Anxiety

Pierced with anxiety

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This morning started out really rough, as Monday mornings sometimes do. My son got up late and missed the bus. Which technically wasn’t a big deal because he rode to school with my oldest daughter Angelique who drives to school. Angelique refuses to take him to school due to his tardiness, so he has to take the bus. As a result, Angel got into the shower late which disrupted the whole schedule which trickled down into a bad Monday morning for me.

I went to Alex’s room and confronted him for getting up late and missing the bus, which happened despite all my nagging. Well, I should say that I only walked two feet into his room because after that is an abyss I might not escape from without twisted ankles and broken legs due to laundry piles and missing assignments. Probably a couple of rats and definitely spiders. Paul and I told him that he is going to have to go to bed at 9 PM all week as a consequence for missing the bus. This prompted the response of “I hate you” several times to spew out of his mouth. I know, we are the worst parents because you can’t get your butt out of bed.

Angel got into and out of the shower late. She ran out of time to get gas in the morning and needed to borrow my credit card all day since she didn’t have time to run it back home. Oh, and did I tell you that while she was running late, she lost the car keys?? Mad scramble around the house looking for keys. By the time they left, I was shaking!

I figured that it would be the perfect time to change my ear cartilage piercing for the first time in over a year. The last time I changed it, I put in a crappy nickel earring and then left for the overnight sail and ended up with a red, sore ear that doubled in size. This caused a lot of anxiety, so much anxiety that even the thought of changing it again caused some panic within me.

It’s not as if I didn’t end up in the ER before due to an ear piercing. I got my ears pierced at age 6, my ears double pierced at 30, my doubles pierced again in my upper 30’s (they tend to close up if I don’t wear earrings in them for over a week), and my cartilage piercing at 40. But I didn’t end up going to the ER, Arabella did. After having issues with caring for my piercings at age 6, I told my daughters they could have piercings at age 10. Arabella wore the same earrings for so long that the back of her earring ended up getting embedded in her ear. So off to the ER with her for that feeling like a bad parent. It wasn’t her first trip to the ER and it wasn’t the last. Now she doesn’t even wear earrings and her piercing probably closed up. Geez. That was one expensive piercing too with the ER trip.

This morning I scoured my hands with special care. I’m sure an obsessive compulsive hand washer would be proud. I won’t tell them that last night I volunteered to do a dirty cleaning project. At times while cleaning, I broke through my latex gloves without knowing it. I imagined deadly germs seeping under my fingernails just looking for an entry spot like a cartilage piercing perhaps. I cleaned my earrings. The first earring I tried went right in, but it did not fit right. Then I tried a hoop earring. I could not get it in for anything. I tried until my ear started bleeding and figured it wouldn’t work. Since I got it pierced with a stud, I think that maybe trying to get a hoop in is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Or maybe because my hands were still shaking.

Finally, I got the third earring in with no problem and all is well. But I thought it wouldn’t hurt to change my earring on a Monday, just in case I needed to go to the doctor with a deadly ear cartilage piercing infection. It is very practical to think that going to the doctor is a heck of a lot easier, not to mention more affordable, on a Monday morning than going to the ER on Friday night. Ah, life with an active imagination…

The wait, the news

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Last night we received the news of my mother-in-law’s biopsy. I feel relief that it turned out the way that it did. We have been anxiously waiting for the past two weeks, putting everything on hold. Waiting to get that punch in the face that never happened. Worry that had me in a pre-ulcerative state. Worry that had me grinding my teeth during the night. Worry that tightened every muscle bracing for the punch.

Telephone calls spewed misinformation like the game telephone. News of a football sized mass in the stomach and lungs turned out to be two small football shaped masses in the stomach and chest. Small slow growing malignant tumors that will be treated with oral chemotherapy. Chemo is not going to be a walk in the park, nor is she out of the woods by any means. But, the prognosis is good. So much better than what we originally thought.

