Best friends

A stranger weekend

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

Well I can check sleeping with strangers in a hotel room off my bucket list. Seriously though, I am not sure flippant things count as checking something off my bucket list. Do they? Or do they have to be long drawn out meticulously orchestrated premeditated plans like running a marathon? I certainly find that a lot more enjoyable! Or do I? I mean really, it was a hell of a lot of work. But I don’t enjoy the spontaneous checking things off my bucket list that I just added 5 minutes ago. Maybe these things need to be on separate lists. Maybe I am too structured. Are there rules? Hmmm. 

About the sleeping with strangers….. As some of you know, my best friend Lisa moved to Florida this past summer. She is probably sitting on the beach in the sun right now…ok, I have to stop thinking this way or my sanity will not be intact for winter. Anyway, after Lisa left Cindy came in and took her place. Cindy invited me to a girl’s weekend away with her two childhood friends that I didn’t know. We shopped, went out to eat, and got a massage. It was nice even though throwing an introvert in with complete strangers who know each other well can be a little awkward. I mean, I couldn’t share any juicy gossip. But I am quick with the jokes and love to make everyone laugh. 

Unlike Lisa, Cindy is not a runner. Gasp! Shocking, I know. She said she wants to put a 0.0 sticker on the back of her car just to spite me. She said opposites attract. She is crazy, fun, and carefree. I am excited to see what adventures we will share next. 

Grounded for life, part 4

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

It was the summer right before my 17th birthday that I got grounded. It was the first and last time that I got grounded. I remember being pretty upset about it at the time. I just wanted to hang out with my friends. I never thought on that 4th of July that a spark would set off a chain reaction that ended up saving my life. At the time, all I saw was red from the fireworks exploding in loud angry cracks. 

My mom told me that I needed to come home right after the fireworks. Randy showed up that night in his 1970’s big boat of a car with my new boyfriend and a friend of his. Perfect, I set up my boyfriend’s friend with my friend Connie who I invited to come live with me that night. Connie had a rough life. Connie and her younger siblings spent the summer living with whatever friends would take them in. She never had many clothes to wear, no winter jacket, and her mom would leave the kids for days at time with only cough drops to eat. She never called to look for Connie when she didn’t come home. Eventually, the kids ended up in foster care but for those couple of weeks I took Connie in like a stray cat. Connie had a horrendous upbringing, but that is her story to share. Growing up the way I did, I had a hard time relating to kids whose biggest problem was a bad hair day. 

After the fireworks that night, Randy had every intention of taking us right home. However, he decided to take the guys home first and then drop Connie and I off last as we were on the way home for him. It would be a half an hour out of the way to take the guys home, not really a problem. The problem was that Randy said that he knew a shortcut to get back home. After taking some back country roads, it was apparent that we were lost. We wandered around aimlessly for over an hour, turned around, stopped when the road dead ended in a field, turned around again, and eventually ended up in a town over an hour away from my house. I wish I could say we had a map in the car or a cell phone to call home.

We eventually found our way back and rolled in the driveway after 2 AM. So much for coming right home. How do you explain getting lost for hours when you know the route home like the back of your hand? Oh, and by the way, I brought a new friend home that is going to stay with us for a couple of weeks. I almost felt sorry for Connie, it probably wasn’t the best time to have a new friend live with us. Being grounded that night stopped Connie, our boyfriends, and me from what happened next. It would have been tragic. 

Grounded for life, part 3

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

Sometimes I sit and wonder about the things that I haven’t thought about in a long time. Sometimes that bothers me. I wonder why if Randy did some bad things, things that he ended up in prison for, why he never hurt me. He had the opportunity to hurt me, but didn’t. Why was I spared that pain? Was it simply because God knew that would put me over the tipping point of more than I could handle. Randy did some very bad things, but never did anything wrong, illegal, or immoral with my friends or I. Nothing beyond his vandalism of signs and driving fast on country roads without seat belts. Mainly we just joked around and laughed.

