hawaii - a celebration of judy kay

i posted months ago about my self-declared godmother judy right after she died.  since then, she has been my inspiration with my running.  running makes me feel so alive, so strong.  distance running is oftentimes challenging (duh), and she is my motivation to keep going when i feel like i can't.  throughout my training and races this year, i have felt her lift me up.  when i need some strength, a song comes on my shuffle that makes me think of her.  when i feel like i can't go on, her smile and laugh will flash through my mind and i feel weightless.

i'm running the kona marathon in hawaii this sunday in her name.  i'm traveling to hawaii with her middle daughter abbie, who i've always been close to and share a close bond with.  our moms were best, dear friends for over thirty years and abbie and i are following suit.  we joke that we are judy and anita, 2.0 :)

judy, this trip is for you.  i run for you, and for all the others that can't.  i know you will be with me every step of those 26.2 miles, and that you will be with abbie and i.  i feel you always, but for some reason i feel you stronger when i'm running. 

all happiness is inside of you

i've written a bit about this before, but a conversation with a new friend last night reminded me of the importance for inner happiness and peace.

i have gone through quite a bit of growth over the last couple of years, and have experienced a tremendous change.  over two years ago i was couch hopping while waiting for my apartment to be ready, living paycheck to paycheck, and so broke i was worried that i wouldn't be able to afford living on my own.  i was stressed out, up and down all the time emotionally, confused in other aspects of my life, weak, and i just didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel or that i would ever get out of this funk.  i would complain all the time - bitch and whine, bitch and moan.  i would just sit and stew in a pot of crap.

then one day, when my aunt was tired of me hearing the same record over and over again, she gave me some great advice that i have now given others around me.  she said to write down the same affirmation everyday until i felt a change within me. 

i am grateful for all the universe has provided me in the past,

that which i am receiving now,

and all i will receive in the future.

i have a grateful heart.

when i started this, i thought it was a bunch of crap.  grateful for what i am receiving now?  please - i wasn't receiving shit!  but then i began to feel this gradual shift.  i started thinking of all that i did have, instead of what i did not have.  i kept saying the affirmation over and over again, and eventually i found that i genuinely meant it.  i started to wake up with a grateful heart - i started to feel happy.  and not just happy - the happiest i have ever been.

i had read 'the secret' years before.  amazing book.  it talks about the law of attraction, and what you put out into the universe sling shots right back to you.  if you're angry, depressed, and negative all the time that is what you will attract.  if you are positive and happy, the universe will bring the same to you.  and that is what happened for me.  once i started feeling happy and grateful and started smiling again, the most amazing things started to happen.  i got this amazing job offer from dell - i felt even more grateful for the opportunity.  and you know one of the reasons they hired me?  it was my contagious, bright energy! 

and then everything just seemed to fall into place after that.  i moved into this amazing apartment in this amazing neighborhood that i love so much.  i started being able to cook again (one of my favorite things in the world) after couch hopping for a few months.  i bought all new stuff for my apartment - furniture, dishes, clothes, a bed, everything.  it was like i was starting over, just me, picking up the pieces.  i started to do things i had always wanted to do but didn't for one reason or another.  i bought myself a guitar, and began teaching myself to play.  i went through yoga teacher certification, and delved deeper and deeper into my practice.  i began to travel.  i fell in love with my new nephew over and over again.  our family went through a traumatic experience the last couple years, but our already close family grew even closer.  i even took ballet lessons. 

the last couple years, i discovered that all the happiness i had was inside of me all along - i just wasn't channeling it.  before i would tell myself, 'when i get this i'll be happy, when i have that i'll be happy'.  but once i stopped placing this contingency on my happiness, i started to feel so happy and so whole just being zoe.  i felt so much lighter, as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  me was not only enough, it was more than enough.

and now, i truly wake up with a big morning stretch and a smile on my face.  i wake up grateful that i have another day on earth.  sometimes i feel so sublimely happy that i can't imagine being happier than i am now.  sure, there are life stressors around us everyday - and i, too, am guilty at losing myself in them from time to time.  but you are as stressed out as you choose to be, and as happy as you choose to be.  life's 'stressors' will always be there - kids, relationship woes, work, death, etc. but you choose how you confront them - you either choose to approach them light and without stress or anger, or you choose the latter.

