tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-235669892024-03-12T23:22:18.173-07:00Replikatei'm pretty sure my 16 year old self would approvek8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.comBlogger1087125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-54292589650726795872018-01-11T15:10:00.001-08:002018-01-11T15:10:38.253-08:00Booby Trap <div class="MsoNormal">
I walked out of work early on the Friday before New Year’s, feeling
pleased with the good year that was 2017, yet another vacation weekend ahead
and all the lovely responses to a question I put out to my Facebook friends
asking about the best thing to happen to them this year. Two hours later I was
laying on a hospital table, while a radiologist I had just met was squeezing
hot ultrasound jelly on my left breast. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A few months earlier I did what obedient women in their 40s
do and followed my doctor’s recommendation to get my first mammogram. They are,
everyone said, no big deal. It so happened that my company had a mobile imaging
truck coming that month so one Tuesday I awkwardly giggled my way through
getting my breasts squeezed by a big machine in the parking lot of my office.
Aside from some jokes about being topless at work, I didn’t think too much
about it. Normal. Routine. Responsible even. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Until I had a voicemail from a local number I didn’t
recognize. The breast people. Some things weren’t clear, a few more pictures,
we’ll send these to your doctor, can you come back in? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My doctor said it was normal, my friends who have had second
rounds of images said it was normal. It was just not worth getting worked up
because it was all, super, super normal. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Holidays were busy, I didn’t feel any sense of urgency and
waited until after Christmas to go back in. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So there I am, leaving work and that happy Facebook thread
on the last Friday of the year. I had plans to take my niece ice skating. I
made a joke to my sister about seeing if they could “squeeze me in” early and
told her I would be there easily by 3 to get Nina. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My sum total of personal hospital experience is a four-hour
kidney stone episode about seven years ago so they feel quite foreign to me. I
checked in and waited until a nice nurse took me back, gave me a gown, and told
me to lock my cell phone away with my clothes. I went into another waiting room
where a bunch of older ladies were sitting around telling chemo stories. I looked for a seat away from all of them. I didn’t want anyone to ask me anything and
risk hearing any kind of “yeah they thought mine was nothing too” cancer story.
There was a TV on, and the program was about a violent rape and murder case so I
focused all my attention on that creepy show. Easier to fill my head with that
stranger’s horrible experience than to allow even a tiny thought that this was
going to be anything more than a few extra images and off to the skating rink. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The technician was nice. She pointed out the little specks
she was magnifying. She said, “this really doesn’t seem like anything but I’ll
show the radiologist and he’ll decide if you need an ultrasound”. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The room you wait in to see if you need an ultrasound is
small, no windows, a couple of old magazines on the table. Family Circle.
Reader’s Digest. A clear demographic that usually sits in this room. I’m now
late to pick up Nina but I don’t have my phone. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the door opens I already know she’s here to tell me I
need an ultrasound. I lay back and I think about how most women have their
first ultrasound experience looking for a baby heart beat and here is mine,
looking for cancer. She gets started and I go to ask a question but it catches in
my throat and I can feel myself starting to cry and I really don’t want to so all
I get out is “what are you doing?”. She is kind, tells me what she sees,
explains that she’s taking the pictures but the radiologist will have to look
at them too. She leaves to find him, then comes back and says he’s in a
procedure and it will be ten more minutes and is that OK? I tell her I’m late
to pick up my niece. No cell allowed but if I know my sister’s
number I can call her from the phone in the room. She leaves and I call Emily, hoping
she’ll pick up a strange number. She does, I tell her I’m still there and she instantly
says she’s coming over. I know they won’t let her back but I’m glad she’s on
her way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t think to bring anyone
because this was all so routine. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are no magazines in this room either. I have this
keychain bracelet from the locker on my wrist so I’m playing with that while I
count tiles on the ceiling. Eight minutes, seven minutes. We aren’t going ice
skating. I don’t want cancer. I mean, no one wants cancer but I’m 41 and I’m
single and dating already sucks so hard and what? I’m going to be a cancer
patient? No thank you. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The radiologist comes in. He’s so nice. Kind of a goof. He’s
the third stranger of the day with his hands all over my left breast. He tells
me exactly what he’s looking for and what he sees. “There it is”, he tells the
technician. Ah. So, there is an “it”. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Well, it’s likely nothing, but we like to be safe so I’d
like to biopsy this one.” We are three layers deep into “this is no big deal”
so those words have lost all their meaning. Didn’t every cancer story start
with “this is probably nothing’”? He’s so nice. He asks me if I have good New
Year’s plans and please don’t let this ruin my weekend. Yes. I have good plans.
And then I say that hey it might be my last so no this won’t ruin my weekend, I
have incentive for it to be the best ever. They are used to gallows humor so we
all laugh. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I finally get to put my clothes back on and go out and my
sister shows up a few minutes later. She sits with me while we set up the
biopsy appointment. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I didn’t really want to be alone that evening so I went to
see the zoo lights with Emily and her family. My niece Nina drove with me and
she requested that I play “Little Red Corvette” in the car. We sang “Baby
you’re much too fast”, Nina’s favorite part, at the top of our lungs and I was
glad it was dark and she sits in the back so I didn’t have to explain the tears
over a song we listen to every time we are together. I told myself I could have
that night and the next day to worry all I wanted and then I would put it away.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I woke up on Saturday, I felt a kind of crushing anxiety
I have only experienced a few times in my life. As if I didn’t move, or open my
eyes, and if I could make myself as small as possible, I could freeze time and none
of this would be happening. I laid there for a few hours, holding still, willing
myself to fall back to sleep so the endless loop of dread in my head would shut off. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had told my brother-in-law I would go with him to take the
kids skiing, and the thought of spending the day in the mountains with them
broke through and I got up. I love the routine of getting ready for a ski day
and I was feeling something close to cheerful as I left the house. My sister-in-law, who is a
nurse and who I had texted the night before because I couldn’t say any of it
out loud, called while I was driving. I pulled into a parking lot at the bottom
of the canyon and cried but also felt comforted as she walked me through all
the ways this wasn’t as scary as it sounded. She struck a perfect balance
between acknowledging that it sucked but also, making me feel hopeful. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I headed up the canyon blasting a playlist I
had made last summer of all my favorite female artist “anthems” and had made a
couple of resolutions by the time I got up to Solitude. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I play by all the healthy human rules. I work out. I eat my
veggies. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I sleep. I go to the doctor. I live an
active life. If something nefarious was in my body, I didn’t do anything to put
it there. There was nothing to second guess, nothing for me to dissect and
overthink, no “cause” that I could run through my mind over and over as I tried
to fall asleep. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And whatever it was, it was already there. For the next 12 days,
I could worry and freak out and nothing would change. I could drive myself
crazy overthinking everything like I am prone to do, or I could just. Let it
go. Allow it to play out without losing my mind because it’s completely beyond
my control. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was essentially born worried. And
for the most part, for my adult life, I’m always in the driver’s seat on
everything. So, you take a natural worrier who likes to be in constant control and you have a
person who wastes a fair amount of time tied up in useless knots. I have, as
the kids say, “no chill”. So much of quitting my job and taking some time off
last year was about learning how to let things go, to trust the universe a
little bit more, and to pry that death grip off the steering wheel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spent the last half of 2017 feeling like a
much calmer, saner, less worried version of myself. I recognized on that drive
that now was a pretty outstanding opportunity to see if that was a version that
could stick in the face of things beyond job stress and some guy not calling. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So that is what I have done. Which isn’t to say I haven’t
had a couple of small meltdowns, or that there hasn’t been some staring at the
ceiling of my bedroom in the middle of the night time. But for the most part, I have been uncharacteristically calm in the face of probably the scariest process I have ever been through. The biopsy was on Monday
and although I’m not in a huge rush to have four big needles stuck in my breast
again anytime soon, it was a relatively easy experience. I was watching
everything on the screen and the doctor kept telling my “young breast tissue”
was a little harder to get through, which DELIGHTED me in the midst of a day
where I definitely cried when each successive nurse asked me to confirm my full
name and birthday. My mom and sister came, and having all the kiddos in the
waiting room was a sweet “life goes on” way to wrap it up. There is now a
band-aid on my breast that I can’t stop looking at and laughing. It looks so
innocuous, like I got a paper cut or something, not two weeks of wondering if my
body is manufacturing poison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m now waiting on results and there is some stress in that, but for thirteen days I have taken good care of myself. I wore all the
sequins and went to a big crazy party for New Year’s, cooked good food, worked
out, did yoga. I’ve been productive at work, spent time with people I love, stayed out late on a work night to see a favorite band. Just lived my life the way I always do, instead of moving
through this time feeling scared and out of control. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I get a little choked up still when I think about it, but
I’m not afraid. Whatever happens, there will be another plan, another chance to
grow, another layer of empathy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I wrote this piece
before I had the results. I didn’t want the outcome to color the experience of what
it felt like through the process. I got the “all clear” call from my doctor today and
felt relief in every cell in my body. I'm celebrating with a workout and a cupcake, as you do. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-16294128168915452302017-08-13T20:28:00.002-07:002018-01-11T14:06:27.935-08:00Beauty School Drop Out <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
In the space of 10 months last year I moved back to my
hometown, bought my first home and turned 40. Having spent most of my adult
life as a bit of a gypsy, constantly moving and traveling, I was excited to put
down some real roots. And reaching a culturally significant, albeit arbitrary,
age milestone lent itself to some serious self-reflection. I sailed into my
birthday with a solid job, the reassurance from my doctor that babies of my own
were still biologically on the table, the most optimism toward dating I had
felt in a long time, and check marks next to a giant list of impressive
accomplishments. I spent my 40<sup>th</sup> weekend at a posh hotel in Park
City, surrounded by family and good friends. I breathed a sigh of relief that I
had successfully avoided any kind of mid-life meltdown.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But you know what’s coming right? That I’m not here to write
about how flawlessly I handled actually BEING 40? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Around the beginning of the year, I started feeling
exhausted all the time. I couldn’t get enough rest; I’d slog through the day
and then come home and fall asleep on the couch. I was in bed until 11 or 12 on
the weekends. I was terrified that this was some kind of new reality of getting
older. I went to my doctor, she did some tests and it turned out I was running
too low on iron. We got me on some supplements and within days, all my
physically energy came roaring back. I was relieved. But it was also clear to
me that although I wasn’t tired and my body was feeling normal again, my mind
and my heart were still sluggish and out of sorts. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I was crossing the road to work one morning when I found
myself thinking “so wait, is this it then? I’m just going to get up and go to a
job every day for the rest of forever? And then go home and spend an hour
swiping left and right on an increasingly grim pool of potential mates? Is this
really it?” Every. Single. Mid-life
Crisis. Cliché. Floated through my head. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was heartbroken. I tried so hard, for so long, to take
every opportunity, to say yes more than I said no, to do more, to set goals, to
try, to go and to go and to go, and now here I was, metaphorically and often
literally, laying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, feeling empty and tired
and like maybe I had done it all wrong. I was disappointed in myself that I
couldn’t just look around at what a good life I had built and feel grateful.