When we heard the bad news 2 weeks ago, we turned to google. Google is the hypochondriacs best friend. Website after website fueling our anxieties into one big ball of flames of death and dying. We literally thought that she might only have a few months, weeks, maybe a few days left. I really hate it when I let myself be worried by google. Every scrape, bruise, and cut has at least one website devoted to the belief that we are going to die from it.

Seriously, lets face it, we are all going to die. If anything, this has been a wake up call to not believe everything that you read online AND to treat everyday like it could be the last day.

Hoarding, clutter, and cleaning freaks

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I am knee deep in fall cleaning right now. I thoroughly clean my house twice a year, once for spring and once for fall. Spring cleaning is the big event of the year where I scrub the whole house with a toothbrush. Fall cleaning is more of a hairbrush clean. I used to thoroughly clean my house after every season, but I really hate dusting. Talk about a useless task! I dust everything and within a half an hour new dust takes over. Then I sneeze for 3 days.

I threw out and donated many items to the point of guilt. I come from a very long line of hoarders. When we sold Aunt Grace’s house, we moved everything into my grandma’s house. When we sold grandma’s house, we moved stuff into my parent’s shed. Now their very large shed is full. Time to build another shed! We did get a large dumpster for my grandma’s house which was emptied 3 times. We made multiple trips to Goodwill to the point where they didn’t want any of our crap anymore. Did you ever hear of anyone getting turned away from Goodwill for over donating? Yeah, me neither.

Yesterday I went to my parents house and watched them struggle to maintain their property. There was a pipe that was leaking into the basement. Mom took me downstairs to look at the damage. There was some water that pooled around food items that expired in the 1990’s. I feel overwhelmed at the thought of cleaning it all out someday. My mom has always been a food hoarder which she attributes to growing up poor.  She has 4 freezers and 2 refrigerators. The cupboards are full of mostly expired food. There are grocery bags sitting on the floor with new food. Downstairs the situation is worse. Multiple peanut butter containers that expired in the 90’s, homemade canned food items from the 80’s, glass containers full of stale grains, corroded cans, juice separating in bottles.

My parents also hoard other things like cars, magazines, paper, newspapers, clothing, blankets, wood, books, movies, old toys, candles, soap, empty jars, tools, and parts. My dad collects electronics, broken parts to fix other broken parts. The floor and chairs are stacked with papers. The dining room table is never clutter free and neither is the kitchen counter. Nothing is thrown out even if it is expired, broken, or useless. Paul’s mom and step-dad are hoarders too. They have 2 refrigerators in their small kitchen. One doesn’t work and is used for storage. Both of our parents have given us some of their junk which we throw out for them. Thankfully Paul and I share the same motto of when in doubt throw it out. Looking at my kids rooms, I think we may have a few future hoarders on our hands. 

As a clean freak, the clutter overwhelms me. I can’t breathe. I feel a lonely emptiness in a room stacked full of clutter. It rises within me a feeling of absolute despair which I cannot explain. It feels hopeless. I want to throw everything away. I want my house to be clean, but no matter what I do it still feels dirty and messy.

A few years back, my brother Luke and his wife brought her sister to my parents house with them for the weekend. Luke’s sister-in-law told my brother that my parents house was so messy that she would never stay there again. Luke told my mom. This started a big fight with a lot of tears and stress from my mom. Luke was hoping that my mom would throw things out like he does, but instead they built another shed. My mom gets very attached to items and needed a lot of moral support to throw out my brother’s baby blanket a few years ago when he was well into his 30’s. We also did not want our old baby clothes for our children. Why do items attach so much hurt for the people who don’t want to part with them and the people that don’t want to keep them?

I have helped my parents countless times in the past. It is so overwhelming to me. It is like emptying a lake with a cup. I feel guilty for not helping them more. I’ll be totally honest, I can’t handle it. It elicits such a strong negative response within me that is unbearable. So I scour every corner of my house. After cleaning I still see all of the streaks in the windows, all the stains on the carpeting, the little yellow rings that don’t come out of my sink and bath tubs, the grease that lingers around the oven, the little spots on the walls, and the cracks in the linoleum. Will we ever be free from cleaning or hoarding? Will we be forever haunted by earthly treasure or trash?

