up. I resigned myself to my fate of raggedy t-shirts and shorts that should have been thrown out during the Obama years (RIP), and I went to bed.
I laid there that night, sleepless, tormented by the loss of luxury fabrics. The funk lingered into the following day - which, if I'm being clinical, was a piece of shit rainy day. That's the scientific term.
The melancholy of that Monday set the tone for the whole workweek. Between the lingering exhaustion and the haunting thoughts of, "Where are my pants?" I was a broken woman. I moped a lot and thought about how frustrating my life has been lately, and somewhere during that week I decided that my life should be titled the, "Everything Sucks World Tour '18." It felt like a logical, clear-eyed decision at the time. Like, yes, let's order up some merch. Let's take this thing on the road. EVERYTHING SUCKS AND NOTHING CAN GO MY WAY, NOT EVEN GODFORSAKEN PAJAMAS.
Thankfully, I've had enough sunshine and carbs since then to see that title as a tad melodramatic; however, the loss of those beautiful bottoms reqlly did affect me. It felt like something I really liked - a small thing, in the scheme of things - was taken away from me. And that tied into a bigger theme of my recent life, wherein it feels like everything good in my life is being taken away from me. Big or small, real or not. Time and body parts and capabilities. Coping mechanisms that normally get me through day to day life. Sleep. Dreams and timelines for my life. The image of myself as a healthy person, a lucky person, a person who eats organic vegetables and so is probably immortal. The kind of person who could get a gift and just...keep the gift. Use it, sleep in it, dream peaceful dreams in it.
Anyway, a week or so later, I found the PJ's. The pants that launched a thousand fits were tucked into a laundry bag in my closet - something I'm sure I did while thinking, "this is a great idea!" Because in case I haven't mentioned it yet, these are luxxxe PJs and, thus, must be specially hand-washed. LUXURY.
I felt stupid in that way you do when you've really lost your shit over something that was only half-real. Maybe my life isn't an Everything Sucks World Tour (and honestly, I've only cried in one foreign country this year, so "World Tour" is aggrandized from even a factual standpoint). Maybe I'm just being dramatic in the name of pajamas. Maybe the things I feel have been taken away are just temporarily unavailable, stuffed in a bag somewhere. Maybe they'll come back. Maybe it's all only half-real. I've still got one boob, anyway.
It was my first day of returning to yoga, my first true "workout" post-mastectomy, and I had a plan. I would arrive at class very early. I would calmly explain to the teacher, in a mostly-empty room, that I was working with a "significant pectoral wall injury." (Ahem. That's one way to say it.) Then, I would set up my mat in the deliciously sunny back corner of the room, stretch, breathe, connect with my chi, namaste to myself, ponder the beauty of the universe, and prepare for this lovely re-entry to my active life.
That was the goal, anyway.
Instead, I stress-crastinated at home until I was very late and then almost talked myself out of going. I finally threw on my "Brave" tank top and race-walked to the gym, huffing and puffing. I careened into the room 57 seconds before the start of class, flung myself in front of the instructor, and blurted, "This is my first workout back after a mastectomy. I have to be careful about my pecs." Then I set up my mat in the last available spot approximately one inch from the door and class began before my chi knew what hit it.
The first five minutes of class were nice - it was exciting to be back in the gym and breathing exercises were going great! The problem was the remaining 55 minutes of class. You know, all the parts where we have to do more than lie on a mat and breathe. I realized at approximately minute 5, second 1 that everything felt...bad. My entire body I felt heavy and immovable, like cement. Like I'd been cryogenically frozen and was trying to move before defrosting. Like the tin man? Like I weighed 100 lbs more than I used to. Like....something unfamiliar and unpleasant.
I felt like a stranger in a strange body. And in so many ways, I am. First of all, one boob is gone. Lopped off and donated to science or the trash - frankly, I'm not really sure where severed, cancerous boobs go. (Maybe I should have asked?) In its place, I have a semi-inflated tissue expander that includes weird bumpy edges and a piece of metal. It sits under the pecs, so my chest wall feels weak and tight, and my arm feels sore down to my wrist. I'm on a new medication, which, if it's half as effective at curing cancer as it is at giving me ripping headaches and robbing me of energy, is doing a bang-up job. And, on a less-medical note, repeated biopsies and the minor issue of a lumpectomy rendered me mostly unable to run all fall. My fitness was at a low point - and that was before I lost the boob.