And I was embarrassed that I turned 40 and immediately lost my shit. How very,
very basic of me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wallowed in it for a bit. I cried a lot. I watched too
much Netflix. I channeled a fair amount of frustration into the treadmill. I actually cried on a date, which was
definitely a life low point, and probably one of the catalysts that pushed me
to figure out a solution. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had spent 17 years moving to new cities, starting my life
over time after time, giving too much of myself to crazy high pressure jobs, often
spending as much time in hotel rooms as I did at home. I lost my dad, I had a
couple of incredibly disappointing breakups and I always, always kept my chin
up, always tried to be the best little soldier. And in the process of trying to
live at the top of my lungs, I burned myself out. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What I needed was a break.
Not a wild adventure, not another brand new slate. But an opportunity to
slow down, to own all of my time, to be all the way present in the parts of my
life that I most care about. I needed to
do something to show my heart and my soul that no, this wasn’t “it”. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I quit my job. Just. Quit. I’m a world-class worrier who
likes security and often panics when I do something dramatic, but I’m not sure
I’ve ever felt quite as peaceful about any decision in my entire life. I left my office on the last day and drove
straight to Southern Utah where my brother and brother-in-law and I took five
small children camping in the Grand Canyon, the first time there for all of us.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then for eight, long, sunny, dreamy, perfect weeks, I
did whatever I wanted. I’ve had a job since high school. I worked in college
and then through the summers. My “gap year” was an LDS mission where all we did
was work. I haven’t owned every second
of my time in my entire life. I made the joke that for once, what my life
looked like on social media was actually underselling how great it was. I
hiked, I played with my nieces and nephews, I napped when I felt like it, I sat
at the pool for hours at a time, I went on long walks with friends and talked
about things that mattered, I took the scenic route back from road trips, I
went on dates, I worked out in the middle of the day, I showed up for friends
in ways you can’t always do when you are working, I did some service, I
reorganized a closet or two and planted so, so many flowers. I saw a few of my
very favorite musicians, ate outside as often as I could, cooked a lot, didn’t
check email almost ever. I broke some bad habits, figured out some boundaries I
would set for the next job, and made a list of the compromises I wouldn’t make
when I started working again. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But mostly, I tried to be truly present in everything I did.
I wasn’t constantly processing the ten other things I needed to be doing or
where I was going next or whether I could squeeze in this or that. I didn’t
have the stress of my work life bleeding over into my life life. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After a few weeks of unspooling, it became so clear that I
hadn’t had a full cup in a very long time. There was a calm and a confidence
and a peace in my life that came crashing back during that time. I felt the most
“me” I had felt in years. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then I got a job again. A job I am excited about, at a
company that works hard to treat its people well. A company where the EVP told
me he expects his team to really leave when they walk out the door at night. It
will be a good challenge and a terrific place to work, but it won’t be my
identity, and I won’t give it the parts of me it isn’t even asking for. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve made a lot of good decisions in my life, but this
one-putting aside a lot of fear and worry and doing something slightly crazy-is
probably the thing I will look back on with the most pride. I know not everyone
can just quit their jobs and drop out of responsible society for a few months.
But I am quite convinced that when your life starts feeling like it’s living
you instead of the other way around, there are ways to flip that script.
Everyone has some version of taking a step off the cliff and finding out how
the universe is going to make sure you grow wings. Six months ago I was
convinced I had hit an expiration date. Sitting here tonight, I feel like I am
in the prime of my life. Strong. Happy. Present. Open to an infinity of
possibilities. I have no doubt that some of my very best chapters are still
ahead. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So take that 40. You did your worst and I totally won. Boom. <o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-76028486573004757622016-09-25T11:42:00.002-07:002016-10-11T20:39:17.465-07:00Almond Counting <div class="MsoNormal">
I belong to an online forum designed to support professional
and educational achievement for LDS women. It’s full of both married and single
women who don’t fit the traditional mold for my culture and has become for me a
nice place to discuss issues that are rarely broached on Sunday. As an older,
single, Obama loving, gay marriage supporting, unapologetic feminist, I don’t
always feel like I fit in my church and this forum has connected me to other
women who are also trying to figure out their place.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So it was with a bit of disappointment that I followed one particular
thread that caught fire there this week. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A woman posted that her, by all accounts
pretty amazing, 28-year-old daughter was beginning to despair that she would
ever meet a nice LDS boy and get married and start a family. I expected support
that 28 was young to worry about such a thing and that there are a multitude of
ways to have a fulfilling life and instead, it devolved into tales of how
horrifyingly late in life these ladies finally got married and got to leave the
nightmare of single life and don’t worry, someone is out there for you girl, keep
your chin up while you slog through your poor, poor sad lonely life until you
find someone. Maybe it wasn’t that extreme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, married woman after married woman told her anecdote about how
she or someone she knew had “not married until (insert an age where you can
hardly believe someone was willing to take on the old crone)”. Their loud
voices managed to drown out the single women here and there who were trying to
say, “hey actually it might not happen and here’s how to have a good life no
matter what” or “you know, let’s not tell this girl to move to another state to
find a better dating pool because everywhere and nowhere is an ideal place to
date”. I worried that maybe the forum’s usual encouragement of everyone having
their own path and no one’s worth being contingent on their marital status was
all lip service to cover a deep, abiding need for a prince to come along and
save us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t believe it was intentional, or that any of those
women realized that what they were making being single sound a form
of torture, but I’m turning 40 in three weeks and I haven’t been able to stop
thinking about what sort of advice would have been legitimately helpful from
someone actually in the trenches of singledom when I was her age. So here we
go, my old spinster advice to a 28-year-old single gal. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“So. I hear you are beginning to worry that the relation-ship
has sailed for you and that you will be spending the rest of your life alone.
First of all, may I say 28, that I have so much empathy for how you feel right
now. But I feel equal parts like rolling my eyes right out of my head. I know
that as an LDS woman, you have been watching your friends get married for ten
years, but man, 28. It’s early to start thinking it’s already over. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But this isn’t about age, and it’s not about dating. It’s
about a promise to you, that your life will be infinitely better if you take
the time right now to learn that your fundamental self does not change with
your relationship status. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A couple of weeks ago I was listening to a podcast by a
woman who has spent her whole life struggling with her weight. She talked about
how she had always been heavy, but because it’s shameful to be fat, she spent
her time interacting with thin people by always assuring them that she was
definitely doing all she could to lose weight and be “one of them”. And then
one day, she decided that being thin wasn’t going to change the fact
that she was a smart, fun, interesting person and she didn’t want to waste her
life counting almonds. So she told her friends, “guess what guys? I’m fat. And I’m
ok with it, so let’s stop talking about it eh?”. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t spend your life counting the dating almonds. Don’t relate
to the married people around you by stressing how hard you are working to
escape being a single person. Don’t position your value to yourself or any of
the people in your life on a relationship status scale. You will have all
manner of well-meaning friends and family assuring you that it’s going to
happen for you, that they just know you will get married. The truth, my young
awesome friend, it that you might. But it might be a few years, it might be a
lot of years, and it really might be not at all. If you waste those years
wallowing in worry and fear, I can promise you from a place of authority that
you will regret every second you lost to being sad about something that is
essentially out of your control. I have willed and worked myself into nearly
every dream on my teenage checklist so I assure you that if a family was a
thing you could earn, you would not know dozens of incredible men and women who
have achieved success in every other aspect of their lives who are alone. You
can go to every singles ward and be on every app and accept every set up, and
it doesn’t mean you’ll find a partner. I approached a lot of experiences in my
twenties and early thirties with the anticipation that maybe this is where I
would meet “him”. I regret the opportunities that I allowed to be dampened by
the disappointment of not being romantically fruitful. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So you can decide right now if you want to
savor all the advantages of this season of your life or if you want to spend
the next unknown amount of years always feeling like a little bit of a failure.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I want you to do a little exercise for me. I want you to
think about all the people you know who are married and ask yourself if any of
them became fundamentally different people when they found a mate. Do you know
a bunch of people who were lame but then they got married and became kind and
good and interesting? No, you do not. Because getting married does not alter
the core of a person. Are there unique lessons that only marriage can teach you
that will make you grow in certain ways? Definitely. Can the same be said for
being single? Absolutely. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who you are,
and what you can contribute to the world is unaffected by your marital status. There
are douchey married guys, and mean and gossipy married ladies, and loads and
loads of weirdos who manage to get hitched. Just like there are rad single
people who are weary of hearing “gosh, you are a catch, why are you single?”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I turn 40 in about three weeks. I’m on the tail end of
getting over a breakup so I am square one single right now. I have had an unreal,
fulfilling, meaningful life so far. I used to feel like I needed to downplay
how fortunate I’ve been so it didn’t seem like I was enjoying being single too
much. When a friend would say something about all the interesting things I was
doing I would always be sure to say, “oh but I would trade it all for a family!”.
