The Finish Line

Today was my first day of my final semester of college. Come December, I will have my bachelor of fine arts.

Yet what I am referring to in the title is my manuscript. It is finally finished.

I stopped writing in 2013 because that was the time I started to face some truly ugly demons. It was the worst time I have ever experienced. Yet going through that was the missing piece that led me to finish the manuscript.

I spent 2014 rewriting most of the manuscript. In fact, that summer, I turned down a teaching job so that I could focus on this book. I woke up early every morning, went to hot yoga, went home and ate lunch, packed myself some dinner, and spent the rest of the day at the library with my laptop. In contrast to the dark year earlier, this was truly one of the most fulfilling experiences I ever had.

Having my book finished is like crossing a mountain range and finding a golden key. I believe we all have keys like this just for us, and we have to search for them. However, now that I have the key, I have a whole new mountain range to cross in order to reach the treasure chest.

In order to maximize my success as an author, I need a bigger platform. When I was writing Cutting Free, I had the idea that I would just put it out there, but I realized I need to put myself out there first.

I can't throw my book into the world without a plan. And I am going to use my classes as my guide. It may be my last semester of college, but its the first semester of my book promotion. I'm taking public speaking, magazine article writing, and a video class. I want to document my BFA thesis artwork and put it out on the web and in the world.

It's time for massive action. Expect frequent posts.

Nobody's Victim

Today I finished my 5th half marathon.  But it was a first for me--my first 13.1 miles in the rain, my first marathon without listening to music, my first race since my car accident in 2011.

That accident was one of the scariest things I've been through.  A distracted driver made a U-turn without yielding to me.  I can still feel the lingering injuries in my wrist and foot.

I was born with an accessory navicular bone in my right foot.  That means there's this extra bone sticking out near the insole.  During the accident, I sprained my ankle and jammed the bone, causing terrible pain at the slightest amount of pressure.

Even after the worst of the pain subsided, things weren't right.

Several months after the accident, I ran only 1/4 mile, at a slow pace, only to have pain shoot up the outside of my leg so sharply that I limped the rest of the night.

One night I was sobbing about this, feeling robbed of my joy.  Running had been my cure for depression.  It once even stopped me from going back to self-harm.  I didn't know how to handle life without it.

Not only could I not run, but I could still feel the pain in my foot.  I felt so helpless.  That night, with tears running down my face, I kept thinking of how I wished I had taken a different route home the morning of the accident, avoiding the uninsured driver who left me with a totaled car and painful injuries.

After finally acknowledging all my pain that night, I pledged to get myself some help.  In the next few days, I had an doctor's appointment, and was headed towards physical therapy.

The PT helped my ankle feel almost like nothing had happened.  Yet there was still the pain in my foot.  I still felt it in the morning as I stepped out of bed, but I wanted to be a marathoner again.

Recently I started scouting out the biggest, baddest hill in my neighborhood.  There is very little impact when you run uphill, helping me train without further injury.  I kept charging up that monster over and over, running up and walking down.

Today I ran the entire 13.1 miles of the half marathon, only stopping to get drinks from the volunteers and once to use the bathroom.

I was only about ten minutes slower than my fastest time.  And part of that was due to the cold and rain.  It rained every mile of this race, but I have never been so happy to be soaking wet.

And as far as training by running up a monster hill?  At the first mile of the half marathon, there is a hill that goes on for about a half mile or so.  I remember pushing myself up that hill in previous years.
Today, that was the easiest hill I have ever encountered, not just in this marathon, but at any point I can remember.

It is easy to remain a victim.  It is easy to attach ourselves to pain and feel there is no way out.  But with a fresh perspective, patience and determination, we can fly up the hills that once felt so steep.

Go Hot Dog!

It is the final half-hour of my twenties, and I want to usher in the next decade of my life by doing something brave. This is my revised first chapter, with everything I never wanted to say, but need to in order to move forward with this story.

 

 

 

#1 “Go Hot Dog!”

 

There was nothing I wanted to do more than cut myself.