One of the last times I saw Randy was right around his 18th birthday. He told Shelly and I that some friends were throwing him a party. He wanted us to come out to celebrate with him. At the time, Shelly was living with me at my parents house. She wasn’t the first friend to live with me for several months. The minute Shelly turned 18, she lived with us until graduation. Her parents weren’t bad per se. They were smothering her with their overprotectiveness. Shelly never really did anything wrong, they never let her.

We showed up to Randy’s party at his friends’ house. It was the first time and thankfully the last time that I saw these friends of his. His friends were in their 30’s, seemed kind of strange but ok. We sat in the living room with the 3 teenage children of his friends. The six of us sat in awkward silence ready for the party to start. The couple throwing the party were in the kitchen behind a closed door. Something was wrong, there was yelling. It sounded like plates were being thrown and smashing against the wall. There was a struggle of some sort, a banging against the wall. Randy went to check things out. The screams continued. Randy came back and said that we were getting the hell out of there, something about someone chasing someone around with a butcher knife.

The three of us jumped into my car and as we were trying to leave the cops showed up. The cops said that we couldn’t leave the scene of a crime. They took us inside and threatened us with blood tests to test our alcohol levels. Our course we said that we didn’t mind because we hadn’t been drinking. I didn’t even see the domestic dispute so I was little help answering questions. Eventually they let us go. We dropped Randy off at another friends house. Happy birthday, it sure was memorable.

When Shelly and I got back to my house her parents called and chewed her out for being at a wild party. Guess they just hung around their house listening to the police scanner until eventually they could tell her what crappy kids Shelly and I were. A big part of me felt bad that day knowing that sometimes life doesn’t turn out like it should.

Losing my best friends

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

I lived in one of “those” houses. You know the one. It was a house that a lot of my friends weren’t allowed to go to but I was always welcome at their house. I was invited into the popular group for a little while but that didn’t work out too well for me. I had an issue with conforming to narrow and limiting group norms AND I lived in one of “those” houses. I did have a best friend in high school I will name Shelly. Her parents only let her leave the house to go to school and to walk down to the store to buy them cigarettes. My second best friend was Mary and she was one of 13 kids in her house. Her parents didn’t seem to notice if she was home or not. So this worked!

When Shelly was 17, she was allowed to come over to my house once. She got home an hour late that day. By the time I took her home, the police were there because her parents listed her as a runaway. Shelly was one of those quiet girls that never got into trouble. When she turned 18, she moved in with us. My mom didn’t charge her rent because she didn’t have a job. She did have to help clean the house, which was no easy task because my parents are practically hoarders. At 19, Shelly got married and I was her maid of honor. 

Shelly was having a hard time finding a job right out of high school. My mom got her a job as Matt’s teachers aide. After 3 years of being “kicked out of school” for his violent and aggressive behavior, Matt was transitioned back in. He still was angry and would lash out if forced to do schoolwork. At this time, I was going to college and was roommates with Mary. I was soon to meet my future husband who lived in the apartment below mine. 

Over time, Matt was still having issues in school. He kept attacking Shelly and pulled her hair. Matt’s teacher convinced Shelly to press charges against Matt because he didn’t have any consequences for his behavior. The next time Matt attacked Shelly at school, she called the police. The police came to the school and arrested Matt with the charge of assault. At this time, I was engaged to Paul. My mother was devastated as she picked Matt up from the police station. I was torn between my best friend and my family. Mary was torn between Shelly and I. It was a big, fricken mess. 

After several months of legal issues, Matt was found incompetent to face the charges brought against him and they were dropped. He has the mind of a 7 year old. He does not read or write. He can’t do simple math. I lost my 2 best friends. They didn’t come to my wedding. That is why, parents, you should not have your child’s friends be caregivers! It was a very hard time for me. I haven’t talked to Shelly in almost 2 decades and Mary for at least a decade. People sometimes ask me if I have any friends from high school. Did you just drift apart over time? Yes, it was something like that. 