Here’s the truth. No I wouldn’t. I haven’t been stuck in a back-up version of
my life, this isn’t some “plan B” I’ve had to endure because I am not part of a
couple. I am so fucking proud of the person I have become and I’m here as a
result of the twists and turns of a life that I know is exactly the right one
for me. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I might be different in some ways had
I married, but I wouldn’t actually be a better or more worthwhile human. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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So here’s the net of my advice. Tell your friends, and your
family, “guess what guys? I’m single. And I’m ok with it, so let’s stop talking
about it eh?”. And then go live your life. Do things, try things, fail at
things, succeed at things. Say yes more often than you say no. And when you
turn 30, or 35 or 40 or 80, you will be the very best and most fulfilled version
of yourself no matter who does or doesn’t fall in love with you. <o:p></o:p></div>
k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-57211839079604978502016-09-14T17:56:00.001-07:002016-09-15T21:41:00.625-07:00Gooooooaaaaaaal<div class="MsoNormal">
I didn’t watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics this
year. I was going to, I had planned to sit in the dark of my living room and
have a good cry all by myself but then I had friends in town all week. We were
headed to a kiddo baptism in St. George. The NBC app was dumb and the tape
delay wasn’t especially helpful and so I gave up. I peeked on Twitter to catch
a few photos, admired how good they all looked and then I went back to my life.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have made a bunch of big life decisions in the 2 ½ years
since I got home from the last Olympics. I changed jobs twice. I moved to a big
crazy city and then I moved to a small, familiar city. I got my heart handed to
me a couple of times by people I should not have given it to in the first
place. I bought a house. I thought it wise to “put down some roots”. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
As the Games approached I felt good, solid in every choice
since Sochi that got me to this cute tiny kitchen table in a neighborhood where
I can walk to the store and to yoga and have dinner every Sunday with all my
favorite people under 4 years old. My job is solid and challenging and my
coworkers are great and some days I feel a little bit guilty about how easy and
awesome this move to Utah has been. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I got a lot of questions about how I was handling missing the
Olympics and I sincerely felt like I was being honest when I said that I know
I’m in a different chapter of my life and that the Games are fun but not like,
THAT fun and I’m very, very content with my choices. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
But can I let you in on a little secret? THAT GAMES ARE
TOTALLY THAT FUN! They are so hard, and so much work, and so so much less
glamour than what always made it onto my social channels. Every single Olympics
I would write an email to future me saying “don’t do this again, it’s
horrible”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that sliver that IS fun?
That IS glamorous? It’s what I imagine keeps people doing hard drugs. It’s so,
so good. You sit at the end of the day with your eyelids about to slide off
your head but you were standing there when some major thing happened that every
human on the planet heard about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
talked to more people TODAY that are the best in the entire world at a thing than
most people will in their entire lives. It’s wild and it’s unpredictable and
you have stories to tell that you realize sound like bragging but they are just
the real things that happened to you. It’s once in a lifetime experiences, over
and over and over and it’s awesome and dangerous and for me, it didn’t allow
one bit of room for things in my life that I said mattered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I read all my post-Games blog posts before these started and
every single one of them ends with me saying how I hoped I would keep my
priorities straight and start checking off some of my regular life goals. And
then I would get on a plane and go somewhere far flung and they cycle would
start again and on and on. I sucked the marrow out of those years with the
USOC. I stayed extra days in fabulous cities, I had wildly exciting but not
remotely sustainable dating experiences, I met super interesting people, I
stayed up too late, I said yes to everything. The Olympics were never over for
me. I was in Germany scouting locations for 2014 about two weeks after I got
home from London. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Which is all to say that I really thought I was in a great
place for Rio. At peace and happy with where I am. I was briefly dating someone
this summer and as we were watching Track and Field one night I texted a friend
who I knew was in the venue to say that my seat on his couch was way better
this time than four years ago. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was caught off guard with how gut-wrenching it was to
watch the best party I have ever been to go off without me. My social media
feeds were flooded with the first person accounts from, and I’m not
exaggerating here, hundreds of people I knew in Rio and I started having tiny,
daily panic attacks. I sat on that same couch, with that same sweet man a few
weeks later and thought “holy sh*t is this my life now? Are the
once-in-a-lifetimes over? Has my passport seen it’s last stamp?” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I like life to be clean. I like clear beginnings and endings
and I dig the idea of chapters opening and closing and the experiences of life
not sloshing into each other. I’m rather unnerved to learn that at nearly 40
years old, I am still being blind-sided by the universe and it’s dumb lessons. I
am such a believer that there are seasons of our lives and that we aren’t
supposed to trip ourselves up with arbitrary timelines but I’m standing here
straddling a chasm of “my eggs are dying by the second” and “what if I never
dance on a beach in Thailand?”. Both options make me nauseous. There are times
that I spend an evening with my nieces and I want my own baby so badly the
sensation is physical. And there are other times when I book a last minute ticket
to go hang out backstage at Red Rocks with a band I love because I can and it’s
hard to imagine giving up a lifestyle that allows such a thing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Ultimately I know I made good decisions, I am in a great
place. I’m happy. And by the next Games I will be removed enough that it won’t
feel like an assault every time I open Facebook and ten people I used to sit by
are doing sunrise yoga on Copacabana Beach. In the meantime, I’m going to learn
how to sit in the dissonance of knowing you did A right thing, but you probably
won’t ever be sure it’s THE right thing. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-53618892460199347912016-01-30T17:40:00.002-08:002016-01-30T17:40:25.646-08:00Point BreakOctober 2015. I'm sitting in my living room mindlessly flipping through Facebook and feeling sort of blue. I text a guy who broke my heart earlier in the year because he's spent the last four months trying to be friends again and I know he'll answer. He does. I call him. As soon as I hear his voice I know he's actually the last human I want to be talking to. But I'm lonely so I make an attempt to care about anything he's saying. I don't. I can't. I get off the phone and I'm mad at myself for being weak and dumb. I'm 39, I should be better at loneliness by now. I should be stronger but I've just spent two hours looking through hundreds of photos and status updates that have me convinced that I'm the only one failing at life. In a fit of needing to make some dramatic gesture of regaining control, I deactivate Facebook. And Twitter. I don't make a silly announcement, I just disappear.<br />
<br />
It felt good. I needed a break. I knew objectively that it is silly to compare your own real life to the PR versions of everyone else's lives on the internet but when you are in the midst of your lowest lifetime low, it is practically impossible to put miles and miles of shiny, happy faces in perspective. It was good for me to stop looking at photos and instead, focus on phone calls and dinners and sitting face to face with people I love and hearing what was really going on in their lives.<br />
<br />
However. Social media wasn't ruining my life any more than anything external is ever responsible for how we choose to live our lives. I got a bad hand last year. My dad died. A man I really wanted to marry didn't want to marry me back. I struggled in my job. I had some blows to my faith. It was like all the ways I defined myself fell apart and I spent a fair amount of time just trying to distract myself from feeling out of control. I quit Facebook as a step towards being myself again.<br />
<br />
I filled November and December with good things. My roommate and I started a clean eating program and I basically cooked every single thing we ate for six weeks. It felt amazing and I'm more convinced than ever that taking care of our bodies is probably the best thing we can do for our souls. It also took a fair amount of discipline which reminded me that I'm good at doing hard things.<br />
<br />
I spent the holidays with various family and I did yoga and rode mountain bikes and ran in the woods and went skiing and laughed until I was sick with friends who have known me since before I knew me. I snuggled my brand new nephew and then went to the cemetery on the one year anniversary of my dad passing away.<br />
<br />
And on December 31, I packed up all my grievances against 2015 and told them they were not welcome in 2016.<br />
<br />
Here we are at the end of January and without sounding like I have everything figured out, I do feel like I have one thing figured out: I will never be "done". There is no finish line here. Life is messy. Sometimes I am going to feel like I'm crushing it on all cylinders and sometimes I will be limping along, hoping there is a rest stop where I can pull over and cry for awhile. But this idea that there is a destination, that I'll achieve "x" and then everything will be awesome? It's not a real thing. Everyone is just out here trying their best and the big secret is how often we are totally winging it. I feel more like myself than I have in a long time but I think it's partially because I was forced to get comfortable in the messiness of a year that didn't listen to what I wanted.<br />
<br />
So I'm reactivating my Facebook profile. I hope I am more mature with it this time. That I don't waste one second of my life thinking about what a guy I had a math class with once thinks about gun control or feminism. I hope I'm smart enough to know that underneath all those PR posts are real friends who are dealing with real things and I should text them once in a while instead of just liking their posts and feeling like that's staying in touch. Mostly I just hope that the lessons of 2015 stick with me and that I'm more patient, more teachable, more empathetic.<br />
<br />
I'm also looking forward to all the memes I've been missing out on. Don't disappoint me people.k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-72084698000590469012015-09-03T09:17:00.000-07:002015-09-03T09:19:04.807-07:00The Middle <div class="MsoNormal">
I turn 39 next month. That sounds so. Old. I remember my
dad’s 40<sup>th</sup> birthday. As in, I was a viable human person when my
father turned 40 and I heard people making all the requisite over the hill,
mid-life crisis jokes. My mother was having her sixth baby right about my age
and as a ninth-grader I was whole-heartedly dismayed to discover that my old,
old mother thought that was OK. 40 was practically dead the end. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But 2015 is a different time to be approaching “middle age”
than 1987 was and aside from some slight biological freakouts that a woman my
age who would still like a young’un or two is bound to have, I’m pretty
comfortable with the distance between me and the big four oh. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I turned 30 I decided that I had done my twenties a
little bit wrong. I am basically all the cliché things you would think about an
oldest female raised by devout Mormons. I’m a hyper responsible, rule
following, people pleasing, bundle of nerves. Always working, hustling, doing
