If you know me, you probably know that my mom is my hero. She's one of the best people I know and easily the biggest reason I'm a decent, functioning human being (it's my opinion that I'm decent, you may feel otherwise.)

     My mom has always given me the right balance of being a parent--teaching me rules, guidelines, manners, and morals--and letting me make my own mistakes and learn from doing stupid things. She's shown me what it takes to be a strong woman and do whatever it takes for those that you love. She's cheered for me when she enjoyed my passions (volleyball), when she's hated them (soccer), and when she just plain thinks I'm crazy (running). My mom is the greatest.

     Just when I think my mom couldn't get any better, she drops a new gem on me. I recently hosted Easter at my house--my first holiday as hostess--and while sitting out on the deck, my mom casually told us that she invented the mullet. Yep. The Mullet. My mom. My mom claims to be the originator of business in the front, party in the back.

This is what she would look like now, I'm sure, if she decided to bring back the trend:

My mom is far cooler than all others. 

When you grow up, you notice things about yourself and your world. Self awareness is a wicked cool thing. Some of it is total bull. Some self observances I've had this week:

1. I wake up from my afternoon nap and like to have chocolate milk for a snack. 

2. I'm running in Pittsburgh this weekend and well on my way to running in 12 new places in 2016. Goals. 

3. Jesus may be the reason for Easter, but the real modern miracle here is how much better chocolate bars taste in egg form. Thank God for Reese's eggs. 

4. I finally learned how to bridge with cards. I'd like to think maybe I'm an adult now, but comment 1 disproves this. 

5. I have no real qualifications for the thinks I love and the things I hate. Sometimes I just hate things because I do and I just love things because I do. Sometimes I have a shit-ton of opinions and can justify all of my feelings. I like to think this makes me interesting and unpredictable, not flighty and self-centered. 

6. Growing up is pretty freaking awesome. I think I get happier, more confident, and love myself more. Or that might just mean that growing older makes you care a whole lot less what other people think. So cheers to more naps, running, and chocolate. 

    There are few relationships in this world I value more than my running buddies. It’s hard to find someone to run with. For me, there are the simple matters of finding someone who runs my pace, is willing to run outside when it’s negative 20 or 90, and someone who I don’t mind sweating with and, potentially, doing the number 1 or 2 with. Then there’s the far more complex issue of finding someone that I’m willing to let into my most sacred time.

      For the last four years, I’ve been incredibly lucky to have my Wednesday morning run with my friend, and former boss, Lori who checks all of the aforementioned boxes. She’s fantastic. She’s even willing to water jog or stair climb or elliptical with me if I’m injured and can’t run. She’s talked me through family and boy drama. Our Wednesday runs kept her from completely losing it when her job started to get rough. When Lori switched jobs last summer, part of her work agreement was that she could keep running with me on Wednesdays. That, my friends, that is how valued a good running buddy is. I’m forever grateful I found her.

     It was hard for me to let my ex into my running life. Running is holy to me. It’s what makes me, me. Bur running with me is probably what made him like me—it’s when I’m in my element, at my best, worst, most honest, and most vulnerable. After we broke up, a friend who comes to my workout classes asked to run with me.

     Karyn is athletic and fun. The farthest she’d run in her life before our first run was seven miles. We started trail running on a Sunday. Eight miles at Hitchcock—easily the hardest place I’ve ever run on trail. We found out not only have we lived a very similar life of sports, divorced parents, awesome younger brothers, love of boating, and dudes, but we actually share a step sister. Crazy freaking small world. We ran together the next Sunday in snow and the following in zero degrees. Karyn bartends on Saturday nights, so each Sunday she was running on four hours of sleep. We went a little father each time out, celebrating how each run was the farthest Karyn had ever run.

     In January I was teaching a cycling class and someone asked me what races I was doing in 2016. I said the only thing I knew for sure was Run Rabbit because my mom already had the date down in her planner. Registration opened in one week, I told them. “What?” Karyn said. “That means I have one week to decide if I’m going to run 50 miles?!” I about peed myself. I had no idea she was thinking about running it with me.

     We ran thirteen miles the next Sunday. That night she signed up for Run Rabbit Run’s 50 mile. We started meeting for my Thursday runs too. When I hurt my back and was out for a week, she ran with Yadi.