I kept a jittery record of the passing minutes as midnight approached. The stars jumped out of the cold black sky; in another half hour, I was sure I would see fireworks somewhere. 

Holidays made me nervous. I had feared tonight—feared facing my twenty-six-year-old self and seeing I spent my New Year’s Eve all alone.

My breath clouded in the December air. Despite being less than thirty degrees outside, I had known a far deeper coldness. So often I had pretended not to care that somewhere, not too far away to be heard, people were celebrating. People were happy. It was a brand new year, time to welcome another fifty-two weeks of possibility, time to rejoice in the experiences to be had over the upcoming year, time to participate in the holiday that exists simply to celebrate being alive.

If I did not start to act alive soon I would lash out at myself. How unworthy I felt of life when I only heard it celebrated from a distance.

I had not cut myself in ten years, but I knew I was veering too close to the edge to be sure I was safe now. Over the past decade, I had thoughts about it from time to time, but I rarely felt any commitment to these thoughts. Now I felt the intention growing with the thoughts; they grew as my own realizations of my life grew: I saw little value in myself. I was still living with my parents, even though I was a full-grown adult. I had no one special in my life. I had no degree beyond high school, and even though I had left most of the terrible feelings about myself there, they were crashing against those doors as if I had never overcome my struggles. I looked at my arm and saw it as if it were already opened up.

I could not forget the panic of going too far, either. I had stopped hurting myself ten years ago because the self-mutilation was starting to not only punish me, but terrify me. When I first started at fifteen, it was hard to even make a mark. Within two years, I became afraid that if I went much further I would end up killing myself. I did not know if I was ready to live, but I was not ready to die.

I ran in place, trying to keep myself warm as I looked up at the stars. I had the unshakable feeling that something far above this snow-covered park watched me and knew of my battle. I felt ready to run forward; there would be no hiding in my parents’ basement tonight.  People started to gather on the pavement, jogging in place with me as the time drew nearer to midnight. Everyone had large numbers pinned to the front of their running clothes; they chatted and laughed in eager excitement. My stomach started doing gymnastics as I took a deep breath and found myself in the middle of a large crowd.

Although I did not know what to expect in the next half hour, I had heard that some people planned to wear outlandish costumes. The spirit of this adventurous crowd soothed my fragile nerves; in fact, as the front of the crowd suddenly rushed ahead into the black night, I was practically laughing.

There is something about seeing a hot dog running down the street that puts a smile on my face. Maybe because it was so late at night, or because it was winter time in Utah and so cold I ran through my fogging breath. Maybe it was that this man just felt like dressing up like a hot dog tonight and did not let anything stop him.

As I ran, I saw Father Time and a high school boy wearing a cheerleader uniform—with a skirt. Several people ran with golden retrievers, undoubtedly chasing the hot dog.

So this is what I would have missed had I stayed in my comfort zone tonight, I thought running among the three hundred people circling the park for the annual 5K: “Beat the New Year.”

The race started promptly at 11:30 p.m., giving runners a half hour to run 3.1 miles. My feet crunched over the snow-covered pathway at Sugarhouse Park in Salt Lake City. My legs ached as I pushed them forward, but in that moment, I felt like I was leaping over all the ruts in my life.

Keeping pace with a girl wearing nothing but a red bikini and running shoes, I watched as the bare skin of her legs and back began matching the color of her swimsuit. The race gave awards for best costumes and the C-c-coldest Runner. Circling rolling hills of twinkling snow, we looked like cartoon characters escaping into a human world, running in the night cold because we didn’t know better.

Three bundled-up children stood beneath a lamppost, cheering on participants. “Go Runner! Go Bikini Girl! Go Hot Dog!”

In the crowd of spectators, I spotted Heidi, a close friend of many years. Her blonde head poked out of blankets piled high around her shoulders. I heard her cheer, “Go Holly!”

I crossed the first lap of the 5K with only fifteen minutes remaining on the large race clock. The cold air bit through my ears and numbed my fingers, making me regret not bringing gloves or earmuffs. In this crisp winter air, it was becoming hard to breathe.