the right thing, being nice about it. These are not bad qualities. I like these
things about me. But it also means that I worry a lot. That I feel guilty a
lot. That I am exceptionally hard on myself. That I said no a lot because I am
also scared of a lot of things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I wanted my 30’s to be different. So I made a decision that my default
answer would always be “yes”. Not to things that were against my moral code or
things that hurt people. But to be thoughtful about why I often hesitated over
things that seemed out of my introvert comfort zone and to really try to say
yes if there was not a compelling reason to say no. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My experiment went well. My thirties have been filled with
the kind of adventures and possibilities that seem to grow exponentially once
you show that you are open to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Saying yes means experiencing things you never dreamed of. But sometimes
that also means putting off things that you DID dream of. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was with some friends this summer who were talking about a
triathlon they were training for and I made the mistake of saying that I have
been wanting to do a triathlon for like ten years and never have. Don’t say
that to the kind of people who regularly train for triathlons. And definitely
don’t say that to people who know you are a default “yes” person. Because you
will absolutely find yourself committing to train for a race that is exactly
one month away. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For YEARS this was something I had wanted to do and for
YEARS I came up with excuses. But as Jess and Rob shot holes in all my reasons
for not being able to do this one, I could hear how silly it must sound for a
grown woman to protest so much over something she clearly wanted to do. Some
friends helped me throw together a training program, I found a pool nearby,
rented a wetsuit and even kept up my running when an out of town photoshoot
threatened to derail me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Training was even more fun than I thought it would be. I had
forgotten how much I love to swim and enjoyed exploring the city on my bike. I
got back into running shape. And then came race day. My friend Jess was racing
a different distance so she was there to help me set up my transition area and
to cheer me on. I loved every second. Even the few panicked moments at the
beginning of the swim where I was convinced I would drown and refused to put my
face in the water for the entire distance. I passed people on the bike. Lots of
them. I felt awesome on the run. I loved looking down and seeing my number in
marker on my arm. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I cried at the finish
line. Mostly because I was so damn proud of myself but a little bit because
what on earth had I been so afraid of? Why had I been talking about this for
ten years and not doing it? And what else am I not doing that I’ve been talking
about?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So that’s it. That’s my theme for my 39<sup>th</sup> year.
Do the things you keep talking about. I’m kicking off the year with a weekend
in Austin at the Austin City Limits Music Festival-a thing I’ve been saying I
was going to do for ages. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Saying yes built up a series reserve of confidence and an
invaluable sense of possibility. The next logical step is to channel that into
dreams and goals that become easy to dismiss as you get older and more
“practical”. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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My thirties have been fantastic and when I say that I even
mean this last pretty terrible year as well. I still worry too much, I still look around at what everyone else is doing and feel behind too much, and it seems like I'm developing new flaws as fast as I'm working on getting rid of the existing ones, BUT, I'm also getting better every day at relaxing into myself. I'm excited for what I'll feel like when I'm working on the theme for my fifties (!). <o:p></o:p></div>
k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-33047549507679206522015-04-09T00:04:00.002-07:002015-04-09T00:04:49.656-07:00Sail OnI had been in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) for about ten minutes when I started to think I had been the victim of a giant Mormon conspiracy. A conspiracy where every human who served an LDS mission swore to never tell anyone under 21 that the whole experience was kind of terrible.<br />
<br />
When you grow up as a Mormon in Utah, missions are somewhat ubiquitous. Nearly every male you know went on one and you likely know a decent percentage of women who did as well. My parents both went when they were young. My grandparents did it when they were old. From the time I was a tiny person and learned the missionary anthem "Called to Serve", missionary service seem both awesome and totally expected. I grew up hearing great stories from my mom and dad, listening to endless glowing mission reports at church, getting letters from friends out in the "field" who raved about what an amazing time they were having. Whenever you asked someone's mom how so and so was liking their mission it was some version of "they love it! The never want to come home!".<br />
<br />
So when I was 21 and eligible to go, I didn't even consider NOT going. I filled out papers, I went to the doctor and the dentist, I went to interviews with my ecclesiastic leaders. I got a call to Switzerland and I bought dresses and shoes and luggage and new and unique underwear and then suddenly, my family was leaving out one door and I was leaving out the other door and I realized I had no idea what I had signed up for.<br />
<br />
I don't know what I was expecting. I knew there would be rules and structure. I knew my time wouldn't feel like my own. I knew I would have a "companion" who would basically function like a human shadow and we would have to be together all the time. I just didn't realize what all of that actually meant. I didn't realize that as a fairly independent college graduate, it would feel a little bit like I had joined the Borg.<br />
<br />
I also didn't realize that NO ONE HAD EVER MENTIONED THAT THIS WOULD BE HARD. No one. I cried myself to sleep the first night thinking that just about every human I knew had been through this and not one of them said, "this is a really hard thing to do". Actually, one did. I ran into an old high school crush the Sunday before I left and when I told him I was headed to the MTC that week he looked me in the eye, chuckled and said, "if you knew what was coming, you wouldn't go." I remember thinking that was a really odd thing to say to someone, not realizing I would be using that as a mantra a scant week later when I felt like my whole world was upside down. But outside of that comment, my entire life people had painted missions in such a rosy hue, I immediately felt like a failure for being scared and homesick. I think I expected that I would be enveloped in some kind of spiritual cocoon that would turn me into someone who didn't care about missing her friends, or music, or shopping or boys or the myriad of other things that I suddenly couldn't stop thinking about.<br />
<br />
I panicked for awhile and felt like I was probably the worst missionary in the history of missionaries until I started to make friends, and run into people from my outside life who I could talk to, and I realized that what I was feeling wasn't that unusual. I felt better but I vowed that when I was back from a mission, I would try to be truthful about the whole thing. That I wouldn't sugar coat it.<br />
<br />
I lied.<br />
<br />
When someone tells me they are going on a mission, I get starry-eyed and I tell them it will be one of the best experiences of their lives. I don't tell them how lonely it gets, how inadequate they will feel, how exhausted they will be by the end. I tell them about the tender moments they will have, how much they will learn about themselves, how good it will feel to spend 18 months doing something that isn't all about them.<br />
<br />
I've been thinking quite a bit about my mission and the way I talk about it these last few weeks. I was catching up with a close friend recently who just moved to a new city and took a new job. He's posted some cool photos so I asked him if things were as awesome as they looked. And he said, "well I'm not having as much fun as you are that is for sure." His comment shocked me because the last eight months of my life have sucked on just about every level. I won't go through my laundry list but save having a baby, I've had pretty much every other major life event on my plate since August and I guess I thought I had been pretty open with him about how tough it's been.<br />
<br />
And yet. I post fun things on the internet. I tell people how rad SF is and how cool my job is and that my dad was sick and we were prepared so it's been easier to deal with the grief.<br />
<br />
Those things are true. Just like all the things I say about my mission are true. This is a cool city and I feel lucky to live here after years and years of dreaming about it. I work for a great company and have these fantastic coworkers and I'm learning every single day. And I don't cry about my dad every day. I get waves, tidal waves sometimes, but a lot of the time I am really ok.<br />
<br />
I do not say that I have felt inadequate and out of my element for nearly all the days since I took the new job. I do not say that sometime I feel so sad about my dad that it feels like a giant weight is pulling me down to the bottom of an ocean. That I am so worried I will be alone my whole life that there are nights I cry myself to sleep.<br />
<br />
Do we want to tell each other these things? Do we want to hear these things? Would we still go on missions and get pregnant and move across the country and fall in love if we knew the truth about how terribly awry these things can go?<br />
<br />
I think the answer is yes. I think we would. For the same reason I have now moved to a new place six times and taken jobs that scare me to death. Because I sincerely believe that for most of us, we know the very best way to grow, the very best chance to develop empathy and the very best way to lay bare our own weaknesses, is to go through something very hard. Have you ever watched a little kid learning to walk? They fall and they fall and they fall. They know that is going to keep happening but they keep getting up because somewhere in their new little brains, they also know this is a thing they need to master. It's hard and it hurts and they are bad at it for a long time. And then one day it clicks, and then they are so awesome at it you can't even keep up with them anymore.<br />
<br />
I think that drive stays in our not so new little brains. We don't have to be afraid of telling the truth about our shared experience because someone can tell us, "this thing is going to be hard you know," and we will say, "bring it". There is something that actually feels a lot like freedom when you stop thinking that you are the only one doing it wrong and you get to just....do it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-34983319199248675402015-02-01T01:01:00.002-08:002015-02-01T01:07:17.004-08:00Natural Causes<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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On New Year’s Day I posted a rather audacious status update
on Facebook that 2014 had been pretty great but 2015 was stacking up to be even
better. 12 hours later I was calling my little sisters to tell them our father
had passed away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be careful what you
announce to the world I guess. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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It seems he died peacefully. After years of sickness and
spending way too many nights in a hospital, we found him in his own bed,
snuggled up and comfortable after a nice New Year’s Eve conversation with the
baby of the family. This day has been looming in our lives since the moment his
kidneys failed a month before I left on my mission nearly 17 years ago. Somehow
sitting there in his house, telling 911 that no, he wasn’t breathing and
watching the nice, nice men from the mortuary cover his body, it still all felt
so out of the blue. Nearly two decades of knowing someone could die lulls you
in the security that actually he might not ever die. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The last few years my dad needed a lot of help. Physically,