i've been through a lot of crap, i dare say more than most.  but i wouldn't change anything, take back one thing, because all of it brought me to where i am today.  i wouldn't give up how i feel today for anything.  the last couple years i have felt so full of life, so whole just being me.  my confidence has grown.  i look at the world around me so differently. i relish in the little things - the feeling of grass between my toes, the smell of rain, watching my dog dream, the innocence of my nephew, a new pair of flip flops, the lake early in the morning when the water is glass, a glass of wine with my mom, sunrises and sunsets, the taste of a dr pepper after a long run, barton springs, the sound of the trees, the smell of the wind, and the feeling of the sun on my skin.  this may sound very hippie cheeseball, but dude - it's the god's honest truth.

energy is so contagious, whether it be positive or negative.  i feel like that red, hot angry energy is unfortunately more contagious than light, bright warm energy and so much easier to fall into and not get out of.  i continue to make conscious decisions to not surround myself by negative people - if i do, then i start to feel icky and pissed.  but, if i surround myself with beautiful positive people, i feed off their energy and they feed off mine.  these are the people i surround myself with.

i just hope that anyone who begins to experience this happy wholeness with themselves, stays with and holds onto it.  i believe you truly need to have this before you invite someone else into your life to experience it with, and i believe that both people need to have it.  this is how the whole conversation got started last night.  my new little friend has started to feel this again, and that makes me so happy for him.  unless you are truly happy and feel whole just being you, i don't think you have shit to offer anyone, especially in a relationship.  i have seen what happens over and over again when people enter into a relationship when they don't have this - they continue to feel unhappy, then the unhappiness spreads like a disease in the relationship, you stay in broken relationships too long because you're scared of being on your own... i could go on.  to halves don't make a whole, two wholes make a bigger stronger whole.

and i guess that's it for today, at least for right now.  be happy, love each other, smile, feel warm.  and from an old mayan prayer, honey in the heart.

'proof of heaven' by dr. eben alexander

when we were studying meditation last year during yoga training, and the deepness it can bring, my teacher shanon spoke of dr. eben alexander.  he is a neurosurgeon and man of science - he didn't believe in anything that couldn't be proven to him.  he wanted facts, in front of him, black and white - he didn't have faith or believe in anything else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZFml7LEn68

one morning a horrible headache quickly turned into him being in a coma from bacterial meningitis.  doctors used to define people as 'medically dead' when their heart stopped beating.  but because of modern day technology that can bring your heart back so quickly, the definition has been expanded to being brain dead.  the medical world has expanded 'medically dead' to those that are in a vegetative state - their heart may still be beating, and lungs still breathing (oftentimes by a machine), but their consciousness is gone.

dr. eben alexander came out of his coma right before his wife and family were going to unplug the machines and let him go.  he and his family experienced a miracle.  his medical staff could not explain it.  after he woke up, he could not explain as a man of science what happened to him - his experience went against everything he was taught to believe in the medical fielf.  although he still cannot explain it, he is now left with this faith he had never known before. 

'as a practicing neurosurgeon with decades of research and hands-on work in the operating room behind me, i was in a better-than-average position to judge not only the reality but the implications of what happened to me.

those implications are tremendous beyond description.  my experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness, that human experience continues beyond the grave.  more important, it continues under the gaze of god who loves and cares about each one of us and about where the universe itself and all beings with in it are ultimately going.

the place i went was real.  real in a way that makes the life we're living here and now completely dreamlike by comparison.'

while in deep meditation, i know i feel at one with the universe and my god.  i feel the energy inside of me.  i feel warmth, love, calmness, and a genuinely pure happiness.  not to sound too cheeseball, but the feeling is almost magical.  i feel that we are all interconnected, and a part of something so much greater.  we each are a piece of the universe, and each have this love and energy (whether you call that god, allah, the creator, etc.) inside of us.

