A New Year: Time to Let Go of All that Was Left Undone in the Last

By almost any account, this is a time to look ahead toward a year that is shiny and new, full of promise and expectation, with yet-unbroken resolutions. But before I bound ahead into 2016, I feel compelled to look back, with some degree of guilt, about items that did not get checked off in 2015.

A sampling:

- The unsent Christmas cards (see photo, above, to see what is missing from friends and family’s mailboxes). Also, the unsent birthday cards, anniversary cards, get well cards, and on-time birthday gifts. There is no excuse, really, so I will not even try. But I rank this as one of my greatest shortcomings – failing to reach out and connect more with those I cherish most.

- The unfinished blog posts, opening paragraphs to the Next Great American Novel, and other writings that exist only in my mind or in ideas scribbled down in a notebook at 1:00 a.m..

- The extra ten pounds I still carry, but am trying hard to ignore.

- The disorganized hall closet filled to capacity with kids coats three sizes too small, bins of Disney VHS tapes, and broken umbrellas. Adding to the list of disorganized spaces is the corner of my home office, stacked with boxes of mismatched memorabilia from my father’s life, delivered unceremoniously to me shortly after his death nearly two years ago. I am sure some shrink would have a field day with my inability to wade through these spaces and things. Maybe dealing with the closet and corner should be added back to the list.

I could go on, and further feed my guilt, but to what end? Is it not better to look forward with blind optimism to what can be instead of backward on what could have been?

Or maybe it is simply better to re-frame how I view the new year and its obligatory resolutions. What did I learn from last year? What can I carry forward into the new year and do again, or do better.

In 2015 I learned to be a little less afraid, a little more bold, and a little more willing to take a risk. For a 40-something, suburban mom who has spent her life coloring inside of the lines, and who has been skiing since the 7th grade and still cautiously snow-plows down a green run, this is something.

At the beginning of 2015, I had a suppressed desire to write, with no actual expectation that I could make time for it or, God-forbid, summon the courage to let any one else read it. By the end of the year, I had this blog and a few legitimate third-party publications. Last January, I resolved to run more but had no intention of running 26.2 miles, and then I ended the year by finishing the New York City Marathon. A year ago, I was wringing my hands and reaching for tissues over the idea of our daughter leaving for college, but her confidence as she embarks on her future is infectious, and over the past few months I learned that our family will continue to love, and thrive, and adjust despite change because, as she is discovering, this is the exciting stuff of life.

So, how do I frame a resolution list to build on 2015? Perhaps this: Don’t be afraid of the next set of challenges and adventures, however they may unfold. Be bold enough to express my opinion, be it in my writing or in a boardroom. Take a risk on something great, even if it means that I might fail or have to try more than once before I succeed.

And also, next year, actually mail the Christmas cards.

WelcomE!

The obligatory "about me" ...

I am a California attorney, wife and mother to two teenagers. Thanks to some fierce prodding by my brother and unwavering support from my family, I started to write again (hence, the blog), and to run again (training for the New York City Marathon). After all, if you are going to get in the game, you might as well go all-in. You can find out more about my story here.

November 1, 2019

This Is Fifty

When I first started this writing space and was trying on different names for what ultimately became Midlife Run, I struggled. Solidly in my forties, the idea of attaching the word “midlife” to anything seemed like an unwelcome, uncomfortable stretch reserved for the after-fifty set. But I settled into the name, comforted by the knowledge that I was on the “early side” of midlife. Not so any more. Last month we dropped our youngest at college thus marking the beginning of the “empty nester years” and today, as I start to write this, I turn fifty. I am solidly, undeniably, in midlife.

August 19, 2019

It's Almost Here: The Empty Nest!