financially. My Salt Lake siblings took on big caretaker roles. I was able to
write checks and spend a healthy amount of time feeling guilty about not being
there. I don’t think I called him enough. I know I didn’t hang out with him as
much as I should have. But this Christmas break I tried harder. I picked him up
from dialysis and took him grocery shopping. I let him fill his cart with
Christmas treats he probably shouldn’t have had but I’m frankly glad were some
of his last simple pleasures. I took him to lunch the day before he died. We
went to Rubio’s and he had a fountain Coke and a shrimp burrito. He had a hard
time walking across the parking lot so I moved the car right in front of the
door and it still took us awhile to get to it. He said his hands felt weird. He
turned the heat full blast in my car and I tried not to get impatient with him
about it. We talked about some good things that are happening in my life and he
was his usual nice and supportive self about them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were many things my dad wasn’t able to
provide for us, some things I resented for a good portion of my life. But the
certainty that he was proud of me was never something I had to wonder about. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My dad wasn’t married and both of his parents and his only
brother are all gone as well, so it fell to my siblings and me to clean out his
house, plan his funeral, and tie up all the loose ends of his life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are six of us and we spent two days
going through books and files and photos. Remembering a dad that some of us
forgot, telling the little ones stories about a dad they didn’t know. My
parents had been collegiate journalists and then owned a newspaper when they
were first married so there were scrapbooks and folders full of columns they
had written back when they were younger than most of us are now. We found
photos of one of the bands my dad was in, back when he had cool hair and played
the guitar and wanted to be a rock star. We found the campaign materials from
the time he ran for State Senate, the poster of a tiny little Katie on his
shoulders. The guy didn’t leave much of an estate behind but as we sorted
through artifacts of his life, I felt grateful for the more esoteric things he
gave me. I got some writing talent, a solid foundation of unconditional love,
an example of faith that never wavered even when I think it maybe should have. I
had a dad who told his daughters we could do anything our brothers could do.
I’m sure my dad would have liked to see me find someone to spend my life with
but he never once made me feel like my worth was tied up in my relationship
status. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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There are things about my dad’s life that were
disappointing, I know he didn’t feel like he quite lived up to the expectations
of his young dreamer self. In many ways my own adult life has been a reaction
to that, I’ve been wearing myself out to make sure that I don’t get to the end
and feel those same kind of regrets. I want to make sure I hang onto the
lessons I learned from some of his mistakes. But in that week, as I spent time
with all of my adult siblings and their lovely families, I really couldn’t help
but think that my old dad did alright. He raised good people who are raising
good people. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #131313; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">It
is so hard to lose a parent. Period. I thought maybe because he was sick, and I
am a full grown adult that somehow it was going to be easier. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got to have my dad for a good long time but </span>I
find myself being sad about future things. Sad that if I get married, that
person won’t know my dad. Sad that if I have kids, they won’t have a Grandpa
Clifford. Sad that there are things I wish I had asked him that I didn’t. That
I didn’t realize I would want to know until I couldn’t anymore. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Grieving has been a weird thing. I’ve been surprised at how
physical it can be. I was in the grocery store this week, looking for a card and
the “dad birthday” section caught my eye. Before I even realized what was
happening there were already hot tears soaking my shirt. And I just stood
there, not even trying to stop while I cried for a good five minutes. I was
grateful that no one is ever in the greeting card aisle of the grocery store
but it’s certainly not the first time I’ve been betrayed by my own body the
last few weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve tried to let myself
feel it as fully as I can. I don’t try to cheer myself up. I don’t look for
distractions. I’m grateful when someone asks how I am and doesn't get uncomfortable when I say
that I’m just ok. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I also feel like I have also had an opportunity to learn
some things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our little family
experienced so much love and kindness and generosity this last month. There is
a quote from Anne Morrow Lindburgh about suffering that I have always loved
that keeps coming to my mind:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #131313; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“I do not believe that sheer
suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise,
since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding,
patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m trying to keep my heart open, to take it all in so I can
give back the strength that has so graciously been shared with me through all
of this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Music was important to my dad. There is a cover of Jackson
Brown’s “For a Dancer” that a dear family friend put on a CD for us many years
ago that I used to listen to and cry myself sick worry about my dad. It’s now
become incredibly comforting and feels like the right way to finish this piece.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xk76J0GRXo4" width="560"></iframe></div>
k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-67350060583771744692014-12-08T17:50:00.000-08:002014-12-08T17:50:28.287-08:00Raise Your Hand <div class="MsoNormal">
My first semester of college was so miserable I tried not to
go back for a second. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had a perfectly adequate high
school experience. I had some friends, I didn’t get bullied, I got good grades,
starring roles in school plays and a healthy supply of trophies from endless
Saturday morning debate tournaments. But I didn’t date as much as a reasonably
cute 16 year old thinks she ought to (although I would like to tell my teenage
self that she’s got TWENTY TWO PLUS YEARS of dating ahead so um, let’s not
worry about getting off the line too quickly there young lady) and I always
felt like the other kids were having way, way more fun than I was. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I was convinced that college would be
different, that I would be different. That going somewhere far away, where I
didn’t know a soul, would change everything. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The reality is that building a brand new life is really
freakin’ hard and I think it was day two before I was sobbing into the pay
phone outside the student center (remember 1994?) and begging my mother to come
and save me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She did not save me. I went
to classes, I worked my weird job as an usher at the football games, I spent a
lot of Friday nights watching “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” with my homebody
roommates. I cried a lot and I was still pretty sure the other kids were having
way, way more fun and that I was the world's only miserable college freshman. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I went home for Christmas and when the girl I was supposed
to go back to school with ended up not having room in her car for me, I skipped
the first week of classes and tried to figure out a way to drop out. As the
week progressed through, I started to miss some things about college. Some of
the freedom. A few of the interesting people that I had started hanging around
with. The fact that the guys in college DID seem like maybe they could
appreciate a girl like me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By the end of the week, I had hitched a ride down to Cedar
City with my grandparents and at the risk of romanticizing my collegiate
experience, the next 3.75 years ended up being sort of magical. There were
plenty of tears and disappointments-I still felt like I didn’t date enough-but
there were friendships and experiences and romances that built a foundation for
my adult life that I can still feel 16 years later. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It should come as no surprise then, that I also hated the
first six weeks of my mission, the first three months of my first adult move to
another state, the first three months of my second big adult move to yet
another state, and basically the beginning of every new thing I ever decide to
do. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which brings me to today. In the fourth month of a new life,
with a new job, and a new city. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t hate it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I did hate it though. I had a few weeks where I most
definitely, absolutely, ask-my-mom-because-I-called-her-sobbing hated it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I can still remember a distinct moment in my apartment in
Cedar City, after things had fallen into place and I was feeling really good
about everything, thinking to myself, “ok great, so I survived starting over and
now I know how to do it. I will never feel that miserable again.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oh 18 year old me, you say such cute things. If you could
only see 38 year old me with the covers pulled over my head, trying to figure
out just what I could have been thinking to give up my PERFECT COLORADO LIFE to
start ALL OVER with a big hard job in a big scary city where EVERYTHING COSTS
ONE MILLION DOLLARS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dramatic me tends
to think in all caps. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is the sixth time in my life that I have packed up
everything I own and shown up in a brand new place. The sixth time. So I know
how to find the Target. I know how to make new friends. I know how to make an
apartment feel like home. What I do not know how to do, is skip over the part
where it’s hard. I have not yet figured out how to skip the challenging part of
growing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Six months ago I knew I was coasting. I knew I was bored. So
I hacked away at all the things that felt stagnant. Job. City. Personal life. It
felt like the right thing to do. It <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i>
the right thing to do. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I just forgot how scary it is. How at the top of the cliff
of a new life “stagnant” looks like “comfortable” and “bored” looks like
“crushing it”. That when you make grand proclamations to the world about that
new life, everyone kindly assumes that you are loving it and it is loving you
and you can’t help but feel like something of a fraud for saying “yeah it’s rad!”
when what you really want to do is run screaming back to the place that felt
easy and forget this whole thing ever happened. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My new job is a terrific career move. I learn something new
every single day and I’m having to work harder than I have in a long time. It
has kicked my ass over and over but I’m starting to kick back and that is
immensely satisfying. I am feeling like I can hang with this group of
incredibly talented people. This new city is impersonal and unforgiving and
there is nowhere to park and even small errands feel like a production. But is
also beautiful and vibrant and I can go from seeing a band I love on Friday
night to paddling in the ocean with friends the next morning. It’s a place I
have dreamed of living for 12 years and even though the realities have caught
up with the fantasy in many ways, in other ways it’s even better than I
imagined. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I want to be clear. I wanted to quit. I’ve cried a lot.