The above excerpt from the book made me think of the namaste prayer.  i say this prayer at the end of every yoga practice - i then bring my hands to my head's center to ask for clarity of mind, at my mouth for clarity of word, and at my heart for clarity of action.  i admit that i don't always adhere to this - i can have negative thoughts, words, and actions.  but this prayer always brings me back to my center, and what is truly important.  the meaning of the namaste prayer and what it specifically means to me have been very important to me, especially over the last few years. 

dr. eben alexander spoke of this 'mother' and 'her' constant caring, and the almost maternal feeling he felt throughout his experience in this different realm and world.

'...the 'mother' was god, the creator, the source who is responsible for making the universe and all in it.  this being was so close that there seemed to be no distance at all between god and myself.  yet at the same time, i could sense the infinite vastness of the creator, could see how completely miniscule i was by comparison.  i will occassionally use OM as the pronoun for god because i originally used that name in my writings after my coma.  OM was the sound i remembered hearing associated with that omniscient, omnipotent, and unconditionally loving god, but any descriptive word falls short.'

the overall meaning of OM is 'the universal sound of life'.  when he was in this realm while in his coma, the constant sound he heard was this humming of OM.  the yogi in me, of course, thinks this is just awesome.  i can see why he often now refers to his god and creater as OM - it makes sense to me.  OM is the sound and vibration of the universe that connects us all.  whenever we chant 'OM' in a yoga class, the aim to connect to everyone around us - and when i do chant 'OM', i in fact feel connected to each and everyone not only in the room, but everyone.  whenever i chant 'OM' at home while practicing by myself, i still feel connected to all life around me.  it's pretty cool...

the overall feeling he felt while in this 'place' was love - undying, unconditional love.  it was a love he had yet to experience in the physical world, and one that would never be able to be fully replicated here.  even though he did not hear the words spoken to him, they were communicated to him in a way he cannot articulate.  it was just an understood truth with him and god.  the message he received was:

'you are loved and cherished.  you have nothing to fear.  there is nothing you can do wrong.

'if i had to boil this entire message down to one sentence, it would run this way - you are loved.

and if i had to boil it down further, to just one word, it would (of course) be simply - love.

love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything.  not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love but the day-to-day kind that everyone knows - the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and children, or even our animals.  in its purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional.  this is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or that will ever exist, and no remotely accurate understanding of who and what we are can be achieved by anyone who does not know it, and embody it in all of their actions.

not much of a scientific insight?  well, i beg to differ.  i'm back from that place, and nothing could convince that this is not only the single most important emotional truth in the universe, but also the most important scientific truth as well.'

how beatiful is that message?  the single most important thing in life is love.  how simple is that, yet how often forgotten as well?  unfortunately, hate is all around us and has been throughout history.  maya angelou once said, 'hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.'  can you imagine a world in which love, compassion, and acceptance prevailed?  it would be a world without war, without violence.  we would have a world in which everyone was truly treated as an equal - no racism, no descrimination, only accepting unconditional love for one another.  it would be a world in which the golden rule was lived everyday, by everyone.  one could argue it would be heaven on earth.

i know what this great love is like.  i have yet to experience it with a spouse as dr. eben alexander describes it, but i have witnessed the love, bond, and commitment between my Mimi and Didi, and between my parents.  i will consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world to have even part of what they do.  although i don't have children of my own yet, i have seen how my sister looks at, cares for, protects, and loves her son simon.  i have felt this unconditional love from my parents - they have loved me when i have been the most unloveable.  i know and trust they will always love me and be behind me, no matter what.  it pains me when i have seen that not all children have this with their parents.  and funny that dr. alexander mentioned one can experience this love when even looking at an animal.  i think we all have not but one soulmate, but different ones throughout our life.  i have friends i feel are soulmates.  my family are soulmates of mine, especially my twin sister.  and my dog toby is a soulmate of mine.  he has been with me since rehab, through thick and thin, through all my struggles - he has been there.

