I originally was going to title this the man I want to be, but the truth of the matter is that all of these things are within my power

So why am I trying to raise money to fight cancer? It’s not as though any research done now will bring my grandparents back. The truth of the matter is that I’ve been following a woman’s battle with cancer through the eyes of her husband for well over a year now, and it was one post in particular that really convinced me that the Lance Armstrong Foundation is doing something incredible:

I expected maybe a form letter back in a couple weeks, maybe a list of local resources I could contact on my own.

Instead, the next day, I got a call from a lady who stayed on the phone with me for 90 minutes, heaping practical help. She set us up with ways we could save money on prescriptions. She conference-called in research foundations, hooking us up with clinical trials we might participate in. And while she was the model of efficiency, she was also incredibly caring and personal. She gave me her direct number and told me to call her when I was ready to take next steps.

That’s great work. And I’m not trying to be selective and say that they’re the only cancer foundation that does good work, I know they aren’t. I also understand that it’s not the best time to ask people to donate, and I won’t begrudge you if can’t/won’t, but if you can, thanks.

To donate, go here. I’ll try to think of something to give people who donate, you know, other than my respect.

Finishing the ironman was a moment that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I know I’ve tried to explain the feeling of finishing: I can’t. Unbridled joy? Check. For someone who has as much self-doubt and such self-consciouness as I do, I don’t really recall any of it while finishing. I was not thinking if other people were judging me for not having a great body type or for what I was wearing or how I was running or anything at all. I was just so wrapped up in it. That happiness, I thought at the time, would transform me in the sense that once you know happiness like that, how do you go back to… I don’t know… not being happy with what you are making of your life. And yet 8 months and 1 day later, I feel as though I’m in the same place doing the same things over and over and over again, making the same mistakes, acting as immaturely as ever with as little ability to exercise self-restraint. I see myself as a light switch without a dimmer: I’m either full on or full off, with no moderate level in between. So what else has happened in the last twelve months?

Let’s see. My best friend got married. Though I couldn’t make it to the wedding, I did get to serve as his best man in spirit and did eventually meet his bride in Pittsburgh. They’re a great couple, in my estimation. It was also great to see him for the first time in two and a half years.

In addition to the Ironman, I’ve got the triathlon bug really bad. This took me to such far off places as Chicago and NYC and allowed me to swim in hallowed bodies of water: Lake Michigan, the Hudson River, and the Potomac River (again). Unfortunately, due to my job I don’t get to do a lot of group training so I haven’t met as many people as I would like.

My job. I suppose I am thankful I still have one.

I guess in closing, I’ll say that from an early age, I’ve been told I was special. And I’ve believed it when people said it, believed that I didn’t need to do anything to make it so. So perhaps I feel a bit like I have not made as much of this past year as I should have. I have not treated those around me as they deserve to be treated. I am my own harshest critic and to some extent, I feel at age 26.5 I have not made enough of myself; this is not to say that I feel I am a failure, it’s more like I feel that I have wasted opportunities to be a better person. I am not the person I want to be. I’m going to work harder on it.

Furthering my pain is that I have difficulty starting things where I might fail or even struggle. (Aside: Sure, I did an Ironman, but there was no doubt in my mind at any point that I would not finish it. I still cannot fathom what I would have done that day, how I would have felt, had I not been able to finish. I think finishing was really one of the two great things that happened for me this year.). So if I want to change jobs, which I know has been a struggle and will probably continue to be, I have a hard time even writing cover letters.

Finally, I have a hard time even doing stuff for myself. I was given a week last week to create my own workouts. I did 2. But if my coach gives me workouts, I hit every workout in a given week. Is it a fear of failing someone else? A fear of someone knowing my failure? (Those who know me will say that I rarely, if ever, follow through on things I say I will do so it cannot be that I am afraid of someone knowing my failure). I think it must be the first. But how am I to know? I hate to disappoint people when they are counting on me. But it appears I am willing to let myself down, over and over and over again. I think I may have reached the breaking point.

Far fewer than the 9654 I was expecting

I guess some days fewer things matter

Or maybe fewer things happen

Couldn’t fill the page with what I did today

Maybe tomorrow I’ll fill two

And so inclined to just look at the details

We saw in the big picture what was really the negative – a valley where we saw mountains, a desert for the sea, a sword for the plowshare

Viewed from another angle, another perspective…

1. Read a chapter of a book every day/night. Currently this is Henderson the Rain King, for the pretty obvious reason. I’m a sucker for good lyrics.

2. Shave every day. I’ve never done this. I obviously could, and I probably should given the pace of my facial hair growth, but I typically don’t organize my day enough to fit this in.

Other things I would like to do this year, but will not resolve (yet) to do are to write more (either here or elsewhere), clean my room (and therefore make my life feel a bit more sound) more frequently, and to take far more chances (not with my life, but with how I live it… to step out of my cocoon so to speak). Those who know me well know that I like to stay where I am comfortable. It’s time to stretch those bounds. Go to more concerts, experience new things. Start forgetting that things in the past happened and stop letting them affect how I’m living today or tomorrow.  Stop apologizing for things I am honest about. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut, but then again, maybe I’m better off saying these things.

Also, on my list of things I want to accomplish (written nearly two or three years ago) in my lifetime back in May 2005. Among the short term goals: shave every day, read 20 pages every day. Among the long term goals: finish an Ironman Triathlon.