Anyway, I wanted to leave. I wanted to stand up and tell the instructor that this had been a mistake - that I could not, in fact, do it - I was not in fact, brave like my tank top said - and just leave. But something in me kept me on my mat. Let's not be coy - that something was pride. But something somewhat kinder told me to keep breathing, to drop into child's pose, to be patient with myself. So I tried to do those things.
The minutes ticked on, and I realized that I was getting through class. I started listening to the songs playing softly in the background, trying to let the music power me through. Towards the end of class, as it was slowly washing over me that I would survive the whole class, "Leaving Las Vegas" by Sheryl Crow came on. It was an unlikely song to strike me but it did. I feel like I am leaving a chapter of my life - a chapter of not knowing, near-constant bad news, fear and exhaustion. And Sheryl Crow herself is a breast cancer survivor. She's alive and well and not dating Lance Armstrong. We're both leaving bad chapters behind, and I'm paving the road out of dodge with bricks that can be as big as a milestone, as small as a song.
It started with me and my little boob
Little lump
Little bit of worry, just a little (why would a healthy 33 year old worry?)
Little needle, little burn, little pressure
Little bit of atypia
Little bit of disruption (just one more test, one more test, one more test)
Little lumpectomy
Little cancer
Little bit of time off of work (I'll be back before you know it)
Little mastectomy
Little bit of invasive cancer
Little less confidence that I'll get to live life the way I thought I would.
Little bit of patience
Little bit of kindness
Little gifts and some big ones, too (my heart swelled with every box)
Little bit of faith
Little texts from friends
Little coincidences (arriving right as frayed edges seemed they would finally unravel)
Little messages in cards
Little signs of progress
Little black puppy curled in my lap (warm ball, lips smacking in sleep)
Little faith in others
Little hope for myself
Little bit of sunlight on my face.
There are certain joys that come with living with me. They include, but are in no way limited to: half eaten granola bars abandoned on countertops, the rare but reliably 1x/year locked-out situation, and an obsession with "smooth sheets" (post for another time). Oh, and also, lengthy, extremely repetitive bouts of verbal processing in times of indecision or stress or maybe both. My boyfriend, who moved in last fall, has been so delighted by these discoveries!
So, on the days preceding the glorious occasion of my return to triathlon competition, which were marked by work stress and numerous small disasters (INCLUDING A ROACH SIGHTING MY MF-ING APARTMENT; JUST A ROACH CRAWLING AROUND MY FLOOR; I AM NOT OKAY), do you think I was peaceful and flowing like a river? Or do you think I was screaming in my sleep and then talking to myself for hours on end while awake?
That's right, you smart cookie, it was the latter.
The key point of my insane equivocation, which again, my cohabitating boyfriend LOVED, was a borrowed race bike. While I do have a history of being slightly gear-challenged, every triathlete knows race bikes are needed for fast times, cool medals, and general Tough Looks. I had been in the market for one in 2015, when I was In Deep with the tri training and racing. My friend even let me borrow/possibly buy her TT for Nationals that year! I was waylaid by a nasty case of mono. I did not buy her bike that fall. I did not even get on a bike that fall.
But anyway, through some magical Sisterhood of the Traveling Bike forces, that exact bike - the one I should have owned had my immune system been cooperative in the slightest - was generously loaned to me for use in the NYC tri. It's a fast bike. I have a weird history with it. No brainer, right?
But.
But.
But I'd done all my training on my trusty aluminum roadie - and some of those workouts had been good. But my endlessly frustrating SI joint got cranky every time I got on it. But the handling was new and different and essentially felt like trying to ride a paper plane. But I was less terrified of being slow, and more terrified of crashing and not finishing at all. But the setup was for someone else's body.
But it was a fast bike and I would be fast on it? And the magic of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Bike had presented me with this opportunity and I should take it? I told you I equivocate.
By Friday of race week, my bf/roommate, who had so "happily" (no) been "listening" (checking golf scores) finally blurted out: "How is this even a question? You said you want to have fun and be safe so do that. Ride your own bike!!"
This was sound advice, and he had a great point. I did what anyone in a relationship would do when offered good advice by their partner: I ignored it.
Instead, I continued waffling, soothing myself with the knowledge that I did not have to decide until "tomorrow." (Note: bike check in is Saturday, and this was....Friday night.) Finally, I did what any woman whose significant other has just snapped at her does - I texted my friends. Specifically, the friend who first owned this bike, who is a wise, wise woman will shoot you straight.