'...our truest, deepest self is completely free.  it is not crippled or compromised by past actions or concerned with identity or status.  it comprehends that it has no need to fear the earthly world, and therefore, has no reason to build itself up through fame or wealth or conquest.

this is the true spiritual self that all of us are destined to one day recover.  but until that day comes, i feel, we should do everyone in our power to get in touch with this miraculous aspect of ourselves - to cultivate it and bring it to light.  this is the being living within all of us right now and that is, in fact, the being that god truly intends to be.

how do we get closer to this genuine spiritual self?  by manifesting love and compassion.  why?  because love and compassion are far more than the abstractions many of us believe them to be.  they are real.  they are concrete.'

i'm not saying this is true, and what happens to everyone.  the fact of the matter is, no one knows what happens when you die - only the people that have truly moved to the spiritual world know.  everyone has a different belief that they believe and is true to them.  but, this book is a great read.  even if you do not believe in the afterlife, or if the afterlife you know to be true is different than the one dr. alexander experienced, it's a great book with such a strong message.  the overall message regardless of what you believe in is love.  we are all interconnected, we all are one - and what connects us all is love and life.

grocery store ramblings...

one of the reasons i like working from home is that i can go to the grocery store over my break, and avoid the sunday funday madness.  i actually do this most tuesdays.  the weekdays have a different kind of crowd of the stay-at-home-mom and old people variety.  i kinda prefer it :)

i think central market must love me.  almost everytime i pull into the lot and circle around, almost immediately a car in a baller spot (like, the ones right next to the handicapped) pull out.  it's as if the gates of heaven are opening just for me.  it puts me in an even more awesome mood, and i just know the rest of the day will be stellar :)

it pisses me off when i see carts placed in the lawn or other places that they are not supposed to be.  people, walk the extra ten yards and put your cart where it should go.  this makes the cart-gatherers job more annoying than it probably already is.  be nice, do your part, spread the love.

i'm still waiting on alaska to send it's awesome salmon and halibut down to texas.  tick, tock, tick, tock.  it's not here yet :(.  my cute fish guy wasn't there this week.  that is a reason to gut out the madness of sundays at central market - fish guy is always there.  and this poses a question - how on earth do you pick up someone at the grocery store?  i see the cutest guys there, mostly my fish guy.  and it's not just at the grocery store - how do you pick up people other places that don't include consuming large amounts of alcohol?  central market?  barton springs?  inquiring minds want to know...

central market has stopped carrying the haagen dazs chocolate sorbet, and it makes me want to cry as my tears form a small sad puddle at my feet.  boo.

i buy flowers for myself every week, one for the vase on my kitchen table and the other for the vase on my coffee tables.  they just make me happy :)

i have found out the key to getting into a check out aisle.  at central market, people approach the row of check out aisles on the left side.  i have found that a lot of people don't stop at the few check outs closest to the left and don't walk further down.  i have found that if you do in fact walk all the way down, you can practically walk up and get checked out right away - even on sundays!!  it's a trick i've learned :)

speaking of the check out counter, i find it highly rude when people do not help bag their own groceries if there isn't a bagger present - this is especially rude when there is a line of people behind you and you  have a ton of groceries!  sometimes a person will just stand there, watching the checker ring in their loot, watching the groceries pile up toward the end, fiddling on their phone, or whatever the hell they may be doing.  and then will watch the checker bag their groceries after this jerk is done paying.  my checker praised me on my bagging abilities, and thanked me very much for bagging my own.  people, this little things means a lot to the checkers.  don't be a priss, and bag your own shit unless you're wrangling children or bleeding from the head.

it's true - i will break both of my arms carrying groceries up in one trip.  i don't normally buy a whole lot since it's just me and toby, but on my big grocery store trips i will take home quite a bit.  and i will not take more than one trip - i refuse.  and for some reason, when a neighbor offers help, i will refuse - i wanna do it myself for some reason or another.

it is so 2:05 on a friday afternoon...

it is so 2:05 on a friday afternoon.  i had a late night last night, alarm came too early this morning.  i'm ready to home, cuddle up with my dog, and hit the couch hard.

but, late night was worth it - i had a date :).  it went well.  in fact, dare i add a 'really' in there and say it went really well??  yes, i think i will.  it went really well.  stay tuned.

this last week has been somewhat random.  this asshole i went out with one time before the holidays called me out of the blue.  i got back from my run tuesday night to discover his missed call.  wtf?  my first instinct was the ignore the queef, but i was just dying to hear what the hell he could possibly have to say to me.  so, i called him back.  we shot the shit for a few minutes, and then he asked me about denver.  'was i still planning to move', he asked me.  i told him i wasn't, and he was curious because he is interviewing for a role that may move him to denver.  i mean, what would it matter if i were moving to denver?  at any rate, i did appreciate the clearing of the air, but that was just about it.  and so i was totally surprised last night when he texted me while i was enjoying a beer with my adorable chubby-cheeked date.  did he want to chit chat again?  geez.