I’ve had to remind myself over and over that the other kids are not having more
fun than I am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That I am not the only
one who wants to hide under the comforter when facing newness at every turn.
It’s so nice in our super connected world that you can get cheers from all over
the globe when you take on a challenge. But the flipside is that it can feel
extra lonely when no one raises a hand to say “yikes you guys this is hard!”
So, yikes you guys, this is hard. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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I’ve never been sorry that I stuck out the hard part. The
truth is the best things that have ever happened to me have sucked a little bit
in the beginning. I guess it’s how I know I better hang on. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-41725848792223588152014-09-03T23:00:00.000-07:002014-09-03T23:00:06.411-07:00My three songs <div class="MsoNormal">
<i>My pal Heather of the fantastic <a href="http://www.fuelfriendsblog.com/2014/09/02/you-in-three-songs/">Fuel Friends blog</a> tagged me on Facebook today to pick three songs that most accurately speak to who I am. This was a way, way harder assignment than I would have imagined. And if you ask me tomorrow the songs will be all different. But it was really fun. Here are my three songs. </i></div>
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Fast Car-Tracy Chapman <o:p></o:p></div>
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There is a photo in my baby book of me sitting on the floor,
enough of a baby that sitting is probably all I knew how to do yet, listening
intently to my dad play the guitar. Music was on all the time in our house and
I had parents who made sure we got a good variety of it in our little diets.
There are a lot of artists that I loved as a kid and then discarded but one of
the few who made it through to my adult life is Tracy Chapman. Even today, when
I hear the first few bars of “Fast Car” I can instantly put myself back onto my
white wicker day bed in my bedroom wallpapered with pink striped and a ballet
slipper border. Even though the theme of the song was probably more adult than
I understood, the song was wistful, and wistful is what you are looking for
when you are 12 and you want to feel things and dream things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t really listen to her again until
college when I bought her album and it’s feminist and racial storylines started
to make more sense to me. Her next few albums were far less political but she
writes intense, deeply emotional songs and she seemed to release one during all
the major eras of my young adult life. For someone who has often been described
as both intense and deeply emotional, I suppose it makes sense that she is one
of my favorite soundtracks. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I finally
got to see her play after my mission and it’s still one of my favorite shows,
nothing flashy, just Tracy playing song after song I knew by heart. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Fake Plastic Trees-Radiohead<o:p></o:p></div>
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I moved to California for a job when I was 25. I arrived
full of the naïve expectations of anyone whose sole experience “moving away”
consists of the relatively safe perimeters of college and an LDS mission. Which
is not to say I didn’t know what it meant to feel crushing homesickness or
loneliness, or “what they hell have I done-ness”. But both missions and college
share the safety net of being surrounded by people also going through crushing
homesickness and loneliness, friend-making, distraction-providing structure and
a firm expiration date. Showing up in LA with a car full of everything I owned
there was no Welcome Week to attend, no cafeteria full of fellow nervous
missionaries. No one knew I was coming and no one would have cared if I turned
my little Honda around and drove straight back to Utah. A friend who had made a
similar move a few years earlier told me it was a good opportunity to figure
out “what you are like when no one is telling you what you should be like”. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I was miserable for months. But he was right, with no one
around to influence me, I figured out what kinds of movies I wanted to go to
when I was the only one deciding, discovered what kind of friends I would make
when there was no way to tell who was “cool”. I formed a relationship with my
faith that wasn’t based on everyone around me being Mormon too. I was 25, a
college graduate, a returned missionary, and had just worked on an Olympic
Games and yet it felt like I was just starting to settle into my adult self. <o:p></o:p></div>
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One of the defining factors of that little era was a huge
shift in my musical tastes. I made some friends who had varied ears and liked
making mixes so I was constantly listening to new things. I was training for a
marathon and in those days pre-iPod that meant hours and hours of the same 12
songs on a Discman. Someone put “Fake Plastic Trees” on a mix and although I
feel like the ultimate cliché even writing this, it was on those long runs
along the beach that I fell wildly, deeply, hopelessly in love with Radiohead.
I wasn’t cool at all though, I bought “The Bends” instead of Kid A and listened
to “Bulletproof…I Wish I Was” and cried about boys like it was my job. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I am not the first girl to move from Utah to California and
fall in love with Radiohead. Probably not even the first one to do it while training
for a marathon. But I can’t look back on time of my life without nearly passing
out from the weight of all the nostalgia. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Islands in the Stream-Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton<o:p></o:p></div>
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When I was a little girl and I would think about God, which
was a lot because I was a little Mormon girl, I thought He looked like Kenny
Rogers. Truthfully, as an adult when I try to picture God, He still kind of
looks like Kenny Rogers. My dad liked Kenny Rogers and I had every word to the
The Gambler memorized at a younger age than I probably should have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then there is Dolly Parton. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some day I will get around to writing my piece
on my “Board of Lady Directors” about all the women I would seat on my Board of
Life and you will see all the many and varied reasons she would be the Chairman
of this Board. But for the purposes of songs that describe me, Dolly gets a nod
for being a smart, talented, unapologetically ambitious woman but also managing
to be funny, generous and positive. There is some trickiness to being a woman
in the world of sports and I’ve never wanted career success to come at the
expense of remaining the nice person I hope is the real me. You might be surprised to know how often I think "hmmm, what would Dolly do?". <o:p></o:p></div>
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Also I chose this song because although I’ve never been one
of those girls who daydreams about her wedding, I’ve already asked my friends
Jed and Rebecca to sing this at the reception should that occasion ever
arise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> So there. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-71708480107836123292014-08-21T19:55:00.001-07:002014-12-08T20:32:32.474-08:00Up up and away<div class="MsoNormal">
I get asked quite often about my “favorite Olympic story”.
Depending on the circumstance I’ll tell something funny, something patriotic.
Something super behind the scenes. But if I had to pick a very best “holy crap
is this really happening” moment, it will probably always be this. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had pretty much been soaked since morning when I stood in
pouring rain on a mountain in Rose Khutor and watched my friend win an Olympic
medal. So it was fitting that night to be standing in pouring rain, waiting to
watch his medals ceremony. My friend Nicole and I had weaseled our way onto
the photographer’s stand so we were in clear view when the athletes came out on
the stage. We jumped up and down like idiots, trying to get his attention and
for our efforts, we got a knowing “yeah I see you two goofballs” grin out of
him. I was proud of my friend, I had watched him work hard and make sacrifices
like elite athletes do, but more than that, I’d also watched him hang in there
when he wasn’t one of the athletes on anyone’s watch list. Had heard him talk
like he was going to win when he wasn’t the one getting his photo taken at
pre-Games events. It’s easy to believe in someone the world is cheering on and
that can be part of the fun of the Olympics-there’s certainly something to be
said for being in a bar full of people shrieking at Michael Phelps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it’s also incredibly satisfying when the
winner is someone who kept grinding along, year after year, just outside the
spotlight. Especially when you also know that person is a good dude with a kind
heart. It was cool and bizarre and completely surreal that people back home
were texting and emailing me to say “wait was that YOUR snowboarder friend who
won that medal?” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My Munich experience was everything I had hoped it would be.
I felt like I had accomplished what I came to the USOC to do and to top it off,
here I was, watching one of my closest friend standing on a podium in a uniform
that represented so much work and pressure and stress over the previous 18
months. It was a lot to process, so I started to cry. I watched my friend’s
cute face, lit up in a way I’m not sure those of us who have never spent our
whole lives chasing a singular dream and then realizing it can every actually
understand, and knew I was having a pinnacle career moment of my own. Right
there, soaked to the bone in Sochi, Russia. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wouldn’t even have known how to explain what
was happening to a younger version of myself, this moment was so far out of
what I ever imagined my life would be. I thought to myself that I could go to a
million Olympics and probably never top how that felt, and I wasn’t sure I
wanted to try.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I flew back to Munich a few days later to get ready for the
Paralympics. I had about 24 hours to myself and I slept, and I went running and
I spent way, way too much time thinking about what to do with my life when I
got back. Then my grandfather passed away and I went home and it all went by in
a blur of emotion and activity. I went back to Munich to finish up my project,
completely spent on all fronts but grateful for a few more days of distraction
before going back to the Springs and regular old reality. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I use the term “reality” sort of lightly. The truth is I
came home, spent four days enjoying eating in my own kitchen and sitting on my
own couch and then it was up to Portland to look at Rio product, off to DC to
outfit the teams to meet the President, over to NYC for more debriefs and then
hopping to London for a friend’s wedding. It was May before I took a deep breath
and went back to the conversations I had with myself on the running paths of
Munich’s English Garden. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I first got to Colorado Springs I spent about two
months staying in an apartment owned by a woman who had recently left the USOC
and I remember thinking, “who leaves the USOC? I’m going to die here.” As much
as I always felt sheepish when people were impressed by what I did and would
try to emphasize that I spent as much time staring at a computer screen as I
did shaking hands with Olympians, the truth is, I had an extraordinarily
amazing job even at an organization full of cool jobs. I got to travel the
world, make friends with fascinating people, work with world class brands, do
interesting projects, and be part of one of the only big events left that the
whole world pays attention to. Realistically, I probably could have stayed
there forever and been pretty happy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem with jumping up and down on the photographer’s
stand while you watch your friend get his Olympic medal is that you can’t help
but think, “what’s my medal equivalent? And am I remotely on track to win it?”