I told her I had to check in a bike - any bike! - to the transition area in, like, 3 short hours. She told me to ride what I felt most confident on, because comfort and confidence will make me an aggressive racer and rider, while timidity will take away any benefits from the race bike.
She was right, and I realized it all at once: Confidence Over Everything. I checked in the roadie.
On race day, I got a very minor bike split PR on very minimal training. I can't attribute that PR to time in the saddle. There's only one reason why I could beat my previous best: I road confidently, and it worked.
Confidence.
Over.
Everything.
Just a spoonful of confidence makes the pain go down. I learned that from Mary Poppins.
When I was in 7th grade, I had what every nerdy 90s kid had: an LL Bean backpack. The double-wide edition. With my initials embroidered on it. One day, on the bus ride home from school, my daydreaming was interrupted by a slightly older kid who started yelling out, "BJ! Haaa! Bridget's initials are BEEE-JAYYY!" I could sense from his voice that this should be a source of deep shame and, potentially, legal action against my parents. The problem was: I had no idea what he was talking about. I wracked my brain for insight into what BJ could mean, coming up empty. "BJ, BJ...bad jerk? B....Jasmine? Butt...Jesus?" My mind was shooting blanks at as confusion rapidly ebbed into cool horror. However, as anyone who has braved middle school or a yellow bus knows, naivete was not an option. I did what I had to do to survive middle school Darwinism: I faked it. I turned around and, in my worldliest voice, tossed out, "Oh, I know; it's so embarassing." As I casually turned back to my window, the interior of my mind was a landscape of confetti question marks, floating to the ground like it was 12:01 on New Year's Day.
While my own horror at what I don't know has eased up since the bus years, I have had some similar experiences in the triathlon world. No, not sexual innuendos - cluelessness! There is so much lingo and jargon and unspoken rules of coolness that its taken me four years to admit - or more realistically, to even realize - how much I don't understand.
It was even worse during my first two years. Bike computers? Mine was set to KMH because I didn't know how to change it. Wetsuit? The legs on my first one were so short I had a deranged Peter Pan vibe going on. Transitions? My first one took twelve minutes. FTP? Cadence? 4:1 ratio? Heart rate zones? Bueller? Bueller?!
On some level, I knew that I should learn these concepts and perhaps prepare better. However, for the first few years I did tris, I was just having fun learning a new sport. I incrementally added to my equipment and slowly learned the "cool kid" lingo. (Also, shout out to myself for no longer having the slowest transitions in my age group.) In spite of all of this, there was one notable area that lagged behind: my watch.
For years, I had worn a large, cobalt blue, $40 Timex that I go tin the men's section in the aughts. I felt a lot of emotional resistance towards upgrading my watch. There was the cost, of course, but also, somehow, that watch vibed with my forever-a-bus-nerd interior. That old blue timex had also been on my wrist down ski slopes and on surf waves. It had done a few half marathons and many more after-work catharsis runs. If I had done all of those things with a simple stopwatch, why should triathlons be any different?, I thought. Why should I be a cool kid? Why should I look the part?
Sometimes, however, decisions are taken out of our hands - or off of our wrists. After many years and about 1,860 instances of a daily alarm that I never learned how to remove, the strap broke. Well, actually, the strap broke twice, because the first time it broke I just duct taped it and wore it around like that for a while. (If you're wondering: no, professional women with jobs should not wear duct taped watches. I digress.) Finally, I accepted the stopwatch's passing. The sands of time catch up to us all - even the keepers of time, even the beloved blue timexes.
With the Timex off of my wrist, I decided to take a chance on a Big Girl Triathlete Watch: the Garmin 735XT. I was slightly concerned I'd become someone who always needed to know their heartrate. Turns out, I have, but I have also simply enjoy the drip of information. It tames my perfectionism in a way that I hadn't thought it would - specifically because it tells me when I really *have* gone far enough, or hard enough. I've found it is more often an excuse for celebration than despair.
It also makes me look the part. It makes people at races more likely to come up to me and spew something about my bike's geometry. When this happens, I have no idea what they are talking about, but I have a long history of faking it. I just slowly turn around and say, "Oh...I know..." and let the question marks float through my mind like confetti.
Sleep with the angels now, beloved blue Timex.
*~*thx 4 the memories*~*
Dorky and excited.
Some things never change.
Sometimes you have a week that goes like this:
On Saturday, you are standing at a wedding, telling people you haven't seen in a while that, oh no, you aren't training for any tris lately, you've been working a lot, and that was a whole lot of stress in your life. These days you're just enjoying life and the occasional barre class, thankyouverymuch. Maybe you'll do a 5k.