i was on a con call yesterday with a group of people and as much as i was trying to pay attention to the content, the leader's nail biting minnesota accent was stealing my attention.  in fact, so thick i couldn't understand what she was saying a couple times.

as i'm listening to my ipod and a couple songs from twilight come on, i have decided that i'm going to order the twilight series on dvd so i can watch them whenever i want to.  and i'm not sorry about it.  in the least.  by the way - the new boy bears a striking resemblance to taylor lautner. 

it always gets so much colder in the office in the afternoon when the ac kicks into hihg gear or something.  it's as if there is a 2 o'clock cold front we're all doomed to suffer through.  it is so cold up here sometimes that my cube neighbor oftentimes has to put on her heavy coat that she actually keeps traipsed on the back of her chair.

i'm getting a little nervous about my marathon next month.  excited nervous, but still nervous.  this will be my first conquered 26.2 - i have been so damn ready to put that sticker on the back of my car.  i know a lot of people thing they're tacky or whatever, but i don't give a shit - i'm putting that damn thing on my red fit.

just thought of the yummy lips of the new boy.  hope i get to taste them again soon :)

'wild', a woman's journey of self discovery

i just finished 'wild' by cheryl strayed last night.  recently when i was looking for books to read, i googled what had been on oprah's book club over the years, and this caught my eye.  i ordered it on amazon, and it was delivered to my front door shortly after.  i got it used, and i got it in hardback.  there is something about a used book that i adore - maybe the love it's gotten?  maybe the smell?  and I love hardbacks - not sure why on that one.

i'm just gonna go on a short tangent here for a bit.  i love buying books on amazon.  i love buying used books on amazon.  people, they sometimes have books for a penny - a penny!!  yes, you have to pay for shipping.  but, if you buy used books from the same vendor, then more often than not i've noticed you only have to pay for shipping once.  so, if you work the system, you can get several books for such a low bargain price that even puts half price books to shame.  find the loop hole, and jump through that thing.

okay, at any rate.  i digress...

this book is the author's true story.  after some of life's detours and unanticipated loss, she got lost and needed to find herself again.  when she was younger, she and her brother and sister grew up with their abusive biological father, witnessing the beating of their mother.  her mother finally left their father for good, remarried, never seeing the biological father again.  she fell in love and got married young when she was just nineteen.  she and her husband traveled all over the place, finding jobs waiting tables and staying in places a few months at a time.  cheryl and her mother had a special relationship, and grew closer while attending college together after her mom went back to school while cheryl was attending.  their last semester, cheryl's mother was suddenly diagnosed with lung cancer and died less than two months later.

following her mother's sudden death, she just kind of spiralled out of control.  she starting pulling away from her husband, paul.  cheryl and her brother and sister tried to keep the relationship with their stepfather, but he remarried a woman with children and he slipped away as well.  she and paul eventually separated, and she kind of drifted around and found herself staying with a new boyfriend and getting into heroin.  she woke up one day, realized this life wasn't her, and she just had to get away and out.

she found herself in a bookstore one day and was drawn toward this book about the pacific crest trail.  the pct is a trail that goes all the way from the mojave desert in california near the border of mexico, all the way up the pacific coast to canada.  she felt compelled to go, and this book documents her travels and self discovery along her trek.  dude, that's a loooooong way to go...

when cheryl began her journey, she was clearly unprepared and underestimated how challenging it would be.  yes, she went to rei and spent lots of time making sure she had the right gear and knew how to use it.  her stepfather had taught her how to start a fire when she was younger, as well as some other 'boy scout' things.  but when she started, she was very out of shape, especially having recently been doing heroin on a daily basis.  suffice it so say, she was physically ill prepared.  her first few days were rough - blisters, in pain, didn't conquer the mileage she had planned to, and the realization she was indeed out of shape for something like this.  she contemplated turning back, but she trudged on.