If running doesn’t kill me, it will make me stronger!

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On my way home from work this past week, I followed a drunk driver. He was weaving all over the road, in and out of the ditch almost taking out some signs, just missing mailboxes and garbage bins. I felt anger towards the man in the truck as I thought of the school bus returning the little neighborhood kids meer minutes ago. Then it hit me. I wasn’t safe either. Neither were the other bikers or runners. 

At my last doctors appointment, I was told that I was in great shape. My already low cholesterol levels dropped 50 points. My blood pressure was low. I am the epitome of health (something I always remind the doctors of when I am sick). My weight was perfect. Absolutely everything was wonderful. I attributed this to all of my running. I thought the doctor would prescribe me cigarettes, liquor, and a sedentary lifestyle. Seriously, how else is she going to make money off of me?? Injury, well yes, I suppose there could be that. 

There is no doubt that running has made me stronger and healthier. But my anxious mind also thought about how it could kill me. Here are my 50 ways to kill a runner:

1. Getting mauled by a bear, wolf, or dog. 

2. Getting struck by lightening. 

3. Getting overheated. Warm running days don’t happen that often in WI, but when they do we are not prepared for it. 

4. Freezing to death. 

5. Sweating to death. 

6. Tripping over my own feet and hitting my head on the control panel of my treadmill. 

7. Getting struck in the head by flying debris. This could happen when a truck carrying rocks goes over a bump or when someone tosses a beer bottle out the window. This happens, I see all of the crap that you throw out your window. 

8. Dehydration. 

9. Drunk drivers. I try to run in the mornings to avoid this problem.  

10. Dark trails in the woods that happen to be next to a gun range. What? That is a homicide waiting to happen. 

11. Getting hit by a stray bullet. 

12. Getting attacked by a swarm of angry birds or bees. You never know about the birds and the bees. 

13. Delivery drivers, they are always in a hurry. 

14. Now that I think about it, maybe my mail carrier. She never smiles or waves. 

15. Getting caught in white out conditions from snow and getting lost or hit by a car. 

16. Getting hit by a car. 

17. Getting hit by a car!!

18. Getting hit by a car!!!  At least you have a chance of outrunning the rapist. 

19. Getting swept away by a tornado. 

20. Did I mention flash floods?

21. Slipping on ice and bumping my head. 

22. Those service truck guys who ask for directions. 

23. Electrocution from downed power lines. 

24. Running so fast that people don’t seem to see you. 

25. Items that fall from overhanging trees. 

26. Trying to save a cat from getting hit by a car and getting hit by a car. 

27. New drivers. 

28. Old drivers. 

29. Getting hit by a train. 

30. Getting an infection from all of the chaffing. 

31. Getting West Nile, malaria, or Lyme’s Disease from bugs attracted to a sweaty stinky body. 

32. A deadly sunburn. 

33. Being scared to death by a runner that sneaks up behind you. 

34. Choking on rehydration products. 

35. The smell of stinky sweaty running clothes is enough to kill someone alone. 

36. Getting hit by a school bus due to kids distracting the driver. 

37. Training for a marathon. 

38. Infected bloody toenails 

39. Getting pneumonia from running in the rain. 

40. Running in the dark. 

41. Running barefoot and stepping on dirty needles. 

42. Idiot drivers that are texting. 

43. Women who are doing their hair or makeup while driving because they are late for work again. 

44. New parents distracted by a crying baby or the kid who snuck out of his car seat again. 

45. Is there really nothing good on the radio people who veer the direction they are changing their radio station in. 

46. Did I tell you about the wooded trails?

47. Creepy guys in white unmarked vans. 

48. People so in love they can’t keep their eyes on the road. 

49. Falling over in exhaustion. 

50. Seriously, do you know hard it was coming up with 50 ways to kill a runner???

I used to think that running would prolong my life, but now I am not so sure. 