On Monday, you're in Bermuda. It's beautiful, there's a beach and a pool, and you decide to do absolutely zero workouts. You snorkel one day, and it's the most swimming you've done in almost two years. At first when you put the flippers on, you zoom around until your boyfriend pops up to exclaim, "Hey, you aren't even snorkeling, you're just swimming! Slow down or you'll miss all the fish." He's a snorkeling nerd, but he's right. You were enjoying the nearly-forgotten feel of cutting through water.
On Wednesday, you're on the plane home. For the first half of the flight, you read a Runner's World that has a pretty awesome 5k training plan in it. OMG, you think, I am so smart and so prescient, when I was telling Ruth and Becky that I'd do a 5k do you think I knew the future? Can champagne make you psychic? Anyway, you figure if you start running for a few weeks, you can jump into the training plan and do some cross country races in the fall, too. It sounds good.
Later on Wednesday, you see an old tri coach's Facebook post. You read it. It's a link to an incredibly moving organization, for whom he is fundraising and competing in the New York City Tri. The tri is on July 16th. It starts outside your door. It's your favorite race. And he has another spot on the team. You reply with just a one-emoji answer - the raised hand.
And that's it. In the span of a few days, I came back to triathlons. I had felt good about not doing them and felt bad about not doing them. I'd missed them and also remarked at how little I missed them. But when I told Ben I wanted in, my heart felt light. I was thrilled to the tips of my toes, eager to take on this absurd challenge (fundraising and getting ready for the tri in *8 weeks*). I know, too, that I can't go too beserk with expectations or pressure - I have 8 weeks from eating fries on the beach to jumping in the Hudson, so I just have to try and:
Should be easy, right?
No more secretive writing.
Read MoreAfter years of writing on backs of envelopes and in school notebooks where I should’ve been taking notes...I think I've finally figured out how I want to channel this whole “writing” urge: by writing. (Duh.) Oh, and sharing! The sharing part will be key...
Read MoreI wrote this post back in February. February! It's now late September. Anyway, here it is....
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
I got off of my 15 pills/day treatment regimen for a nasty bacterial infection in my GI tract on 11/22. I consider that excellent timing, since it meant that I was finally feeling human right before the holidays. And you know what humans do?
Eat cookies. Lots of cookies. And maybe some wine?
Now, my lovely doctors who guided me to eat as many “nutrient dense” (hi, bone broth) foods as possible may find this approach disturbing, but I was intentionally lax with any sort of nutritional strategy during the month of December. My argument is that one can only live on quinoa and good intentions for so long. However, I acknowledge I may have delayed my own healing process a tad. I don’t even care, because coming back from months of illness was as much a spiritual journey for me as it was a physical one. So I ate the cookies.
And my abs looked like it.
Though I’ve never been one to weigh myself, I knew I was not in great shape. And it wasn’t even in terms of just strength, or fitness - it was also in terms of energy and stamina on little things like, oh you know, the stairs, hauling laundry, running around with the dog. I felt blah.
That being said, as a runner and triathlete I’ve had many nagging injuries that all seemed to come from the same root cause: weak core, weak hips, tight quads. If I was going to step away from the world of competitive triathlons, I figured I might as well take the time to address my underlying issues.
And then there was the matter of vanity. I simply wanted my body to look fit again.
I’d heard so many friends talk about barre classes, but they just never fit into my swim/bike/run lifestyle, so I’d never been. That didn’t stop me from signing up for a $150 new client special at Pure Barre, though. Go big or go home.
I took my first class on 12/31 and let’s just say I did not exactly shine bright like a diamond. I had to take a lot of breaks. A LOT of breaks. I could hold a plank for no more than 10 seconds, and the class’s thigh work was nearly impossible. This was a demoralizing realization for someone whose quads were crushing hills on 60 mile bike rides only a few months earlier, but I digress.
Though the first class was very hard and not fun, I went back. And back again. I ended up taking about 15 classes in 30 days. I showed up at that barre, in a room full of bendier and fitter women, who all seemed younger than me somehow. I showed up 3-5 times a week. I showed up in my cutest Lululemon and highest ponytail and chipperest smile. I faked it like I was rushing a sorority. I got better at planks.
And at the end of the month, I was stronger. I did not look like a supermodel or feel instantly fit again. But that’s okay. I got out the door, I did something new, and got back in the game….
And I did manage to get better at those planks.