as the days grew buy, she grew stronger - both in body and mind.  she gained confidence, and any fear she had started with subsided.  she started gaining more mileage each day.  she noticed new muscles forming.  she got comfortable in her daily routine.  she encountered lots of wildlife (a fox, a bear, and several rattlesnakes) - she was scared upon her first encounter, and became more confident with the confrontations to follow.

although she was alone on the trail, she began to meet people that were on the same journey.  she would hike alongside one of these new friends maybe for a day, they would separate, she'd meet others, go off on their own again, and then they would catch up with each other sometimes a month later while camped.  reading about the relationships she formed was really neat.  it was like this little family - although for the most part they traveled separately, they were all in this together.  cheryl was the only woman these hikers encountered who was on this hike alone, and these hikers really admired her for it.  some thought she was crazy, but the admiration and heroism she felt made her confidence grow - that was really cool.  i admired her too!!  that takes some balls for a woman to hike alone in the wilderness, sometimes needing to hitchhike, and sometimes encountering strange men she didn't know.

she confronted a lot of feelings she had about her childhood and growing up poor.  while that used to make her mad and felt like she missed out in some luxuries in life, she realized that living on so little helped her along this journey.  she only allowed herself $20 between each stop, and she lived on that budget for a few months.  yes, she was able to send herself packages to these rest stops along the way (that was cool - didn't know you could do that) where she would get food and other supplies, but she would stretch out that $20 to include some lodging, showers, meals, etc.  she had to get creative with that money, and her growing up watching her mom stretch a dollar contributed to her success of stretching so little money.

she sorted through a lot of anger she had toward her mother's death, especially on her mother's birthday that passed while cheryl was on the trail.  many sights and smells she trekked past reminded her of her mother, and she felt like her mother was right there with her.  getting through the day of her mother's birthday was hard and she didn't want to cry.  so instead, she made a list in her mind of things her mother did that made her mad - a list of 'failures' of her mother.  but then cheryl thought of all the good things her mother provided to herself and brother and sister, and was thankful for what an amazing mother she had - she was thankful for a mother that showered her in love, support, and protection.  i got the feeling from the story that the motivation for this journey was in large part to move on from her mother's death.

she also dealt with her separation and divorce from paul, and the feelings surrounding that loss.  she confronted feelings with her recent boyfriend joe, and saying goodbye to him, drugs, and that lifestyle.  she looked forward to a fresh start in portland after her trek.  below is a picture of the bridge of the gods in oregon where she ended her trip.

i admire cheryl for going through this trek.  doing something like this used to be a dream of mine, but the realist in me interferes.  i have a dog, a good thing going here in austin, and i'm not about to leave my job to do something like this for a few months.  maybe a a few years ago when i was in the restaurant business, had some money saved, and i would quit one of those jobs i loathed to escape and do some self discovery for a few months on a trip like this alone. 

but, it's not just the excuse of my job, my life, and the realities of the 'real world' now that prevent me from doing something like this.  i don't feel like i need this in the way that cheryl did.  it took me years to find myself, to love myself, and to discover who i am - but i have.  i love my life and where i am, and wouldn't want to leave it.  i would love to do a trek similar to this for a shorter period of time for the experience and scenery, but i don't need escape for a few months.  while reading this book, i had feelings of, 'man, i wish i had done something like that years ago' - but, i didn't do it.  however, i still ended up in the spot where i wanted to be - happy, in love with my life and myself, surrounded my friends and family that love and support me, and feeling complete just being me.

a paranoid hypochondriac

i wrote this the other day, but feeling much better now :)

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I’m beginning to wonder if I am a paranoid hypochondriac.  I think I’ve always been somewhat of a paranoid and moderately anxious person, but certain life experiences have made me even more so and recently it’s gotten worse.

When I first moved to Austin, I was downtown with some friends.  I drove there by myself to meet them, so I parked by myself in a lot somewhere.  When I was walking back to my car at the end of the night, I noticed this guy behind me.  I picked up the pace and hauled ass to my car, got in, and locked the doors.  As I was putting my seatbelt on, I hear this knock on my window and it was the guy.  He even pulled my door handle trying to get in.  I backed up the car real quick to get out of there, but then he threw himself on my hood.  I started to move and he finally got off somewhat by the force of my car, but it freaked me the fuck out!!  I recounted the story to my dad later and he told me that if that ever happened again to plow the guy over and we’d deal with it later.  Needless to say, that was the last time I ever walked to my car alone and unattended downtown late at night.

