reflections on running 10 miles this week after my longest hiatus since i was 21:

- i am no longer 21
but this is not all bad.

i am no longer 21 - the muscles take longer to grow and the fat takes longer to go away and the fat is in all sorts of different places now? apparently
but i am no longer 21 - i am a woman now, and i appreciate and love every curve of my body and i didn't get boobs til i was 28 so i really hope those don't go away which brings me to my next point

- i am not running because i want my body to change - i am running to get stronger and to be able to run far distances and feel like a badass and bond with my cousin, but actually i am super happy with the shape and size and proportions of my body
i am no longer 21 - at 21 i still thought that every other person i met was as obsessed with every curve, every handlebar, every lump in my belly (almost all of which were/are nonexistent)

i am no longer 21 - i am almost 31 and i am beginning to understand the power of a woman's body and i don't want a girl's body and i actually am reluctant to up my distances because i'm afraid the first weight to go will be boobs and hips and those, those i want to keep
but when i was 21 - that is not where the extra weight went, it went so many awkward an unwomanly beautiful ways, so i am not too harsh on my 21 year old self for feeling such things

but now - i am not running for weight loss, or to feel less shame about my body, or because i think i'm fat, or to compensate for the chocolate i ate earlier today (because 21 year old sarah didn't allow chocolate, anyway), i am running just to prove i can

and as it turns out, i spent my middle twenties running a LOT, so i have muscle memory now that i did not have,
at 21,
dragging myself to the gym and berating myself every step of the way

so even though i ran more this week than i have in almost two years, my body knows what to do, my feet know these roads, my legs know these hills, my brain knows these distances, knows how the training works, knows that i will be just fine, that i will be more than fine, that i will be better than ever in the end, every day, every day that i get stronger and braver and older

... even if i did decide with less than a month to go that i would run a 10k on the hilly streets of roanoke virginia! oops! it's been a long time since i've done something this hardcore...

...but unlike 10 years ago, it's not the first time. and i actually can't wait for the journey ahead.

March 13

Happy 31st, Robina. I still have your shirt. Who would have thought that such a silly thing would have stayed with me all these years.

Last year, your 30th, was especially hard for me. I was so excited for my 30th - I spent practically the entire year of 29 getting pumped up for turning 30. Man, I wonder what we would have been like together as adults. Would we even still get along? How much of my personality would be different if we had been together for all those many, many extra years? So different. So different.

I stood in the rain last year, on your 30th birthday, tears pouring down my face, jabbing holes in the wet soil, sprinkling in poppy seeds and covering them, feeling your energy and putting it into those seeds, hoping beyond all hope that they would bloom despite the uncertainty of the spring ahead. And then March got cold. It froze, and froze, and froze. I shivered in 20-degree weather on the last day of March, and I thought about those seeds. I thought about how I should have waited and given them a better chance later in the year. But I needed to plant them on your birthday. I needed to immerse them in the earth and feel the dirt and rain and bugs and pain and everything, on your birthday. So maybe it was a selfish move to plant them that day. But maybe not. And besides, the packet said I could plant them in March in Ohio. And so I did.

At first I thought the foliage was just one more of the neverending diversity of weeds thriving in the biome of my yard. Nonetheless, I continued to always spray the hose down to the front of my yard where I had planted those seeds on a rainy March 13, making sure the entire area was fully saturated with life-giving water. Water and earth. Air and fire. Dust to dust.

And then the blooms came! The first poppy flowers opened in May, a light orange cup slowly opening up. I cried tears of joy, remembering my heartbreak, on your birthday and so many times over the years gone by. Every year, I ritually mourned you on your birthday and your death-day, never realizing that I should celebrate you, that I should create beauty in your memory, new memories in your image, joy in the sadness of your wake. And there was proof! Proof in the bloom of a non-native plant, the state flower of California thriving in the Ohio summer, beauty in my otherwise chaotic front yard.

At your funeral they gave us all seed packets. We were supposed to plant flowers in your memory. I never could bring myself to open the packet and sprinkle the seeds in your memory. I kept the seed packet for over a decade, still adorned with the ribbon someone had carefully affixed in preparation for the ceremony. I toted the seed packet, together with various other pieces of cobbled-together memorabilia, in an old gift sack from around 1991, for year after year, apartment after apartment, across the country and back. Finally, it got lost in a move, and I still kick myself every day for inadvertently abandoning those photographs which will never be replaced, a letter you wrote me before you got sick that was heartbreakingly premonitious, and various other relics of a childhood left behind. I no longer have those tangible memories, so carefully preserved. I am left, now, with nothing but the memories in my mind, which I dearly hope that I am not changing too drastically as the years go by. So now it is time to look at the future and find new ways to create tangible memories for you. So I finally plant those seeds, 16 years overdue.

The poppies bloomed all summer. Their last blooms did not fade until well after the first frost in September. The plant grew and grew, the unique blue-green leaves extending across my front garden, more and more orange blooms dotting the landscape every time I looked and continuing to draw the curious attention of passers-by; even my friends educated in flora and fauna did not recognize the simple California poppy. After all these years, I finally have land to call my own. So perhaps that is why I never planted those seeds, and instead carted them around all those years while I searched for my roots without knowing it. So now I have my own piece of land in this earth, and I can use it to create joy and beauty. Soil, water, air. Summer blooms, winter hibernation, fall leaves, spring rains. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Happy 31st, Robina. I love and miss you, every day, but I know that you are here with me.

awwwwww

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/08/16/lebron-james-sets-up-college-scholarship-program-for-at-risk-akron-youth/

from vice.com

This, this, a thousand times this:

My eating disorder had nothing to do with the media

just links again

the internet (ok, mostly npr) is giving me all of the feels today.

in regards to:

the ADA

    (and related article, but I mean, duh)

dying 14-year-olds

    (btw, 7/24/99 was Robina's memorial service)

chemo at end of life with huge inoperable tumors

    (speaking of.....)

transcending yourself by helping others with medical/special needs

    (Andrew WK brings it home)


That is all. I am done internetting today because every one of these seemed addressed directly to me. The end.

3 things

1:

2:

3:

ok so this is actually important

I was going to wait a little bit until the celebration died down to say this, so instead I will just write it here before the words leave me and then throw it up on FB in a day or two.

I'm as jubilant as anyone that same-sex marriage is now legal in all 50 states. It's been a long time coming, and I love love and celebrations of love, so bring it on!

But here is what we need to remember:

Just as electing a black president didn't mean that we were past racism in America, so too does this not end the fight. This victory is hugely significant - both as a symbol of equality and as a practical effect on the lives of millions who have waited and fought for this.

But the battle is far from over. LGBT Americans (and worldwide) are still bullied, harrassed, denied housing and jobs, assaulted, murdered, and commit suicide at alarming, unacceptable rates. In communities around the country, our LGBT friends struggle each day to live a normal, safe, and happy life due to the countless prejudices and injustices waged against them on a daily basis.

So let's embrace this victory, yes. Like I said, I do believe that it is symbolic of a turning tide in American sentiment about the LGBT community. But now that the marriage equality battle has finally been won, let's turn all of that energy toward other causes that will impact the daily lives of every LGBT American.  That battle is much more important - and for that, we have a long way to go.