It’s really cool to be the “team behind the team”, to be part of someone
achieving their goals. But when I was honest with myself, I had to admit that I
had dreams and plans beyond watching someone else’s podium moment, I wanted one
of my own. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wasn’t entirely sure what that moment would be. A book
with my picture on the jacket? A company with my name on the top of the org
chart? I know a wedding ring and baby clothes factor into this dream for sure. But
somewhere in May, it became really clear that staying in my comfortable job, in
my comfortable apartment, in my comfortable social circle probably wasn’t going
to get me any closer to figuring it out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I talked to a friend who had left our little pack a few
years earlier. She was happy. She was energized. She was encouraging. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I made a list. Places I want to work. Cities I want to
live in. I found an intersection. I dreamed big. I applied. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It worked. And now six months after that rainy night,
everything in my life is new. I’m not convinced I know what that “medal” is
quite yet, but I know I’m braver and more capable than I thought I was then. I
know that I’m willing to act, that I’ll take a really big step even when it
honestly scares the shit right out of me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you want to know my favorite Olympic moment, it’s the one
that made me realize that you don’t have to get on the podium for the Olympics to
change your life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-903425097360907842014-03-20T23:07:00.000-07:002014-03-30T10:15:52.411-07:00Call It Magic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2HXDlw4bZrSV_zNo-DFWN3VTOKN0YjguSHkXo47FqNpdi-Fss1x5f0GkzPg51qhbPifQDe0xshImITFJdYkP6xuyUKLi4Agrbt75whVDruVdI2-ER0R-PNgDKKpTGOXVsmDApGg/s1600/IMG_3570.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2HXDlw4bZrSV_zNo-DFWN3VTOKN0YjguSHkXo47FqNpdi-Fss1x5f0GkzPg51qhbPifQDe0xshImITFJdYkP6xuyUKLi4Agrbt75whVDruVdI2-ER0R-PNgDKKpTGOXVsmDApGg/s1600/IMG_3570.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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I have a wise coworker who has been working in Olympic sports since the early 80's who has two sayings I tend to repeat as mantras at every Games. One is "some days you have fun, some days you build character". The other is "fun isn't always fun."<br />
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For the three months leading up to the Games I found myself clinging to those words. The Sochi Games would be my fourth Olympics. If I had to pick a mindset for each Games it would go like this:<br />
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Salt Lake: Too young and dumb to realize what was really happening<br />
Vancouver: New and excited and maybe still a little dumb<br />
London: Overconfident and ripe for a fall<br />
Sochi: Dread. Overwhelming dread.<br />
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I have been relatively open about the fact that <a href="http://www.replikate.blogspot.com/2012/09/golden-summer.html">London shook me up a bit. </a> OK a lot bit. Overall it was a positive experience but I came home from that summer, wrote a list of all the things that didn't go well that I felt I could fix and over the 18 months between Games (yes, there are only 18 months between the Summer Olympics and the next Winter Olympics. If that sounds brutal, think about what it must have been like when Winter and Summer were in the same year. Death. That's what it seems like.) I tackled each one. From ordering to volunteers to venue space to athlete flow I worked really hard to make sure I wasn't waking up in a cold sweat at 2 am worrying about how many mediums we had. I found great venue partners and I put together a team I was really confident would be fun to work with and also do their jobs well. I had plenty of reason to be calm.<br />
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But I didn't feel calm. I knew in my brain that I was prepared, that I did everything I possibly could to be ready. That like our athletes, I could trust my training. But my confidence was bruised. I went into London just a little too cocky. We had plenty of mishaps that were out of my control but there were things I definitely would have done differently and all of it swirled around enough to make me sort of a mess.<br />
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I went to Utah for Christmas about three weeks before I left for Munich. I slept a lot. I went skiing with my brother. I played with the baby girls. I saw old friends. I went to yoga classes. I avoided conversations about the Games. The night before I left I asked my brother for what we Mormons call a "blessing." It's basically this nice little prayer that someone else says on your behalf and it tends to be really personal and this one was lovely and emotional and made me adore my little brother even more than I already do. I came home, managed to work up some excitement as the team started to get named and made sure every last little detail was in place. I had promised myself that I wouldn't leave for these Games as already tired as I left for London so I also made myself go to the gym, eat good food and get to bed at reasonable hours. I went skiing the Saturday before we left and pushed myself harder than I usually do then spent my second to last night making a fabulous playlist and laughing myself sick with my friend Jess.<br />
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We had a 6 am flight to Munich which is kind of terrible but also kind of awesome for team bonding. We were all bleary eyed and tired but everyone was excited and ready to get to work. I relaxed into Event Manager mode, handing out Red Carpet club passes and making sure everyone remembered their passport. I have a healthy amount of respect for the faces in this photo and their enthusiasm was contagious.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBuKiEaczj9N54NzdetUW9H4TYMVVTOq-OyZ7PVhA2Wuj9ytCFFPwrcZbi_O8yUU6ISue19dbLUgw-3_10gkRveEs2zFPN9qopCLVn8H2uIyKpbpATbT7tJ3ZwWupGRIJanobc1g/s1600/1611891_10152209389412053_369294810_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBuKiEaczj9N54NzdetUW9H4TYMVVTOq-OyZ7PVhA2Wuj9ytCFFPwrcZbi_O8yUU6ISue19dbLUgw-3_10gkRveEs2zFPN9qopCLVn8H2uIyKpbpATbT7tJ3ZwWupGRIJanobc1g/s1600/1611891_10152209389412053_369294810_o.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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In the United Lounge on our layover in Washington DC I got a call from our freight company saying that instead of being safe and sound in a warehouse in Germany, our entire shipment from Colorado Springs was stuck somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean due to a freak combination of weather and engine trouble. Every single shred of Ralph Lauren apparel as well as our IT equipment, office supplies and signage was in that shipment. I called a quick team meeting, let everyone know what was happening and I got a whole chorus of "no problem, we'll figure it out," which made me want to cry and hug them all. I didn't do either but I went into the bathroom, shook my head, said a quick prayer and felt oddly calm about the whole thing. </div>
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We landed in Munich, we toured the venue, we went to the Hofbrau House and everyone except me and the mormon intern drank really big beers. We said cheers. We talked through the schedule for the next few days. Then we went home. I took a long shower. Listened to some quite music, said my prayers and went to bed. </div>
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Jet lag woke me up early but worry didn't. The day went by quickly, the news came that our shipment was delayed even further but our Nike shipment was on track and pretty soon the place looked like this. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpmmSfWArNN2rmqANRqXcVqtMbvTmkchVmzLmwKw-Jsbkn9G55Tg0xzsMs2KS707hvKJprmcL5JXdF4N2Oa0CfsSh0K5U0bENLYJ8ZTv85SgM6UxuqkBmRN6LEuij9fwEIkT_icA/s1600/1611296_10152215652472053_368894458_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpmmSfWArNN2rmqANRqXcVqtMbvTmkchVmzLmwKw-Jsbkn9G55Tg0xzsMs2KS707hvKJprmcL5JXdF4N2Oa0CfsSh0K5U0bENLYJ8ZTv85SgM6UxuqkBmRN6LEuij9fwEIkT_icA/s1600/1611296_10152215652472053_368894458_o.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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It might just look like boxes on shelves to you but to me it's a beautiful portrait of progress and organization. The team got an unexpected afternoon off and when the shipment FINALLY arrived our fabulous volunteers helped us unload 1000 pea coats in record time and we were ready to rock when our test group arrived on the day before we opened for athletes. </div>
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I think it was about day three that I let myself think, "ok, this is working. I might actually have this thing under control." I felt good. I wasn't waking up at weird hours with irrational worries. My team was taking initiative and figuring out solutions to things. I was actually having fun. </div>
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Fun. I remembered that I love this. That I'm pretty darn good at it. I was excited for the athletes to show up and to see them react to this spectacle we created. </div>
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The Bobsled and Skeleton team arrived the next day and from there it's all a complete blur. I know there was a lot of laughing, a lot of silliness, a whole bunch of work and definitely some character building. But one major thing happened that completely changed my perspective on the entire experience. </div>
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One evening I left the hotel with some of the sponsor folks and a few of our staff to go meet my friend who was in town for dinner. My phone died while we were out but I was with people so I knew I was reachable. We were finishing up with dinner when my teammate Aron pulled me aside to tell me he had gotten a call saying that the aforementioned wise old coworker had collapsed in the office and was en route to the hospital. We immediately left and when we got outside Aron told me that Doug had had a heart attack. I felt guilty for being gone and we went back to the hotel as quickly as we could. </div>
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The good news is that the hospital in Munich was terrific and Doug was treated well and was ok. His wife was on her way over within hours and because we had a down day the next day I was able to go over and see him. He was cracking jokes and asking for his computer which was a giant relief.</div>
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HOURS before this whole thing happened we had been joking that Doug was some kind of robot. He's in his 60s and he runs circles around the rest of us. Doug is sending emails before any of us get up and he's in the office after we all go to bed. The man climbed Mount Everest last year. Yeah. Let that sink in. Mount Everest. So going to a hospital in the middle of our event to visit him flipped a switch in my brain. It didn't make me stop wanting to do a great job. But it did make me realize it wasn't worth getting my heart in a twist over an ill fitting tee shirt or a misplaced piece of signage or even over a boy who broke my heart once and made the team and was coming to Processing on the last day. </div>
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Everything is heightened at the Games. And things that wouldn't happen in the course of six months in real life happen in the space of hours. You have already forgotten about your chit chat with Kristi Yamaguchi by the time Vernon Davis is trying to smooth talk his way in to the USA House after hours. You go from watching someone you kissed right on the lips win an Olympic medal to ringing up hockey jerseys for tourists from the Midwest. So the good stuff is SO GOOD and then the bad stuff is THE WORST and you can find yourself careening from one extreme to the next. When there is an issue it has to be solved IMMEDIATELY and when you do, indeed, solve it (because you always do, you just always do), you feel like a freakin' rock star. It's part of why I love it and it's definitely why it takes weeks to recover. It's a very concentrated experience and if you don't come home at least a little changed, a little more confident of your skills and a lot more aware of things you need to work on, you weren't doing it right. </div>
