It's a Start

So, in July 2009, I fell in love.

Doesn't sound too momentous, but this is actually the first time I'm admitting it. I fell in love. Hard. I met him online and we clicked immediately. Always had stuff to talk about. Crazy physical attraction. I was sure he was the one. I don't have a lot of relationship experience, so I didn't notice the warning signs until it was too late. I mean, when you make a habit of crushing on unavailable (usually married) men, the signs are always that it's not going to work. Dating a straight single guy? The signs are all different. At any rate, I missed them, and six weeks after I fell head-over-heels, it was all over but the crying.

Maybe if there was more crying, it would have been easier to deal with. I cried a lot while things were falling apart, and I cried a lot in my therapist's office, but I had to go to work, teach, interact with people, and while everyone knew I was sad, I didn't really talk too much about what I was going through. As a result, I went into a state of mourning. Mourning for the relationship that seemed to have so much promise. Mourning for my 34 years of loneliness. Mourning for the fact that I'm in a town I don't like, in a job I'm not sure I can keep, with friends who aren't "kindred spirits" or if they are have too much of their own lives to deal with to be the type of "bosom friend" I need in my life. (Don't hate on the Anne of Green Gables references.) I went into mourning. Which is a nice way of saying that I was depressed for a good 4 months. I lost interest in the people and things that used to keep the loneliness at bay. I sat on my couch and watched tv and kept the outside world away. Sure, I hung out with people; I went to work. But I didn't engage with anyone or anything.

I started pulling out of malaise in February, but I realized that I had dug myself into a hole. I had largely stopped running, my go-to self-help for the previous two years. I tried to start running again, but it was painful and I didn't enjoy it. So, I signed up for a marathon. I have until October 3 to get myself into fighting form. March was a pretty good month, but I allowed myself to find excuses, and I stopped running again in April. So here it is, May 2, and I am determined to be ready in 5 months and a day come Hell or high water.

To start, I ran 3 miles this evening. It's a start. I also plan to do p90x. I'm going to buy a planner tomorrow and keep track of my daily running, fitness and research goals (because my professional life is going to crumble on me soon if I don't get my carcass in gear). I'm going to track my progress and hopefully, I'll be motivated to keep moving forward.

Still, it's almost 11 pm and I have a ton of reading to do for tomorrow, a lecture to finish, a study guide to prepare, a final exam to write, 6 sets of reviews to grade and more reading for Wednesday. Will I be able to cobble everything together? Yes. Will it be fantastic? No. Will it be good enough? I hope so. Can I get better? I have to.

Where will I find my motivation? It's trite to say that I will find it within myself. But it's also true.

Day 1 (May 2): 3 miles

It's a start.