Post modern parenting

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Last week I had the opportunity to go a really nice indoor waterpark in WI Dells, the waterpark capital of the world. Why the supposed waterpark capital of the world is in a cold climate is beyond me. They only keep the outdoor parks open 3 months of the year. I absolutely love waterparks so I decided to tag along with my husband while he went to a conference. The first body slide I went down, I banged, bruised, and scraped up my elbow. By the end of the day I had a matching bruise on my other elbow and another on my back. Seems like I can no longer have fun without somehow hurting myself.

That day I ate lunch by myself at the waterpark. By MYSELF! That hasn’t happened since at least 1994. It gave me time to people watch, one of those hobbies that I don’t seem to have time for anymore. As I was waiting for my lunch alone at the table, I became surrounded by babies. There were strollers everywhere. I had to go through a maze to get back to my table with my food. As I watched the young parents, I noticed something. As soon as the babies fussed at all, the parents handed over iphones to pacify the infants. The babies watched music videos of some sort. It didn’t sound like baby music, but had more of a dance beat. Gone were all of the ridiculous toys to pacify babies like the plastic keys that I used to use. Gone also was the parental entertaining of infants. Gone was the opportunity to ask the babies how to set up parental controls for my teens.

What is going to happen to these device pacified babies? Will they be texting and getting their own phones at 3? Carpal tunnel at 4?  I remember being told that it was bad parenting to have your infants and toddlers watch TV or movies. What about cell phones, ipads, and/or kindles as babysitters? Who knows? When my kids were little I would have given anything to sleep to 8 AM. I was thankful if I could get a shower in. I wasn’t going to get up at 4:30 in the morning to take my shower before they got up. During the day, I would sometimes pop in a movie and take a shower with the door slightly ajar. That didn’t keep one from escaping. Little Arabella when she was around 2 took off for the road while I was in the shower. I remember running down the driveway after her wrapped in a towel with soap in my hair screaming at her to stop. Those were the crazy days of parenting. Now I wake up at 6 AM regardless of how late I stay up. I would give anything to go to bed by 10PM, but have to wait for my teens to get home. Oh, how parenting changes. Pity the poor parents with babies and teens. Do you actually sleep?

As I was sitting at the waterpark eating, writing blogs in my mind, and reflecting on the life cycle of parenting, I was also scrolling though facebook. That is when I found out from a post by Paul’s cousin that my mother-in-law was in the hospital. It is always great to find out things through social media, isn’t it? Especially when my husband was in meeting and I had no way of contacting him. I certainly was NOT going to wander around the conference hall sobbing and sopping wet in my swimming suit blubbering around with waterpark bruises all over my body.

I have a love/hate relationship with technology. It is great to be able to be in contact with anyone anywhere. But you can never truly get away from life’s problems and busyness unless you put your phone away. I long for the solitude of a phoneless weekend. Someday I will do that, until then my phone is two inches away still waiting for test results for Paul’s mom. We are hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

Waiting….for bad news

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Waiting…I sit here waiting. Worried. Waiting for bad news. I know it is going to be bad. I think of all the times that we didn’t get along. The guilt of feeling annoyed by you most of the time. You aren’t a bad person. You just talk before you think. My daughter called you rude the last time we saw each other. You commented that my hair looked terrible. Did I mean for it to look so bad? Did my finger get stuck into a light socket? I told you that I wasn’t offended, that your comments about my hair didn’t bother me. It didn’t bother me. What did bother me is all of the empty promises you made to my kids your only grandchildren, the times you said that you would show up and didn’t. 

Now I am thinking that you might not be here to see your granddaughter graduate next year. I feel terribly saddened by this. When I saw you last weekend, you did not look good. You were out of breath, wheezing, and coughing. The cough that lasted over a year. You have been continually sick for months at a time with head and chest colds. Your doctor thought that it might have been some of your medications, that once he took you off of the offending pill that you would get better. But you got worse. Now you are in the hospital, waiting. We worry and wait, wanting the distraction of work but have difficulty focusing. What do we tell the children? That the doctors think that you have lung cancer. So we sit here waiting, waiting for the bad news.