The goodbye rescue kind of sail

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

Paul may have saved a man’s life last night. 

Last night we went sailing with Tom and Lisa (my running partner and bff) to say our final goodbyes before they move from Wisconsin to Florida. We keep our boat on a relatively large body of water. I am not giving anything away as our state is practically surrounded by large bodies of water and contains large and numerous lakes and rivers. It is rumored that we have more lakes than our neighboring state of Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes. But I do not want to start a debate. Let me tell you that sailing on a large body of water isn’t always a breeze. Ha ha. Last night was no exception. 

The night started off breezy even though the forecasters said that there wasn’t going to be much of a wind. We were sailing with the same friends that we went on the accidental overnight sail with that I blogged about earlier. We have had so many crazy wild adventures with them that I thought I would give them names which means future crazy wild stories. Anyway, we decided to take a sail out to a landmark for some awesome goodbye photos. Lisa and I share the love of running and photography. The sunset pictures were going to be divine. The wind took us to our destination in no time. It was so windy that there were whitecaps with two to three foot waves. We had our pants and sweaters on as it was a chilly July night. The water splashing up on us was not much warmer. Lisa and I went out on the bow and started posing for the camera when we saw a little guy in the distance out on the water struggling. We asked him if he needed help and he said he would be okay. We looped around taking more pictures. 

When we made it back to the man a second time he was clearly in trouble. He was in a small boat, about the size of a canoe with a small sail on it. He had tipped the boat over several times struggling with the waves and the wind. The water was cold, it was getting dark, he was 5 miles from shore, and we were the only boat around. It was going to take us an hour to get back to shore at dusk under motor. His situation was getting dire. I was picturing in my mind the morning news story of a man lost at sea drowning. A man in the background of our smiling pictures. My husband Paul did what any great captain would do, he threw out a line and kept us all from panicking. After the man swam to our boat, I did what any good captain’s wife would do. I wrapped him up in my warm, fuzzy purple robe and handed the guy a beer. Apparently, he headed out for a short sail about four hours before. The wind took him out and he couldn’t get back to shore. He was clothed in a swimming suit, life jacket, and inexperience. He had nothing on the boat to eat or drink and left his cell phone at home. He was in big trouble. 

Paul may have saved a man’s life last night. 

Dogs, part 2

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

I have learned in the running world that dogs aren’t always your best friend. I have had multiple run ins with animals on the road. Last week I saw a fox for the first time. The week before I ran with a deer and almost saw a poor cat get hit by a truck. Thank God I never saw a bear or I would be griping about them instead. I used to run with my beagle up until last year. He is almost 8 and can no longer keep up with me. He runs with my husband instead. Last week I had to pick up my dog while running because he injured his paw. He howls and cries if we try to sneak out running without him. He loves it too. 

I used to run with my running partner and dog mainly on the back roads. Now I run on the busier roads because the people that live on those roads keep their dogs tied up. The first encounter happened with a Great Dane. The biggest dog I have ever seen. His head reached my chest and he was eyeing up my dog like he was a little house cat. I had a really big problem here because I couldn’t outrun my running partner. Thankfully the dog’s owner noticed he left the yard and got him before anyone was hurt. 

The second dog encounter involved a black lab. This dog seemed friendly enough. He frequently would chase us and bark a bit. No harm in that, right? Well one day he snuck up on us out of a brush filled ditch. We were running at a good pace when he startled us. This ambush caused my dog to run in front of me to avoid the other dog. I tripped over my dog and landed hard in the gravel. I gashed up my knee pretty bad. It was a long 2 miles home bleeding gravel out of my knee and hands from trying to catch myself. I have a scar on my knee as a reminder of my running days with my two “best friends”. 

I will be saying goodbye to my best friend and first running partner tonight as she is moving out of the state. I will miss our many adventures on and off the road. On to happier trails and new adventures. You will be greatly missed.