Marathons and Sprints

After several days of warmth and spring hope it is back to the cold gray of late February. I'd actually forgotten spring was coming; I'd gotten so involved in the woodstove and books and hibernating that to come outside and see the optimistic sprigs of daffodils was a literal surprise. This reversion to the cold was expected and yet still manages to be a letdown.

Lately I've been thinking about running. Unemployment is a marathon and not a sprint and I've realized that this is true with most things. We are running marathons. Nothing is a sprint except an actual sprint.

And yet, I think in terms of sprints. I think short-term, I think here and now and do little to consider the future. I do it with relationships, friendships, finances and more; whatever feels good now is what I'll do. I distill my world to 140 character status updates, and do not consider the punctuation marks I use may not be correct. The place I put a period may be where God wanted a semicolon, changing what I thought was an end into merely a pause. I don't look far enough ahead to understand the difference.

The question I struggle with is how am I to learn to live a marathon life in a world that thinks in sprints?

I want to train to pace myself, to work up to the hills and stretch the parts of me that get overworked along the way. I want to understand that the blisters I get are not because I'm a terrible person or a failure, but because I am a person who is running and blisters happen to runners. In the marathon world, I must pay close attention to what I take in and where I'm going. If I'm to run the race marked out for me, training for the long-distance and not the immediate future is the difference between standing at the finish line and giving up before I can see it.

Valentines

Love doesn't look the way we planned it.

I Know the Meaning of Every Word

Preface: This is totally dumb but it was fun to make up. Call it a strange writing exercise. I decided I'd take words, break them down into other words then base the definition of the original word on that. So now I can know the meaning of every word, even as they are entirely wrong. Happy weekend.

Original word: Determination.
Deter: to discourage or refrain from acting
Min: little
at: preposition, used to indicate a location
ion: type of a molecule with unequal number of electrons and protons

Thus Determination means: “the small discouragement expressed toward charged particles.”
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Original word: Lifeline.
Li: Ancient Chinese word for ritual
Feline: Cat

Thus Lifeline means “the cat ritual”
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Original word: Turban.
Tur: type of pea or bean
ban: to not allow, to restrict access to

Thus Turban means “disallow access to a pea”
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Original word: Destiny.
Des: code for diethylstilboestrol, a synthetic estrogen known to cause vaginal tumors
Tiny: small, minute
Thus Destiny means “Small synthetic estrogen samples”
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Original word: Fundamental.
Fun: joyous, enjoyable
Da: slang, meaning yes in German
Men: adult male of the human species
tal: rain or dew

Thus Fundamental means: “Joyous males say yes to rain”
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Original word: Incumbent.
In: within or contained by something
Cum: male sexual discharge
Bent: crooked, not straight

Thus Incumbent means “Male discharge contained crookedly”or by its common name, penis.
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Ok, that was fun to make up. Stop rolling your eyes at me. I work from home now, remember? I have a lot of time to just sit around.

Pinata

In the future, remind me that drinking half a bottle of strong wine with one friend, then going to a Super Bowl party with other friends & drinking beer there, and not eating is a very, very bad combo.
Here is a favorite video clip as of late. Cracked up laughing.