The 1st (planned) overnight sail

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Last year for my husband’s birthday, we planned our first overnight sail on our sailboat. Technically, it wasn’t our first overnight sail. But we won’t talk about that. If you want to read about everything that could go wrong without sinking the boat, feel free to read the accidental overnight sail post. It was pretty funny, but not at the time. 

As I mentioned briefly previously, I got my first ear cartilage piercing for my 40th birthday. I am a very ritualistic and rule oriented person, at times borderline OCD. My world consists of order, rules, rules, rituals, and more rules. My rules. My structure. I am an extreme person. That is just the way I am. So, I got my ear pierced for my birthday. It required cleaning 3 times a day for 12 weeks. Ok, I got that, no problem. My husband’s birthday was exactly 12 weeks to the day after I got the cartilage piercing. It would be perfect to change the earring right before we left for the overnight sail, or so I thought. I had a hoop earring that I wanted to try. 

Removing the back of the earring stud required a lot of yanking. My ear was “ear itated” before I got the earring out. Then it started to swell and bleed. I tried to get the hoop in which was impossible. I could barely get it into my regular ear piercings. Hmmmm, now this is where I really went wrong. I put a nickel earring stud into the ear cartilage piercing and left for the overnight sail. 

It was a perfect early fall day for a sail. It was warm and windy, but not too windy. We sailed several hours to get to the resort. Once we got there, it was during the week and the pool was closed for the season. There was not much to do. By the time we got there, my ear doubled in size. I thought that maybe my piercing was infected. I was so stressed that I couldn’t eat. Worried. This is the point when my acid reflux acted up again as an adult but I didn’t know at the time what it was. 

The next day we headed back home. I called the ear piercing place and they said I was probably allergic to the nickel earring. I found that strange because I didn’t have problems with nickel in my regular ear piercings. They suggested putting the piercing stud back in. This was problematic because I was on open water and didn’t have any other earrings with me. The minute I got home, hours later, I put my piercing stud back in and haven’t taken it out since. I am almost afraid to. I felt bad that my seemingly great idea turned my husband’s birthday into a big mess of anxiety. I have only stayed overnight on the sailboat once since then. It was for our anniversary when the big unexpected storm hit. 

Why does everything have to be so eventful in my life?? Well, it sure gives me things to write about and at times things to laugh about. 

Running away

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I thought that after how hectic last week was that this week would be a breeze. Boy was I wrong! This week has been just as stressful if not more so. I left off with recent events telling about my brother’s wedding, coming back home and getting a cold, and ended Monday with the news that a best friend of my son’s ran away from home. Things would’ve probably ended up fine if he would have came home later the night he left, but he did not. 

My son and his friend Logan were the last ones to see Jake. Jake bragged on the bus ride home Monday night that he was going to run away from home. His friends didn’t believe him because he said that before several times and never did until Monday. Monday night our summer days reached an end. A cold front brought the wind and rain. Logan saw Jake walking down the road in the pouring rain with a backpack on. Logan called my son and they attempted to stop Jake from running away. He had a backpack full of clothing, water, food, and a couple knives. He told the boys he was going to catch a train out of town. The boys tried to stop him, but he ran off into a corn field. 

At this point, the boys went over to Jake’s house to alert his mother. Jake was born to teen parents who ended up marrying other people and having other children. He was having a lot of conflict with his stepdad. His father lives out of the state. I thought Jake would come home that night. 

Tuesday morning arrived, but Jake had not. His dad flew in to help try to find him. The neighborhood was scoured. Abandoned buildings, deer stands, unlocked sheds, farms, the railroad tracks, the park, fields, and woods were searched with no signs of Jake’s whereabouts. After school, my son and a group of boys looked for him in their secret hiding spots. I offered to search the corn field where he was last seen. All I found was a battery and an empty sleeping pill wrapper on the ground. The corn was over my head and I was searching after dusk. I heard noises out in the field and was convinced there was a bear coming for me. It was scary. When it got dark, we all met back by the road. A night bird cried out. Jake’s mother mournfully responded by shouting out Jake’s name. He was not there. 

