HEEEEEEEEYYYYYYY YOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU GUUUUUUYSSSSSSSS!!!
Every time I say, or hear, or think that line my mind instantly finds that place in the recesses of my brain, you know the one where I have tucked away all those cheesy one liners from movies long ago, this is not an exception, the all time classic Goonies!! I watched that movie countless times in my formative years, yet somehow, the all important scene, the one where they break the manhood off of their mom's statue slipped my mind, until one day...One day when I was all excited to find Goonies on tv, recorded it, and turned it on for my kids that night. Oh PUHLEEZE you all know me well enough to know we are not a modest family, yet the uncontrollable laughter from the boys and hearing Garrett say where's the remote we need to rewind it pulled me back into the living room, only to see them rewinding it for the 10th time and still all the boys laughing hysterically and the girls getting annoyed by this whole, "it was only funny the 1st time" moment. Isn't it ironic how our mind can instantly recall some things yet others are forgotten until something triggers them, pulls them forward??
With all that aside I want to say:
HEEEEEEEEYYYYYYY YOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU GUUUUUUYSSSSSSSS!!!
I did it! I signed up for HIM or IM 70.3 or whatever you want to call it, it doesn't change what it is! I signed up, paid for, and committed to an Ironman 70.3 in exactly 214 days 9 hours 1 minute and 59 seconds from the time in which this sentence was typed (that's October 18th if you don't want to get out your calendar to look)! That's right I will be swimming 1.2 miles, biking 56 miles, and running a formidable 13.2 miles. But, all that aside I am in awe of the perfect timing of this race, God's perfect timing, because IM 70.3 wasn't in my plans until 2016!!
Five years ago, nearly to the day of my hitting the button to register for the IM 70.3, my world was shaken. I could sit here and tell you what happened, the why, the how, but not today, maybe someday I will, but not today. However, for some reason the idea that five years had passed, that five years ago my world, as I knew it, would be forever altered was something that I was really struggling with. Not struggling like I wanted to start trippin' again, not struggling like I felt I was going to send myself back into the throngs of darkness that I fought so hard to come out of but struggling with the whole idea of all that happened over the course of almost exactly five years to the date of my hitting submit for this triathlon. I was struggling with guilt, shame, anger, sadness, regret, pride, relief, peace, happiness. I was struggling with knowing how to feel about what my life has been like over the course of the last five years. Five years ago I had never taken anything more than a Tylenol and birth control, and umm well six kids later, we know I didn't always remember to take one of those. To me a mental hospital was for the CRAZY, not middle class moms with great husbands a houseful of kids and two masters degrees. To me a drug addict was the person that hit me up for money at the street lights, they were the ones found in a motel room with a needle in their arm, not middle class moms with great husbands a houseful of kids and two masters degrees. Yet, over the course of these last five years I learned 1st hand that mental health issues and drug addictions can happen to anyone (yes I said anyone) I learned 1st hand that life is precious and fragile and it can be tough yet at the same time I learned that I am not fragile and I am even tougher than the toughest days.
I love to swim, I always have. As a little girl I used to imagine myself being an Olympic swimmer (ha NO I am not that good it was just a childhood dream) but then college happened, marriage happened, a career happened, children happened and I never thought about swimming again. However, many years later, after my 8 year old daughter was born, I ballooned up to my all time heaviest weight and pants size. Something had to change, I chose to drop the weight by training for a sprint triathlon and was only a couple of months away from competing in my 1st sprint, when I got pregnant with child number 4. I figured ok put the triathlon on hold I would do it when he was a little older, WELL I got pregnant almost right away with child number 5 and when she was only 6 months old, nearly five years ago to the day of registering for IM 70.3, my world went from triathlons to trippin'. I never imagined I would be trippin' I never imagined I would be a cocaine addict, that I would be struggling with mental health being in the hospital more than once. Triathlons slipped my mind, until it was triggered it was pulled forward, not by something but by someone, someone that God knew would forever change my life.
As much as I doubted God, wondered if there even was a God, and surely didn't want a God in my life over the course of those five years, there He was. He presented Himself to me, in my life, through people. If nearly five years ago to the day of my signing up for IM 70.3 my world hadn't been turned upside down, I never would have sought out a church. Had I not sought out a church I would never have met the most incredible bestie ever! It was through that someone, my bestie Denise, that my memories, my desire, my goals, and dreams of a triathlon were pulled forward from the recesses of my mind when she said, let's do this! Denise, the most amazing way in which God blessed my life over these five years, didn't know me before I was trippin', but she saw my heart, she knew I wasn't meant to live a life of trippin' so she found one of our many commonalities and said let's triathlon together. She never once left my side while I was trippin' and although she can't compete with me in the triathlon she is by my side every step of the way. When I told her, I'm scared this a big deal, she said you're scared that means you will do it. When I texted her the picture of my registration for the race her reply was I know where I'll be October 17 and 18th. That's my bestie the one that held my hand through the trippin' the one that pulled from the recesses of my mind the dream to do something big with swimming, like a triathlon. God knew how empty my life would be, God knew I had walls built high and thick and deep. God knew I didn't want people or friends God knew I wanted to be this tough "I got this" badass that depended only on myself. I was broken! Just like the statue in Goonies I felt naked, broken, and exposed, but that's what I needed.
Just as God knew these last five years what I needed, just as God knew I needed to be broken, just as God gave me the free will to make the terrible choices I did, God knew that this five year anniversary would be tough! He knew that I would do one of three things I would ignore it, I would cave and go back to how I was five years ago or I would dig deep I would remember I am not fragile and through Him I am tough, even when I didn't know, He knew. Ya' see this is the 1st year there is an IM 70.3 in AZ, I am racing in the inaugural triathlon. God knew that five years to the day of my world being turned upside down that the registration for IM 70.3 would open, He knew this five years ago when everything started. He knew, even when I didn't, that I wouldn't always be trippin' He knew my dream of something big something like an IM 70.3 triathlon would happen. He knew that just like a glow stick sometimes we need to be broken before we shine. Will I shine at the race, in terms of racing standards, absolutely not. But I will shine because I went from trippin' to triathlons!