In my early adulthood, I had some sexual trauma from men – I won’t get into details, but it happened and it sucked.  It took me a long time to face it, deal with it, and recognize that the resulting fear was somewhat running my life more than I had originally thought.  At any rate, these experiences left me fearing men and fearing being raped.  I’ve gotten better, but I still feel like I am looking over my shoulder everywhere I go.  I imagine I will always be somewhat hypervigilant about this, but I’m okay with that.  I’d rather be very aware and maybe ‘paranoid’ of my surroundings than find myself in a situation where I could be hurt again.

A couple or three years ago, word spread in the Austin running community of all these attacks on women.  This unknown man was attacking female runners.  And not attacking them in the middle of the night around a darkened corner – he attacked a woman at Barton Springs at 1^st Street at 7am when the sun was out!  This guy was ballsy.  Year before last on New Year’s Eve, a woman was killed in my neighborhood at 31^st and Lamar by a man who was waiting for her in her house!  I live in a safe neighborhood – a very safe neighborhood in Austin.  Yet this woman was brutally stabbed in her house just blocks from my apartment.  It was later discovered that this man was the same man attacking the runners and he later killed himself when he realized he was the subject of an angry, rampant manhunt.  There was a blanket of ease that covered the female running community, but it still lingers in the back of my mind. 

Because of these things, I am very aware of my surroundings at all time and strive to never put myself in a situation where I feel insecure and unsafe.  But sometimes I feel like I am too paranoid.  I am one of those people who checks behind their shower curtain and closet doors.  I double and triple check the doors are locked.  I have my keys out and am looking all around me when I walk out to my car at night.

So, that’s the paranoia in me for the most part.  Here comes the hypochondria…

I love my dog so much.  I have had Toby for over eleven years.  I got him when I was in rehab (the most vulnerable part of my life) when he was just eight weeks old.  He has been with me through everything, and that is a lot.  He is not ‘just a dog’ to me – he is my family, he is my heart.  I cannot imagine my life without him, and dread the day that is his last.  I tear up just thinking about it sometimes.  I drank a bit too much wine one night, and just held him and cried and told him, ‘Toby, when you’re ready to let go of life, you just go.  Please don’t make me put you down!’  I’m sure he looked at me like I was an idiot and his internal dog thought was like, ‘Mom, I’m still here.  Calm the hell down and sober up.’  Ever since he hit the double digits, I’m very aware of his mortality.  And every time I think something is wrong with him, I think that he’s dying or something.  His vet has reassured me, 'Toby is older, but he’s not old.’  And he is very healthy.  I take excellent care of him, and I lucked out because my dog loves fruits and vegetables.  Seriously – he acts like I’m feeding him a fried piece of bacon when I give him steamed broccoli.  His vet said that as long as I steer clear of a few things that make dogs sick, and give him straight fruits and veggies (no oil, spices, additives), to give them to Toby – they are healthy and aide in a dog’s longevity just like a human’s.  His breed also has a pretty long estimated lifespan.  But, at any rate – I’m very aware that Toby is in fact getting older and I will have to let him go one day.  I try my hardest not to think about it, but at times it will creep into my brain.  My Mimi just had to put her cat of twenty years down the other day, so of course it brought up some of this…

Which kinda brings me to a paranoia I have about my dog.  I often worry that something will happen to him while I’m out of the apartment at work or something.  For instance, my old downstairs neighbor was this careless kid who left his gas on one time.  I guess he was gone for a couple days, left the gas on the stove, and the smell was, like, penetrating the walls of my apartment.  I called the property manager, he let himself in, and the smell of gas was horrible.  And, to add to that, this particular individual would leave candles burning – I saw them through his window.  So, this flash of my apartment blowing up with Toby helpless inside flashed through my mind.  And whenever I leave the apartment, I make sure all my burners are off and any flat or curling iron unplugged, etc. (and I turn on Animal Planet for him J)

I have also formed a feeling of hypochondria toward my parents.  My mom just turned sixty, and my daddy is about to the first of May.  Over the years, I have watched them change.  They were my age when Aren and I were born, and so I have watched them get older over my thirty years.  I have watched my dad get ‘old people spots’ on his hands.  I have watched my daddy lose hair, and watched them turn gray.  I have watched wrinkles start to form.  I have also watched my grandparents age and die, and thus see my mom say goodbye to both of her parents and my dad let go of his dad. 