We went back to Jake’s house where the boys were questioned some more. Jake’s stepdad was pouring over Google maps and also was looking over the railroad track locations. Jake’s grandmother cried. No one had slept the night before, no one had eaten. There were tears, anxiety, and anger. It was heart wrenching to see the family’s pain. They were so desperate trying everything with no answers. We decided to search outside of a trailer of a friend of the boys that recently moved out that had a broken window. Jake’s dad cried out his name in anguish receiving nothing but empty silence. After this, I took the boys home. It was going to be a cold night, near the freezing point with a boy who ran away a day ago into the pouring rain. We feared hypothermia. We feared death. 

Last night Facebook got flooded with missing person posters. Jake was spotted near a highway about 30 miles away. This morning brought relief that up until last night, Jake was alive! A couple of hours later, Jake was found. 

All of this brought back memories of the times that my autistic brother Matt ran away from home as a child. Multiple times he ran away. At times we had a search for him in the woods near our house. We feared for his safety. He couldn’t take care of himself. It brought back brief moments of the terror we went through searching for a lost child. 

Lately I have seen a lot of banter going back and forth about who has the hardest job as a parent. I want to offer my opinion. Parenting is hard! It doesn’t matter if you are a biological parent, a step parent, a foster parent, a parent of one or ten, or a parent of the disabled. If you want to be a good parent, it is difficult. It takes everything that you have. I think that parents who have both disabled and “normal” kids probably have one of the toughest roads to walk. We need to work together to bring our lost children back home. I am not sure what will happen with Jake now, but I feel a lot of relief that he made it home safe.

Reflections on 9/11

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If you are an American and were old enough to remember, you probably know where you were when you heard the news of the terrorist attack years ago. When I think about it, really reflect on it, I remember exactly where I was when I heard all the bad news in my life. When my grandpa died 15 years ago, I answered the phone downstairs in the family room. I accused my mother of lying. I said it wasn’t true. I just spent the day with him a couple hours before it happened. I was in the kitchen when I heard that my grandma died. I was in my bedroom when I called her brother to tell him. I was in 6th grade when I heard that the space shuttle Challenger exploded. Teachers were sobbing over the death of the teacher Christa McAuliffe. The school was torn down over 2 decades ago, but I still remember the room I was in. 

It seems so strange that my children, nearing adulthood, have no memories of 9/11 because they were too young. It seems like yesterday that I was staring transfixed at the TV screen. My good friend called crying first thing in the morning telling me to turn on the TV. I remember feeling numb with shock. This couldn’t be happening. Our old neighbors stopped by later that day. I remember her sobs. The images we were seeing were horrific. Our children watched with us, not understanding. I remember watching the little children in the church nursery weeks afterward crashing little cars into toy buildings while pondering the fate of our country. Even though I didn’t know anyone personally affected by the loss, we as a nation mourned. We watched for weeks hoping that survivors would be found among the wreckage. We developed a new fear of anyone collectively different from us. We had to. We were afraid, even in rural Wisconsin. We worried that our Great Lakes would be poisoned. People in large cities were afraid. Then came the Anthrax scare. It poisoned our mail. We weren’t even safe in our own homes. Health care workers got small pox vaccinations in defense against biological warfare. People feared mass transportation, shopping malls, and traveling in general. Life as we knew it changed. 

Then came the first anniversary of 9/11. I remember exactly where I was. I was in the bathroom that day taking a pregnancy test. Right after it said positive the fire trucks went down my road full sirens blaring with flags behind them. People came out of their homes and waved. Many years have past since then. I was even invited to a wedding that day. I didn’t think that it was right. But could I say it was wrong? Life goes on. Others were born that fateful day. Friends of ours were flying out of the country on 9/11/01 to get married. They spent their scheduled “wedding night” with hundreds of other frightened travelers grounded at the airport. 