My lungs burned, my mouth tasted like a bag of frozen peas, but the girl in the bikini didn’t stop, so I wasn’t going to either. Looking around at all the runners, I saw focus, excitement, and struggle in their eyes. Yet every face also had its own spark of elation, something I would not believe beside the twinkling midnight snow unless I saw it for myself. Even in this cold, I had never seen a happier group of strangers. 

A ten-year-old running behind me looked at his watch. He turned to his dad and huffed between heavy breaths, “Five minutes ‘til midnight.”

One last hill to conquer. I could see my shadow as I lifted my knees high against the steep ground. It moved like someone I hardly recognized, refusing to yield to the challenge of the environment. I pictured myself running tall, a small-framed, green-eyed girl with a long, brown ponytail whipping behind her. At the top of the hill, my legs pushed to a full sprint. I spotted Heidi in her blankets, cheering at the finish line.

28:45 flashed on the clock as I finished my first 5K. I rubbed the sweat from the back of my neck. I did it! And I’m sweating in this icy air!

A gloved man standing just beyond the finish line smiled warmly. “Congratulations,” he said, handing me a wooden plaque engraved with “Beat the New Year!” I held it against my chest as I slowed down to a walk. The crowd began to chant, “Five, four, three…”

Fireworks sparkled against the black sky, the loud bangs and whistles mixing with the sound of cheers. So much for harming myself. Now I was celebrating in front of the fireworks instead of only hearing them from a distance.

I could see Heidi walking towards me, handing me a steaming cup of hot chocolate. 

 “You finished!” she said, practically singing her words as she wrapped the blankets tighter around her shoulders.

“I kn-now!” I spoke out of numb lips.  “It f-f-feels so good!”

As I sipped at the hot chocolate, burning the tip of my tongue, I knew I might be finished with this race, but I still stood at the beginning of something much larger. Right now, it was easy to feel the pride of having beat the new year, of having beat the fear of pushing myself so far out of my comfort zone. Next week, I might feel so bad again that I stand only millimeters from a razor.

Although I had managed to stop my self-harm behaviors all those years ago, somehow I knew, if I returned to cutting myself, there would be no coming back.

I needed to find another new experience to keep me feeling alive.

 

 

Taking a Break

Recently I wanted to delete my entire manuscript.

I felt like it is not grabbing the reader; people who know me already might be interested, but I do not share enough for other people to relate to me and want to keep reading.

The brutal realization hit me that most people do not want to read about some random person's new experiences.  It is thoughts like these that make me feel like I've spent countless hours only to discover I'm a failure.

I walked away from the manuscript to save myself from myself.  When I came back, instead of deleting it, I decided I must rewrite it from a new angle.

I am not going to write this book as 'some random person.'  I have been through struggles that many people will be able to deeply relate to, and I'm going to be upfront about them so people have a reason to keep reading.  This year of new experiences changed my life and helped me overcome incredible obstacles, including those which had been holding me back for over a decade.  I believe writing this could truly help somebody.

Before that can happen, there is an incredible amount of work ahead of me.  I am going to take a break from this blog for a while, as this writing will be far more personal and I am not ready to share it yet. 


I am definitely not giving up.

Chapter Three: "Breaking and Entering"

Here is my third chapter.  Thanks for reading!

#3 “Breaking and Entering”
January 13

I deliberately wore my swimsuit beneath my clothes.  My younger sister Tiffani and I were the only people in the locker room, but to be naked, I needed to surround myself with a curtain or a fortress. 

I considered myself a very sheltered person.  At twenty-six-years old, I still lived with my parents and even felt naïve among people far younger than me.  For example, I stood in a blue one-piece swimsuit; Tiffani, seven years my junior, wore a pink bikini.  I had never worn a bikini in my entire life.  There was no precise reason why; all I could say was it was out of my comfort zone.  I did not even feel comfortable changing in the locker room.  After swimming, I would towel the water out of my long ponytail and put my shirt and jeans back over the wet swimsuit.  It was more comfortable to be damp and chlorine-rich than briefly flash anyone.