In my memory, I cannot think of a more seismic shift in our marriage than when we had children. The first sign that our world was about to be rocked actually happened when our first bun was still in the oven and we were standing outside of a Denver bar. It wasn’t late, we were with good friends, and good times were being had by all, especially by those (not me) enjoying a night of craft beer and pool. By that point in my pregnancy, my body was changing and bulging, I had given up caffeine, alcohol, and hot baths and traded them for binge-eating apples. My pregnancy and impending motherhood were feeling tangibly real in a way that it wasn’t (yet) for my husband. And that night, with festivities just warming up, I was standing by the car asking my husband not to go in and to come home with me instead because I was exhausted and sick with pregnancy. If you ask him now, he doesn’t remember that night. I do. In his eyes and in his body-language was a man coming to terms with our new and changing reality. As we looked at each other we silently acknowledged that our lives would never be the same. What we want, what we do, how we see the world, and how we prioritize our lives no longer involved just the two of us. There was going to be a third member of our family, and eventually a fourth, and nothing, ever, not even a night out with friends, would be quite so simple any more.

May 20, 2019

Lucky Me (Guest Post by Andrew J. Pridgen)

My excuses for why I’m not going to perform well in a race while I toe the starting line roll up like opening credits in a movie. Written by: Lack of preparation, Directed by: Insecurity, Executive produced by: My shoes don’t feel right, Casting by: I can barely breathe and my ankle already hurts. Starring: Me.

April 3, 2019

Walk Slowly with Me

Our family is not one to stand still. We fall easily into the pace of rushed crowds on New York City streets, and we barrel ahead in pursuit of goals. We move forward, and then we move forward again. Even our family walks seem to be driven, marching along familiar neighborhood paths, distracted by conversation, and, for the past twelve years, led by our trusty furry companion, Lucy, whose entry into our family was the very thing that initiated this nightly routine.

January 13, 2019

New Year's Resolution: Do One Thing

I have a shrink-wrapped cork board leaning against the wall to the right of my desk, clearly within view. It’s been standing sentinel in the same spot for months, waiting for me to deal with it and daring me to get on with it already. Its purpose is to be a vision board of sort, a place for me organize my goals, to lay them out in a way that my left-leaning brain can process and check them off, mixed together with other bits designed to spark my still developing right-brain to creativity. I look at that cork board regularly with the same dread that someone with writer’s block stares at a blinking curser on a blank screen.

December 9, 2018

NYC Marathon: Challenge, Growth, and Celebration

When you tell someone – especially a non-runner someone – that you are going to run a marathon, you’re generally met with some version of a respectful “that’s great … good for you.” Contrast, when you tell someone that you are going to run the NYC Marathon, there’s a special, heightened aura that surrounds what surely, inevitably, will be nothing short of an epic race.

November 3, 2018

Life’s a Journey ... The Road to NYC Marathon 2018

Mostly, though, there has been an extraordinarily emotional undercurrent to this training cycle because it is impossible for me to look forward to this marathon without looking back to my 2015 NYC Marathon, and examining with wonder how one stacked series of events can make your whole life pivot until you find yourself on a trajectory you never could have imagined.

September 15, 2018

Creating Space, Building Strength

In my ordinary life, there is room for writing, for running, for meaningful conversations, and for balance. My life right now is not ordinary. It is frenetic, and it is all but consumed by a single work endeavor. It leaves me starving for sleep and time with family, it led me to write a middle of the night SOS to my coach about my NYC marathon training, and it is accompanied by a level of stress and adrenaline that can keep me going now, but in the long run is unsustainable. Gratefully, I am not alone in this experience, and I have my ultimate support crew (husband and family) behind me.

June 27, 2018

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Because There Will Be Plenty of Big Stuff: Reflections on 25 Years of Marriage

Certain milestones simply make me pause. Today is a big one – our 25th wedding anniversary. By any measure, that is a legitimately long time to spend marching through life next to the same person. It has me looking back in wonder about how we got to this point, looking forward trying to guess what is ahead, and reflecting broadly about what I know now about the two of us together and the life-long project of building a marriage. Unsurprisingly, I have a few thoughts.

March 29, 2018

That Family Place

When my Dad was young, the annual family pilgrimage took them to Lake Tahoe during the summer, where his family would stay in a small cabin on the north shore, the boys would catch crawdads between the boulders jutting out from the Lake, and skip smooth, flat rocks over the water’s surface. I know these things because when my parents took my brother and me to the same lake shore, and years later after the next generation joined us, my parents would tell the stories. The connection to Lake Tahoe is now four generations deep, and with every new year and new family member or friend who joins us, the memories deepen and years of family stories from this special place transform into epic lore.