Several years back, I had the opportunity to go to the 9/11 site and museum. It was solemn, eerie, and mournful. Outside the site itself, there were people protesting their foreign government in languages that I did not know. I don’t think that I could even describe how empty that felt. I was standing next to a blackened building hearing their cries, understanding but not. Inside the 9/11 site were the names of the victims, some people had roses placed next to their names. This was at the edge of an eternal waterfall. No matter how far you looked down you could not see its ending. I just remember how silent everything was even though there were tons of people there. I don’t think that anyone kept a dry eye in the museum. I think over time our country grew stronger because of this. We pulled together. We made it through. I just wish the cost wasn’t so high. We will always remember the strong and courageous people who gave everything they had that day. 

Running etiquette, rules, and humor top 10

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After almost getting hit again by a car today, I decided to scrap the blog I was going to write and focus a little bit on running etiquette for runners and maybe especially more so for nonrunners. 

Here is my top ten list:

1. If you see a runner on the road while you are driving, it is best to move over to the other lane if possible. Runners don’t like the uneven ankle twisting gravel on the shoulder. They like jumping into a ditch even less. If there is a car in the other lane, just slow down. It won’t kill you to take a few minutes to slow down a little. But it could kill us if you don’t. I decided to wave at the people that follow my rules of the road. Maybe a little positive reinforcement goes a long way. 

2. If you are a woman and a guy in a service truck obeys these rules then just ignore them. Waving could signal more than positive reinforcement of rules. One time my friend and I had a service tech guy stop us on the road. He said, “Girls, wanna cucumber?” He actually had a bag of cucumbers, but you never know. After several strange encounters like this and being whistled at, it is better not to even look. If I wanted to get hit on, I would have joined a gym. 

3. Runners know when you are lost and need directions. The elderly women wanting to know where a street down the road was while peering over their glasses at a mapquest map were probably lost. The guy with the septic pumping truck plastered with a local address was probably not. 

4. If you suffer from anxiety, you should try running. I always had a nervous energy while being tired all the time. Running mimics my body’s response to anxiety. It makes your heart race, you sweat, and at times you feel like you are going to pass out or die. It does help my body deal with anxiety by comparing stressful situations to running. Okay, control your breathing. Relax, body. It is just like running. If driver’s knew at times how close I felt to passing out, maybe they wouldn’t drive so close to me. 

5. I always run in busy areas. People see me. That is ok, I don’t think that running on remote back roads or trails alone is very safe. Plus on busier roads dogs are more likely to be tied up. Believe me, it is not fun tripping over a dog that ambushes you. Been there, done that, and have the scar. 

6. Running at night makes it hard for me to fall asleep at night. I like to tackle a run first thing in the morning or over lunch time if it is really cold out. It actually gives me energy the rest of the day. 

7. It is probably best to avoid an injured runner or someone who stopped running before a big race. Running makes me happy and helps me cope with life. Without it, you will have to cope with me roaring like an injured caged wild animal. Blogs full of profuse profanity. Grrrr#***%#! Just kidding, but you get the picture. 

8. Runners are always happy to see other runners on the road, unless you sneak up on them and scare them like I did to someone this morning. Sorry. Nothing motivates me more than seeing other runners on the road. I feel an instant comraderie when I see strangers in running shirts when I am not on the road. If you are a runner, I love you. Nevermind that you could be a serial killer. 

9. If you are forced to run on a treadmill when it is 20 below at least watch a good horror or thriller flick. Run a Netflix marathon. Soap operas are probably the worst thing to watch. Isn’t that what you are running from anyway? The craziness of your own life. I found that running is a great way to relieve anger, anxiety, or life stresses. 

10. Runners are the best type of people. They are adventurous and fun. They don’t care about what they eat for the most part. I eat healthy, but do not have to justify calories from that cheeseburger or dark beer. I have the energy, stamina, and endurance to be open to anything. Would you rather spend Saturday night with a couch potato? Not me, I am out to live my only life to its fullest.