All the better to push myself with these new experiences.  Tiffani and I had run laps around the college track several times together, but this was our first time visiting the pool and trying a new exercise to help me with running.  

The locker-room pool door wouldn’t budge.  “How do we get in?” we asked each other.

Tentatively walking back into the hallway in our swimsuits, we noticed a door at the end of the hall with a heavy-duty combination bolt over the frame.  The door was slightly ajar, with POOL ENTRANCE printed in large black letters.

The smell of chlorine brought back blissful childhood memories.  I pushed past the padlocked door.

The vivid blue water stood still.  Even the lifeguard chair sat empty.  “Um, apparently no one wants to swim at ten o’clock Tuesday morning.”

“Oh wait, there’s someone over there,” Tiffani said.  A man kneeled by the drinking fountain with heavy tools.  He did not look up as we passed him.

I felt too excited about accomplishing this week’s experience to care.  Our bare feet cool on the damp cement, we reached the shallow edge of the pool and stepped in slowly, the cold water shocking us stiff.  When at the deeper end, I asked, “So you’d do this exercise when you were captain of your cross country team?”

“Yeah, pool running is basically running in place in water.” 

I kicked my legs, feeling uncoordinated and foolish.  Less than a minute passed before I grabbed the concrete edge of the pool.  “This is tiring!”

“Yeah, but you asked me to show you something new.  Think about how it builds strength and gives your joints a rest at the same time.”

 The man at the drinking fountain continued to avoid eye contact; I was relieved he wasn’t watching me thrash around like a mime trapped in a submerged box.

A white clock hung on the wall facing us.  Wondering how long I could pool run without stopping, I decided to go back to the locker room and grab my glasses to sharpen the red second hand. 

On my way back to the pool, a middle-aged woman wearing a black long-sleeved business suit walked slightly ahead of me.  When I reached the POOL ENTRANCE door, the business suit blocked my passage.

“You can’t get in through here.”

I felt awkward, standing next to this fully clothed woman in my swimsuit.  Too many experiences left me feeling a terrible shame about the body, and this did nothing to help.  “The pool doesn’t open for another hour—the times are on the door,” the woman in the business suit said, closing the entrance with the hours behind her.

             I had been so relieved that I didn’t have to pool run in front of other swimmers, I never questioned the empty pool.  Maybe I should have warned her that my sister is still in there, I thought as I humbly retreated to the locker room.  Why did I not speak up more? 

Tiffani joined me, red-faced, a minute later.  “We’re gonna be banned from the pool for life!”

 “What happened?”

“I was pool running when this lady ran up to me shouting, “No, no, no!”

 Tiffani’s vigorous thrashing in the deep-end wouldn’t even vaguely resemble swimming; it would look like a maniac about to drown.  “I didn’t know!” my submerged sister had tried to explain, certain the business suit was about to be ruined out of anger and a hardwired lifeguard response. 

“Now our photos will hang above the pool with red slashes across our faces,” I said, turning both of our fears into laughter.      

As we walked back into the hall wearing our clothes over our swimsuits, Tiff started loudly joking, “No, no, no!” just as a long black sleeve reached behind us.

“Here’s a schedule for the pool,” she said as Tiffani’s face grew red again, but the lady only smiled this time.

I looked at the paper in my hand.  Imagine that, a schedule!  We can’t just go to a pool whenever we feel like it.  I started to feel sympathetic towards the woman in the business suit.  She understood risks of unsupervised swimming better than I did.  It wouldn’t look good for the college if there were dead bodies floating face down in the pool. 

As Tiffani and I reached her red convertible in the parking lot, I said, “Now I’ve made my goal for three weeks,” excited despite my fresh embarrassment.  The illicit pool running lasted only ten minutes, but I also broke an entering by simply walking through a door and gave Tiffani the most humiliating moment of her life, so there are actually quite a few firsts here.

“So, what’s your new thing next week?” 

“Well, I will . . . I . . . I have no clue.  It’s so hard finding new experiences.”

“And you’re going to do this for a whole year?”

