That’s me, a few years ago - at the very end of a half-marathon. My third half-marathon.

This morning three of my friends ran a race. It was a 5K in our neighborhood, and I couldn’t bring myself to go, even so I could cheer them on. I’m in a funk about running…something I used to absolutely love.

A little introduction about me and my relationship with running…and weight…and emotions. I was a pretty proportional person weight and height-wise until college, where drinking my weight in ounces of beer and then going home and eating nachos or pizza or five packets of Easy Mac made with my trusty Hot Pot packed about twenty extra pounds on my frame. I didn’t work out at all during college, and that trend pretty much continued throughout my early 20s. I took a walk every once in awhile down my wooded, hardly-ever-traveled Egg Harbor road - but that was the extent of it.

I wish I could say that I came to running through my own senses — but it was the sense of someone else - and how he didn’t want to be with me - that initially put the idea of running into my head. A friend, who had run a bit, said to me, “I think we should run that new Door County Half Marathon that they’re putting on. I have a running schedule and everything that I could write out for you.”

“Yeah…I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, I’ve never run before. I’m the same girl that used to take the shortcut run during soccer practice that made our normal five mile run three miles.”

And then she said the magic words. “Well, it’s a plan, so you work up to running the miles. And — we would look SO amazing if we put in all of the work.”

I looked down at my jeans - the largest pair in my closet that I could barely get buttoned that night. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”

I left her house, drove home, and the next day, got up and ran five miles.

Ha! KIDDING. Actually, I left her house, drove home, and scarfed down an entire box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. At one in the morning.

The next day, I looked at the running schedule that she had painstakingly written for me. Eighteen weeks of running. The first week was three two-mile runs and a bit of crosstraining. That didn’t look so bad. I could totally do that. After work the next day, I drove to the Fish Creek YMCA, where I had actually been paying for a membership that I hadn’t used in the past year (the product another ill-fated “I’m-gonna-join-the-Y-and-lose-twenty-pounds” decision), got on a treadmill, and sputtered through two miles. I’d had just been through a breakup with a man I had dated for four years, and then another breakup with the guy I rebounded with after that. I was a child of a messy divorce. And yet, running those two miles was the hardest thing I thought I had done. (Since then, I’ve moved to Chicago with no job and hardly any money - in the dead of winter. This might have been more difficult than those two miles.)

I hated it. But not so much that I didn’t go back again the next day. Running sucked, but it started getting easier. I started getting a little faster. I started to not think about the fact that I was running three or four or five miles and started to finally process some of the things that I needed to - all that emotional stuff about where my life had gone wrong (it hadn’t), or what was wrong with me (well, that I was too hard on myself). And at the same time, my jeans started fitting better. I was eating to fuel my body - something I had never even thought of before. Eight weeks into training, I went on a trip with my parents to the Dominican Republic, and did a dance routine in the dressing room of a department store because size 8 fit me better than the 10’s and 12’s I had worn for the past SIX years.

Of course, I wouldn’t be telling the whole story if I didn’t mention the setbacks. Because there were more than a few. For a long time, I couldn’t get over the hump of running more than five miles. Mentally, it scared the crap out of me. And there was a three-week stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas where drinking brandy slushes and eating Christmas cookie icing seemed a lot more tasty than chicken breasts and salads and running. Eventually, I hit my stride, and the weeks flew by. I felt centered, strong, and ready to run that half-marathon in May.

I can’t even tell you how amped I was to run my first race. Armed with my iPod full of Jay-Z and A Tribe Called Quest songs, I couldn’t wait to start. I won’t bore you with the details here, but the race was hilly and hard – but seeing my parents, my best friend, and my then-boyfriend at the hardest parts with huge signs that said “GO MEL GO!” made it easier. Runner’s World Magazine did an article on running mantras a few months ago, and I had two that I kept repeating over and over: “You do NOT have to go pee” and “Chocolate Milk.” The peeing one was because I always felt like I had to pee on long runs, and chocolate milk because I knew my mom had a cold one waiting for me at the end of the race.

I finished the race in a little over two hours, and within three hours, was already planning the next race I would run. And I ran another that fall – a destination race in San Antonio, and then the Door County half again the next spring. I signed up for the NYC Marathon…and got in. A marathon seemed do-able for the first time in…well, forever. I went to a friend’s wedding in a size 6 black strapless dress. Men were flirting with me. Men had never flirted with me.

Something started happening, though. It was slow, but it was constant. Pretty soon, I wasn’t excited about running anymore. It all took too much time. Time I didn’t think I had. I would put off runs until it was too dark to do them – opting to clean my house (which I’ve always used as a form of procrastination), spend time with Zack, write a Peninsula Pulse article (which used to be the thing I would put off before I started running). The weight started to creep back on, and my centered self started to, well, uncenter (decenter?)

(This thing is getting too damn long. I bet no one read past the fifth paragraph. And I’ve gotta get to Trader Joe’s. To be continued, okay?)

For all of the times that I think that I don’t want the big wedding, the frilly dress, the hair updo and all the guests….there’s also all the times that I do. I can totally see myself 50 years old and not married as a result…I’m a little indecisive.

For all of the times that I think that I don’t want the big wedding, the frilly dress, the hair updo and all the guests….there’s also all the times that I do. I can totally see myself 50 years old and not married as a result…I’m a little indecisive.

It feels like forever ago, but once upon a time, yours truly used to compete in speaking contests. I was a ham when I was in grade school, and LOVED to compete in anything that was remotely related to academics, so it seemed like a pretty natural fit for me. I wish I could remember what I spoke about at those 4H-sponsored contests – although I do have a distant memory of being a third-grade student and writing a persuasive speech (well, as persuasive a speech as one can write when they’re eight) about why the laughing hyena, not the badger, should be the state animal of Wisconsin.