Here’s the full list:

Everyday things that I want to do:

* Run/exercise everyday
* Read 20 pages a day
* Write to one friend a day
* Shower
* Brush teeth twice a day
* Shave

Lifelong things:

* Raise great children
* Be a good husband
* Visit every populated continent by 30
* Play in a professional golf tournament
* Earn $1,000,000 in one year
* Become an expert in one thing
* Become a CEO of a company
* Learn one art form
* Run a marathon
* Finish an Ironman Triathalon

Update:

*Also, I want to go heliskiing before I turn 30. This is more probable than visiting every continent, but maybe I’ll go heliskiing in South America or something.

The next night, we went to dinner. On the way, my sister and her friend were discussing bars from Berlin. The bar names were all related to breakups. At which point we started talking about a future bar we would call “It’s Not You, It’s Me.” My brilliant addition? 2 for 1 drink specials for the recently dumped. The catch? You gotta give the second drink to someone else. Anyhow good times.

Also, good music? Paramore’s “Misery Business” and Boys Like Girls’ “Hero/Heroine.” Also, Bad Religion’s”Honest Goodbye.”

You pick an hour (e.g. 12 hours, 13 hours) or a DNF and you get to put in a certain amount of money (I was thinking $10 each). You then split the pool with people who picked the same hour. I’m guessing the people that know me would probably put DNF.

So watch this space, cause I’m probably gonna do it.

Update: I’ll be writing the pool site this weekend.
Update2: Ok, well the code is mostly written, just a few glitches and stuff.

As for holding everything else in, I think the fact that I write here what I write… well. shit. I’m holding it in.

i was thinking today about how difficult it is to maintain friendships – I thought friendships would become easier as I grew older, but the simple fact of the matter is that people’s worlds become more insular as they grow – more acquaintances perhaps, but the number of friends, good friends, i think grows smaller. i’ve got friends on the west coast, a friend in lebanon, and a ton of friends on the east coast who are busy at work or with their significant others. So it’s a little lonely, but we find other things to get ourselves through the day.

Oh, and the line from one or two times ago: “Condoms are like another kind of latex band-aids to me.” I couldn’t figure out a way to work it into a story, though I like the image.

Yeah, if you get that one, you’re listening too way too much of the same music I am listening to way too much of.  Anyhow, I’m… I’ve got about 12 minutes to write this before I go to sleep. I’ve had a shitload of stuff going through my head that I’ve wanted to type but I’m far too fucking ADHD and unmotivated to write anything. I had this great image in my head that I’ve been trying to figure out a way to fit a story around. I’ve got two CDs that I want to make, One for Now and One for the Next One. I’ve had bad stomach issues the past week, totally un-lactose related, totally unrelated to anything I’ve fucking eaten.

Anyhow, one of these people at work keeps getting presents from her boyfriend. It’s a kind of sad reminder of all the ways I messed up, and all the things I can do better. But it’s not so bad.

Next time.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever really change from who I am. I don’t know that I haven’t tried, and I don’t know that I haven’t changed. I know that now I am happy and actually acting happy, though I am still quite cynical. If you ask my parents, I think they’ll say I’ve always had some snide comeback to everything that is said around me (not necessarily said to me). I imagine that watching TV with me must get quite irritating. I’d imagine that most things, when I am at my most verbal, are quite annoying to do with me. And I’d imagine that even when I’m not being loud, I can still be annoying in still other ways.

I’ve been sleeping like crap again lately. It’s taking me forever to fall asleep and I wake up in a sweat every morning and I have no earthly idea why. I don’t think I’ve even been dreaming of late. I got nothing else. I’m going to try and solve one of these problems and then go to sleep.

Anyhow, riding a train backwards is something I enjoy. You may say, always look forward, because that’s where the future is, but today has been one of those hectic hellish days where it’s been everything non-stop, and it’s nice to finally slow down. What a tortured metaphor that is: Sitting backwards on the train. Fuck. I like it because I like it, not because it means anything at all. Also, the seat was available and it didn’t smell like a toilet, so it has that going for it. I like the graffiti and ruined buildings along the train tracks – I guess I like the pristine buildings in the city too, but yes, maybe I like ruins and run-down buildings a little more than the skyscrapers. Any maybe it’s because I am totally removed from them while I’m in the train. Maybe if I went up and touched them, I would not like them so much. Or maybe it’s because they are much more interesting to imagine. What hermit lived in that house? What was built in those factories or stored in the warehouse? But that’s not it. Every time I think of a reason, I can rationalize it or argue it away. But I guess there’s a bit of beauty in the dilapidation.

Even so, I’d much rather be back at work now. I just reached a milestone in my work last night, and I’d like to be able to follow it while it ran. But instead, my officemate is calling me and trying to make it run faster. Which I should be OK with, but I’m not. I’m not learning anything from him updating my work. But I can’t be because I’m not there to work on it. I guess, though, that it could be worse. I might not want to be either place. Are there places I would much rather be? Yes. Are there people I would much rather be with? Yes. But here is where I am, and I better make the most of it.

I’m happy. For… well not for the for the first time in a long time… but it’s something… maybe the first time I’ve been happy not being miserable. Driving home from the City this weekend, I realized that there’s nothing wrong with me, and there’s nothing wrong with that fact. Maybe I used to think that nobody would care about me if I weren’t on the edge of depression. But the fact of the matter is, there’s nothing wrong with me. So that’s good.

Also, trapeze class is way cool. Some photos/videos coming. Possibly within 30 months!