“Yes.  Somehow, I will do it.  Although I still can’t believe we just walked into a closed pool.  I’m afraid I’m going to embarrass myself over and over this year.”

“Well, at least you can embarrass me at the same time,” Tiff said with a smile.

Chapter Two: Digging Deep

Here is my second chapter; thanks for reading!


Chapter Two “Digging Deep”

January 8

My heart pounded as I leapt up the carpeted stairs, amazed that my legs were already back to normal.

 “Holly, what’re you doing here?  How was your 5K?”  Jo asked as I entered the office near her yoga studio.  She had repeatedly told me I was crazy for running a race in the middle of winter, but not without a hint of encouragement in her voice.

 “I ran the whole thing, Jo, even beat the New Year!  And I’m so glad I found you.  Can I schedule an appointment with you this week?”

            A few days later, I returned, standing alone with Jo in a room silent other than soft music.  Incense smoke lightly spiraled in the air. 

            “Take a few minutes to undress, but leave your underwear on so it’s not awkward for me knowing you’re ne-ked,” she joked.

            Undressing in a new environment was always exciting and scary.  I studied each corner of the room, even though I knew I was alone.  The window blinds shut out the cars passing on the street outside of Yoga Jo’s in North Ogden.  I had been taking Jo’s classes since May, my first class nearly bringing me to tears as I struggled to hold the poses.  I felt nervous about tonight, hearing this might be painful, but the light inside the room was the dim, comforting yellow of a bedside lamp.  I folded my clothes neatly and set them on an armchair.

            When Jo knocked on the door a few minutes later, I feebly called, “I’m ready!” from beneath a tucked white sheet and wool blanket.

            Jo opened the door, pausing by her stereo.  “This just isn’t me today,” she said, turning off the soft music and playing Jimmy Buffett instead.  “So tell me more about your New Year’s resolution,” Jo said, rubbing my temples with oil smelling of eucalyptus and tree bark.  “You’re really going to do something new each week?”

“Yes.”

“So if you do two new things in one week, you can rest the next.”

“No, I have to do something new every week—no cheating.”

“You’re really dedicated to this, huh?” she asked.

“If it’s 11:59 on a Saturday night and I haven’t done anything new for the week, I will literally find a bug and eat it.”

“Well, that’s disgusting, good luck with that one.  You should do more crazy races,” she said lifting my right arm and kneading my shoulder, working all the way down to my hand and fingertips.

“I’m not much of a runner—”

“You liar, you just ran a 5K!  I would never willingly do that; I’ve blocked out all the times someone’s forced me to run.”

“I hated it for a while,” I said.  “Ten years ago, I ran in my junior high track team, but by high school, I stopped running and whenever I tried again, I felt miserable.  I felt like I could barely run for thirty seconds before wanting to quit.  Last summer, when I first started classes here, I said, ‘Okay, fine, I’ll just run for thirty seconds.’  There’s a church right behind my parents’ house, and I’d run from one end of the church to the other.  I did it several times a week, and before I knew it I circled the whole church, then circled it twice.”

“So it was a church that got you back into running.  I knew having a Mormon church on every corner was good for something,” Jo said.  Over half of Utahans are Latter-day Saints or LDS, commonly known as Mormons.  I was unsure whether Jo was being sarcastic when she added, “Maybe religion will even creep into your new experiences.”  I had not been to church in years.

Jo’s fingers dug sharply into my right shin.  She told me she straightened and lengthened the muscles, getting out all the knots.  Talking distracted me from the pressure. 

“Running around that church definitely helped me.  I started running farther and farther.  Then there was this one Sunday—I was really sad about that guy I told you about—remember Aaron?  Yeah, I wanted to just cry in bed all morning, but I’ve already been there, done that, so I said, ‘I’m going to my old high school track and running a mile.’  It was my first mile since the track team—my first mile in ten years.

“That whole day, I kept thinking, ‘I could have spent all day in bed crying, but look what I accomplished instead.’  And I just kept running a couple times each week.  I go to the track every Sunday and haven’t missed a week yet.”  Before the mile, I had contemplated going back to something far worse than crying in bed all day; I wondered if in this intimate setting, Jo would figure out what it was.