My mom most recently had to let go of her best friend of over thirty years, a woman I referred to as my godmother, our Judy.  Judy battled cancer for years, and lost her battle this last December – she was only sixty-two.  I watched my mom say goodbye to her dearest friend she’s known – a woman who was more like a close sister.  When I came back from rehab, and my family decided it best for me to move to Austin, Judy did not hesitate to tell my mom she would take care of me.  Wally and Judy took me in as one of their own – she cared for me during my most vulnerable time.  She has always been an extension of my own mother.  It was painful to say goodbye to her and let her go.  I think of her every day and will feel the pain of that loss for quite some time.  And as hard as it was for me to let her go, I cannot imagine what it must have been like for her children.  I am very close to her middle daughter, Abbie – and watching her go through that last month was hard.

Judy dying was a reminder of my parents’ own mortality – I will have to let them go one day.  I try not to think about it, but sometimes it creeps into my mind.  I can’t imagine having to live my life with my mom or my daddy – thinking of it brings a lump to my throat.  I feel this urge to protect them and make sure they are as healthy as possible, taking care of themselves, eating right, going to the doctor, etc.  I just want to take care of them and keep them happy and healthy and here for as long as I can and it makes me so sad to think of them not being here one day.  Last weekend I was in Dallas visiting and I mentioned something to my mom about me being sad when Toby dies (it was on my mind because my Mimi’s cat was about to die), and she very casually said, ‘Well, just think of it as practice for when me and Daddy die.’  How could she be so casual?

My mom works alongside a nurse who has breast cancer – and she is only 27.  Last year a friend mine I used to work with at Chuy’s was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she was in her early thirties (she’s great now).  Just a few days ago I learned that a girl I used to work with at Trudy’s was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she too is only in her early thirties.  My mom said that getting breast cancer so young is extremely rare (and I know that), but this just feeds my hypochondria and paranoia.  How can such young healthy people get so sick?

Over a year ago I went on birth control (of the pill variety).  I started having horrible chest pains – like, sharp pressure pains in my chest several times a day.  It was really freaking me out.  I went to the doctor and got all this work done, and everything came back great.  I get my blood checked regularly since I am a regular donor, and they said I was the poster child for cardiovascular health.  So what the hell was going on?  I was scared I was going to be one of these random young healthy people that had a heart attack or something.  I consulted with a cardiologist, but in the meantime the chest pains became less frequent.  I still wasn’t making the correlation until I went to the doctor for a follow up and we realized it was all the hormones in the birth control.  So, I guess I’m just one of the women that can’t do the pill.  I’m off it no, no chest pains.

I check my boobs when I’m in the shower, go to the doctor annually for lady checkups, and go to get mole checks at the dermatologist – I got that shit on lockdown.  But what about the other cancers and illnesses you can’t see outright?  You kinda have to wait until something weird happens and some symptom comes up.  But then what if it’s too late?  I did find out you can opt for a CT scan or MRI, but this would be an ‘optional’ procedure so health insurance won’t cover it.  How can one tell they’re sick when you can’t see it yet?

I talked to my mom a lot about this last night.  She said it’s natural for me to feel this way after finding out an old friend close to my age has cancer, and after losing Judy, Mimi putting down her cat, and all this other stuff.  I know I can’t live my life in fear, and I don’t want to.  I remembered today that being sad over something that hasn’t even happened and starting to mourn for my dog when he is still happy, healthy, and full of energy is such a waste.  I always emphasize the importance of living for today, show love to those around you, and don’t dwell on the past or worry about the future.  I’m trying to practice what I preach, although sometimes it is a struggle when certain things in life happen.  People and pets die, and sometimes before a time that we may deem ‘fair’.  But what’s funny about life is that it goes on.