Fast forward over twenty years. I’m working a part-time job at a private school in the north suburbs of Chicago. It’s only been a little over a month, but I can say with honesty that I already love this job. I love the people, the message of the school, and the amazing education we’re giving these students. I am thrilled to be a part of things, bouncing from classroom to office to lunchroom to interview teachers and students about different events and accolades. One of the teachers just got accepted into an intensive summer language program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. Another was nominated for a Golden Apple Award. As one who wanted to be a teacher for a long time “when I grew up,” my heart swells for all of the pure good these people are doing – and how it translates into the world-class education the students receive as a result.

Oh, dear…the usual Melissa-is-getting-off-topic babble. To bring this story back around, this week I had the pleasure of sitting in on trials for an Upper School speaking contest. This speaking contest is something that the students participate in all four years of Upper School, from fifth through eighth grade. Knowing that public speaking is a skill that people will use for the rest of their lives, this school has put it into their curriculum. EVERY student prepares a speech. And they do it for four years.

I had a fantastic education at my small public school, but I chose to do public speaking on my own accord – it’s just something that my school didn’t really put any emphasis on. It wasn’t until I got to college and enrolled in a public speaking course that I was able to see how beneficial it really was.

My point is – these speaking contest trials blew my mind in a way that I wasn’t prepared for. It was just EVERYTHING – the poise, the topics chosen, the eye contact and the well-placed gestures (how many fifth-graders want to make eye contact?). A sixth-grade student wrote a speech about the perils of procrastination. As a result, I learned that I am a “perfectionist procrastinator” – a person who procrastinates on assignments because I am afraid of failure. I learned that Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address the day before he delivered it – and that he edited in “on the fly.” Everything about these students radiated poise, confidence, and the assurance that they knew their topics like the back of their proverbial hands.

There were funny moments, too – one student, delivering a speech about Michael Jordan, told an audience of his peers that one of Jordan’s heralded accomplishments include “being in the movie Space Jam with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.”

Sometimes, when feel like the weight of the world is a bit suffocating, I wonder what exactly this generation of children will be left with. I mean, my generation inherited so much – a war or two, a debt crisis, a recession, and more environmental issues than I care to count. And really, that’s just the beginning. But looking at those kids up at that podium this week was the first time I really believed even though the future might be a lot to handle, we’re also giving them the tools to be able to weather all of it. And that made the future even brighter for me – and the children I may choose to have someday.

In almost a year and a half of living in Chicago, I still hadn’t been to Navy Pier - so I was actually pretty pumped when I learned I’d have to pick up my Shamrock Shuffle 8K packet at the Pier’s Festival Hall. I’m not sure if it was the swarm of people or the mild crispness in the air that usually preceeds a spring rain, it felt good to be out there. Alive.

I’ve always loved Ferris wheels, and one of my small-ish regrets in life is not riding the London Eye when I had the chance several years ago. I plan to hop on the wheel at Navy Pier this summer…but for now, this photo will have to do.

A Chicago cocktail bar that I’ve had the pleasure to work at for nearly a year, In Fine Spirits Lounge in Andersonville, will close its doors tomorrow at the end of service to reconcept and become a fine-dining restaurant and upstairs cocktail lounge. Some of the staff are continuing with the concept, most are not. It shouldn’t make me as sad as much as it does - places close and reconcept in the city every minute - but this place is just, for lack of a better word, so fucking special to me. It’s where I made a lot of my first friends in the city - some that I know I will have for a long time. It’s where I learned about beautiful small-batch spirits and cocktails and the perfection that is green chartreuse. It’s a bar, so of course, things weren’t always perfect - but I’m feeling a mourning that I didn’t know was possible for a place of business. Tomorrow I’ll have my last drink at IFS (a Kentucky Mule, no doubt) and toast to one of the most welcoming, unpretentious places in Chicago. I will miss it.

For the first time since April of last year, I am doing exactly what I want to do - taking a train into a place to go to a job where I go in at a normal hour, get done at a normal hour, to make an amount of money every day that I can count on for the next 16 weeks with the possibility of full time. To write, to interact with people, to be that person I envisioned myself being in this newish city of mine.

Last week I went shopping for work clothes with my mom, and found that I was actually looking forward to the dress pants, the heels, the button-down shirts. Three months from now I’ll be crying for my jeans, TOMS, and old Wisconsin sweatshirt - but tonight, I’m feeling the odd calm that comes from ironing your clean clothes for the work week ahead. If this is what I want, it’s time to go out and live it.

I’m really digging this blog - not only the layout, but the thought behind it.

God, this Shins song has been in my head for days, and I watched the video for the first time today. It brings up so many random thoughts: 1) Man, does James Mercer look like a guy who I sat next to in one of my creative writing classes at UW-Madison. 2) This song is like The Shins meets The Who…and I’m DIGGING it. 3) Wow, this video has the same level of dysfunction as The Royal Tennenbaums.

Today, I received an unexpected note in my mailbox from one of my best college friends…who, interestingly enough, I hardly talk to except to exchange a few random text messages. When I opened the note, I wondered aloud why he hadn’t just sent me an email. As I read it aloud, though, I remembered that I missed him - and the fact that he took the time to write a note to me was huge. Not just because he cares about me and wanted to impart some goofiness into my day, but also because NO ONE does this anymore. Myself included…the girl who was going to handwrite her first novel, the one who never wanted a computer. It’s made me think about things - disconnecting more often, and getting acquainted with my OWN handwriting again.