“So what happened with Aaron that was so bad?”

“Well, I tried to help him through some things and it backfired on me.”  I knew the first time I saw Aaron, a twenty-year-old redhead with baggy jeans and a pronounced jaw, something was bound to backfire.  Yet he was the break in my routine I craved, and continued to crave.

 “You can always use that experience as an art project,” Jo offered.  “There you go, make some new art for your some of your experiences—and check out music you’d never listen to.  And you must skydive.”

“I don’t have any plans yet, but everyone who knows about my goal has lots of ideas for me,” I said.  One idea came from my cheery Mormon coworker, Anna, and it sounded so unlike me, I could not see myself doing it, this year or any year. 

“Time to flip over,” Jo said, and I turned to face my pillow. 

“Ooh, that hurts just a bit,” I yelped as her hands returned to my ankles.

“I’ll ease up; deep tissue massage is not like other massage.  So were you freezing your butt off in the 5K?”  Jo asked.

“You know what’s interesting?  I’ve always felt like I had a low cold tolerance, but ever since I’ve been running, it’s not so bad.  I run on the track even though it’s covered with snow.”

“And why?”

“I figure if I can be a human plow, I won’t let anything stop me from running again.  When I stopped after junior high, it wasn’t on purpose; I just had a little excuse here and a little excuse there, until ten years passed without even realizing I’d quit.”

By the end of the hour, my limbs had melted into the massage table.  “Did you like the massage?”  Jo asked.

            “Yeah, it could be uncomfortable at times but now I feel amazing.”

            Jo smiled.  “I’m glad you ran that crazy 5K.  And I wouldn’t worry about Aaron.  These adventures are gonna lead you to someone new.”

The Motivator

I awoke at two this morning from a dream that felt it needed subtitles and laid in bed for about the next three hours.  I have never felt so anxious about a race.

Maybe that's because there was literally no time to plan this one.  My friend Julie asked me if I would join her the following morning for her first 5K and stay with her as a 'motivator.'  I don't say 'no' very often, so at 7 a.m. we took off from the starting line.

I had felt some concern about an ankle injury dating to a car accident over six months ago.  But I've been in physical therapy, they've had me jogging on a treadmill for a brief but grateful five minutes the last two sessions, and I'm finished feeling like some kind of victim trapped in my own limitations!

It was my first race in an entire year.  The last one was the Ogden Half Marathon, and now I was doing the Ogden 5K, all part of the same annual race.  I have not run regularly since my accident, and a few months ago I was feeling doubts about whether I would ever be a runner again.

Not so!

There may not have been much running as I stuck by Julie's side today, but the running that did happen was easy and natural, and I could feel from my head to my toes that my body is ready for more.  Julie wanted to do a run/walk plan, and it may have taken her fifty minutes, but she still shaved ten minutes off the time she expected.  She felt so afraid of being dead last, but there were still plenty of people behind her.  An older lady walking next to us told us she did a full marathon which took . . . eleven hours.  I can't imagine doing an eleven-hour marathon, but this year she will earn her hundredth finisher's medal.

By the last few blocks of Julie's race, her perpetually cheerful face became grave as she used the last of her energy to run across the finish line.  I held her hand to push her in that last stretch.  She has wanted to do a 5K for about the last three years, and feared that she would be surrounded by tall, skinny bodies running six-minute-miles as she puttered in dead-last.  By trying today instead of defauting to her fear, she discovered there is no need to hold onto this mental image; she does not need me to run by her side because she has plenty of people who run not to win the race, but to conquer something within themselves.

As for me, I have never seen a race from this perspective.  It makes me realize, without a doubt, I'll be back to half marathons (and one day, even another full).  It doesn't matter if I get slowed down, because this is who I am.  I am a runner.  Even if I had been paralyzed in my car accident, the fighter in me would know it would not be time to stop; it would just be a transition from shoes to wheels.  The fear of reinjuring myself or limping later during the day was my own illusion that no longer has any strength.

A half marathon is definitely in my future.