     My most wonderful best friends who I run Run Rabbit with, Molly and Cade, moved to Stillwater Oklahoma last year. Stillwater had a 50K dirt road last weekend. Molly and Cade had asked me to come down for the run. I wanted to so badly, but it was the same weekend as the Big Ten basketball tournament. Sixteen days before the race, I changed my mind. Karyn and I signed up for the 50K. We ran ten miles one day and then 20 miles the next of the weekend we signed up. We were as ready as we were going to get.

     When we got to our Thursday run, Karyn’s knee was hurting. She went to the physical therapist and he said she had IT band syndrome. That hurts like a mofo. It’s treatable, but one of the most painful injuries I’ve had.

     We went to the race and just thought we’d see what happened. We ran hard the first 15 miles because we were afraid if we stopped or slowed Karyn wouldn’t be able to start again. After the turn around, Karyn was in a lot of pain. We slowed down. Cade caught up to us and gave us new life. At mile 25 Karyn and Cade told me to go on and finish fast. My running buddy crossed the finish line shortly after me, running over ten miles farther than the farthest she’s ever ran, with IT band syndrome, finishing a 50K in under 6 hours, and placing as the 3^rd female. I’m so proud of my friend.

      The greatest friends I’ve found have been the ones I can run with, bike with, do yoga with. The ones who I want to go out for breakfast and lunch and talk to for hours about anything under the sun. I hope that everyone has someone in her life as good a friend as my running buddies.

I've been coaching 7th and 8th grade girls basketball and, obviously, have taken a break from writing. In that time, though, my short story for teens came out in the UK. You can purchase a copy of the anthology here. Pretty dang cool!

The other night, we couldn't get in the gym to practice and so we went to the other coach's' house and went over plays and then did crafts. While we were doing crafts, one of the girls was playing music. She was playing Aaliyah, TLC, old Destiny's Child--all the jams of my youth. As I knew all the words to all of the songs (because that's what I do--I can't dance, so distract from my dancing, I sing loudly. I can't sing, so I know all the words to all of the songs to distract from my singing), the girls were pretty impressed. I'd gained my cool card. Imagine how I could have amazed them if they'd played Outkast, Nelly, Tupac, Jay-Z or honestly almost any rap song produced between 1996 and 2007. I didn't get to show my sweet rap game, but that these songs resonated with me over 10 years ago when I was their age and younger and they are still listening to the songs now, and we all know all of the words, made me think about music and how girls will always be girls. Who can't relate to No Scrubs or Bug a Boo? 

One of my girls recently competed in a city wide academic competition on a team for her middle school. The kids on her team didn't know their tests were being sent in for the contest. They didn't study beforehand to prep like they could have had they known what the tests were for. They placed 4th out of 76 teams. My girl got first in Literature. I cheered her success as loudly as I could, but she told me she wished her parents shared my enthusiasm. Her parents made it to every basketball game. They were our only fans. I told her maybe they know how to cheer for sports but not for academics. She then asked me what I was like when I was her age. I laughed. I was just like her. Smart with nerdy friends. Athletic with jock friends. Never fitting in quite with either crowd. She then told me the greatest thing. She said, "That's the thing, Erin. Some people just don't get it. And some people are just gonna judge and I just gotta do me every day. I like myself. I don't want to be anybody else." "The sooner people can think like you," I told her, "the happier they'll be." 

We then started talking about poetry and music and how often people don't think about words. I had to play her my anthem of the last few months Elle King's American Sweetheart. (Listen to it. Read the words. It's the greatest.) After we jammed out, my wise eighth grade friend told me that Elle's song sounded like really living. "Being yourself and loving being you with as much passion is behind that song," she said, "that's really living." I was blown away. I don't know how she got so smart, but I hope we have some serious writing days in the future. 

Exciting news in my writing life!! A prose poem I wrote during my sophomore year of college was picked up for publication last week (coming out in May). I wrote the story 7 years ago and it'll be published by Sharp Piece of Awesome Literary Journal! Super, super cool. I wrote this piece as an experiment. I wanted to write something short and in first person plural/second person. It was hard. I brought it out this summer and started reworking it. I sent it to an editor and they actually wrote me back about it (most of the time when you get a rejection, it's a generic letter they send to everyone). The editor said they loved the piece but that the last line was awful--too preachy. I agreed. It's hard to write second person and not sound preachy. I rewrote the last line and sent it out again. This time they want it!

Even cooler, my Young Adult piece, "Where You're Going and How You Get There," published by For Books' Sake is ready for purchase today! Check it out: http://forbookssake.net/store/products/resisters-stories-of-rebel-girls-revolution-empowerment-and-escape/

I haven’t known how to write about what I was going through the last few of months of 2015. But I’m thinking now, that’s probably all the more reason I should be writing about it—to sort things out.

I don’t know what “problem” came first. Or maybe none of it has been a problem, but a rolling series of occurrences that in a year from now will make total sense. Whatever happens, I know I’m going to be OK which I couldn’t say a couple of months ago.

When I was young, I thought I’d travel the world with the Peace Corps, going wherever I was needed and helping everyone I could along the way. I thought I’d have a dog that traveled with me and I’d go from each world crisis to the next doing whatever needed to be done.  One morning a few months ago I woke and realized that I was working to help those who have more than me—helping people as a trainer, yes—but not with those who have less. I was volunteering 2 hours a week working with at risk kids. Two hours when I thought that would be my life’s work. I had a house, stability, a full savings account, responsibility, and all the things I thought I’d cast aside for traveling the world and giving myself to others. I realized I’d become a sell out. There have been days I would get home from work and lay down with my dog and cry. I cried for refugees without homes, children without food, shooting victims, animals dying in shelters—people I’m not helping and feeling overwhelmed by my own insignificance.

Two things saved me. One, Bernie Sanders talked about America’s rate of childhood poverty. We are number two in the world for highest rate of childhood poverty. Number Two. When I was a kid I thought America was the greatest country in the world and I would have to leave here to help people. No way. We have plenty of problems right here. I remembered something my good friend Kim once told me—if all of the “good” people leave a place, then it will never change. While I love that I am from Nebraska, I’ve spent all of my life thinking I need to leave here because here I am so different. But maybe that’s not the case. Maybe I’m supposed to be here to bring the change I’d like to see.

The second thing that saved me from self-destruction was a breakup. In the fall I told the person I was with how much I hated myself and how I wanted to lie down and give up because the world is so big and I am so small and insignificant and he didn’t listen. He never saw me drowning. Without him I’ve told others my fears and insecurities and I’m learning that I’m not small. That I can make a difference and I have so many people supporting me, cheering for me, when with him I thought I was alone. It's weird to think of that--I was far more alone when I was with someone than I was after walking away. 

I went to Arizona a few weeks ago to stay with my friends, Trish and Mike. They took the best care of me. Trish took me out to the mountains every day. We hiked and talked and I ran. She pushed me to scale rocks to the tippy top of a mountain and face my huge fear of falling/heights. It finally hit me how much doing things that scare us push us to become better, stronger. I was terrified of mountains before I ran 50 miles in Colorado and almost lay down and gave up and died. Now, after coming back from that dark place, when I hit this new low, the first place I wanted to go was the mountains. I wanted more than anything to be outside running in a place where I found so much confidence in myself. The mountains have gone from being a source of fear to the place I feel most at peace.

Coming back from the Arizona, I’m excited. I’ve realized the management role I took on semi-unwillingly isn’t a step away from the do-good life’s work I want for myself. It’s a resume builder for when I find the non-profit I want to work for. A breakup isn’t a step back in my quest for love but chance to remedy the only regret I have. Being afraid and doubting myself isn’t poor self-esteem, it’s seeing what scares you, looking it in the eye and taking it head on.

My friend and co-worker recently told me 2016 is going to be a big year. In addition to us crossing our fingers for things to be “normal-ish” at the gym, he said that, for me, 2016 will be my year to run. He said in 2015 that I had a parachute tied to my back—not necessarily holding me back, but training me and making me stronger. The parachute is off. I’m trained. I’m strong and I’m ready.  I’m going to believe he’s right.

 

     It's 2016. A new year full of new possibilities. Looking back at 2015, I had 4 goals:

1. To be a good dog mom. #success

2. To run. #success I ran 1,417 miles in 2015 completing a half marathon, several 10ks, a 50 mile run, and a 50K.
3. To write. #success 3 shorts picked up for publication and a novel ready to send to editors and 2 children's books in the works
4. To be the best version of myself possible. I like to think this is an on-going process, but I'm trying every day.

In 2016 I hope to add  the following to these goals of loving my dog, running, writing, and being a decent human being.
1. Run in 12 new places.
2. Check help someone finish an ultra off of my bucket list. Thanks to my dear friend Cade I should be able to do this. Hopefully if  I blog about wanting to pace him in 2016s Travelers 100, he will for sure sign up and help me realize my dream by letting me help him finish his race.
3. Get out of the #nonewfriends club and network more. I have a goal of getting into a career in non-profit work in the next couple of years. Like a big time goal I need to make happen. I need to start breaking out of my shell and putting myself out there to make connections.