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So I still believe all of that, and I think for me the Games will always be stressful and hard and awesome and thrilling. But I don't think I will ever again allow myself to wake up in a cold sweat, panicking over something I've invented. All kinds of things have gone wrong at events and nothing has ever actually been as awful as what I imagine at 2 in the morning. </div>
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We wrapped up Team Processing, my team went home and I went to Russia to work in the USA House store. The store is it's own kind of bananas and there are always apparel questions and issues that come up so my time there was still busy. I've been around this world long enough that it was fun to see old friends from past Games and I even made it to a couple of events. And then it was time to go back to Munich for Paralympic Processing. </div>
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I had one really glorious day off before anyone else got there. I slept in and went for a run in the English Gardens. I ate a meal without checking my cell phone. It was wonderful. </div>
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The next morning my sister called. It was too early in the German morning to be anything but a middle of the night Utah call and I said when I answered, "whatever you are calling about it can't be great." She said that it was not, in fact, great and that my Grandfather had suffered a heart attack and they were on their way to the hospital. He has been sick and the last time I saw him he was so frail, nothing like the strong, funny grandpa I've known my whole life. Still. You don't want to be on a different continent when you get that phone call even if you know that phone call is going to come. I called my boss, tried and failed to keep my composure and he told me to do whatever I needed to do. I needed to go home so we got a ticket booked, I briefed the staff that had arrived at that point on what to do for the next few days and beyond if I couldn't make it back before Processing opened. </div>
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I left the next morning and in what felt like my grandpa's first act watching over from above, the team was coming through Munich to go home and my close athlete friend was boarding in the gate next to mine. I got to see a friendly face and get a big hug before I headed home which was an enormous blessing. </div>
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I got to Utah and got absorbed into siblings and in-laws and nieces and nephews. My mother has a very special relationship with her dad, one that I have always envied, and as soon as I saw her I was glad that I hadn't pulled any kind of stupid "I have to see this project through" B.S. that you might read about in a really, really dumb leadership book. </div>
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I have a lot of great moments from the Games that I'll hit in my traditional "highlights" portion of this post but I have to say, the best part of the entire six weeks was sitting in the hotel lobby eating breakfast with a bunch of wiggly kids and every single one of my brothers and sisters and their spouses. I would have been happy to just sit there and eat waffles and tell grandpa stories until our regular lives finally realized we were gone. </div>
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The funeral was very sweet. It's not hard to say nice things about my Grandfather. He was good and he was kind and he had a good life. He was possibly the most devoted husband I have ever seen and my grandparents were still flirting with each other well into their 80s. He was successful pretty much any way you want to cut it but I kept thinking that no one really mentioned much about his job except to note he was a hard worker. They talked about what kind of person he was. At my sister's wedding a few years ago I said something teasing to my conservative Mormon grandpa about being his old maid granddaughter. He just took my hand and told me he was so proud of me and all the things I was doing. And that boys were really, really dumb. He never missed a chance to say he was proud of us and everyone kind of felt that had reason to believe we might be his favorite. My grandfather is my first real loss in my 37 years. Grief is unfamiliar to me and I am still figuring out how to do it. My suspicion is that it's something you don't master. </div>
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I went back to Munich the day after the funeral and was down the Processing room about 15 minutes before the athletes arrived. The team had done a fantastic job getting everything together and although we had some bumps, things went well. </div>
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I felt really good on the plane coming back to Colorado. Proud of what we did. Grateful for all the good people in my life, thankful for my abilities and the opportunities I get to stretch them. </div>
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A few highlights:</div>
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-We were very, very lucky to end up at the Munich Olympic Park for Team Processing. It is a beautiful place and the history of the place is palpable. These two goofballs were our venue managers and they were 100% delightful. One of my favorite things about working an operational role at a Games is how many times I am in a country that is not my own and the locals turn out in force to help our team. Between the volunteers who worked tirelessly and provided excellent service to our athletes, to all of the behind the scenes people at the airport and the hotel and the transport company-the Germans treated us like their own team. I love that cooperation more than I love medals counts. Our last day I slipped over to the memorial in the former athlete village to the Israeli athletes that were killed in 1972. After our own joyful experience in Munich I was overwhelmed with peaceful feelings that even when evil really tries, good and right are just always going to win. </div>
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-Thanks to a dear friend with good connections I have been to Opening Ceremony for the last few Games. Being in a different country meant I this time I watched it from the lobby of our hotel. However, getting to watch the team come in with this wonderful crew of people who made that happen was one of the sweetest parts of the experience. We all groaned together at a few missing hats and it prompted all kinds of great stories about what really goes on behind the scenes. </div>
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-Speaking of that lobby-the restaurant and bar were both right in the lobby so every night you could walk through and see this crazy mix of team processing staff, volunteers, sponsors and athletes and team staff all hanging out together. It was a unique set up and provided quite a few fun and interesting interactions. The last day of Processing everyone was down there until the wee hours. A few of us even rallied and went out dancing which is exactly what you should do when you are young and hopped up on adrenaline and you just finished outfitting a whole bunch of the greatest athletes on the planet. </div>
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-A little over a year ago I got a really nice email from a speed skater who had somehow stumbled upon this blog. He reached out to say how much he enjoyed it and of course I was delighted. We got to know each other over the course of pre-Games events and in December I got the pleasure of watching him make the Olympic team. My whole crazy career started in speed skating so was super fun to have him come through Team Processing as a first time Olympian. Full circle you know?<br />
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-All athletes go through a program prior to the Games that teaches them about how to be a good representative of Team USA and it's always presented by an Olympian. Typically they have done the program before they get to Processing but we always have a few who still need to do it. We lucked out and Derek Parra was the gold medalist who spent a few days with us. He is a lot of fun and we spent a fair amount of time swapping stories about trying to date in your 30s. His last day he had a few hours to kill before he went to the airport and that is how I happen to have a photo of an Olympic Champion stomping on boxes in a garbage container in Germany. The team behind the team. </div>
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-Are you ready for one more speed skating highlight? I got a ticket to Short Track one day and it was my first time back in a rink since 2002 when I saw every single race. It's a different experience to be in the stands of course but love that little sport dearly and was so glad to get to go. </div>
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-So maybe you heard this story-once upon a time this guy missed making the team and went to the Olympics as a wax tech. A wax tech who kept hassling me to hang out with him and I kept saying no until finally his friend won a gold medal and I met up with him at the USA House and gave him my REAL number. Some dating and some not dating and some not talking and some hard work to be friends when more than that didn't work out and I got to be in the stands when he won the Bronze Medal in Men's Boardercross. I've watched him work and sacrifice and grow and work some more over the last four years so if you want an Olympian your kids can look up to-this one's for real. I'm so proud of him. I stood in the rain for two hours to see him on the medals stand and it will forever be one of my favorite Olympic moments. So will eating McDonald's at 4 in the morning with him and his coach the night before I left because those are the things that happen at the Games. </div>
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-Another Games, another picture with my pal Paul who used to sit across from me in 8th grade english class. He has a big fancy IOC job but always makes time to come hang out. This time his wife brought this little guy and their BRAND NEW BABY all the way to Sochi so if anyone deserves a gold medal in being an awesome mom, it's Kim. </div>
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-Since working at the Olympics is in no way as glitzy as we all make it look on social media, what keeps us coming back? It's because these two ladies used to sit on my floor in 2002 when unbeknownst to most of you, the Games were being executed by a whole bunch of eager twenty somethings with little experience and lots of wide eyed optimism. There was a layer of adult supervision of course, but most of the worker bees were a bunch of kids. And now these are women with fancy titles and lots of responsibility and I think we all wonder how the heck we got to be the grownups. I adore them and I squealed like a teenager when they walked into the store. What keeps us coming back? Each other and the bonds that you develop when you live and work together for weeks and months and years doing this big, crazy thing that the world is going to watch and then will be over in a blip. If the glamour is why you came, it probably won't keep you. </div>
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-I almost never interact with families at the Games. I cry at the Thank You Mom ads from P&G just like the next guy but my world rarely crosses paths with an actual mom. The day of Alex's race I was in the bleachers with some family members and because the race was delayed and then postponed, I ended up helping out a little with some of the scramble to get tickets changed and hotel rooms rebooked. One particular mom and cousin of one of the athletes were so much fun and we ended up hanging out quite a bit during the rest of their stay and I just fell in love with them. Mary's kid didn't end up doing as well as we hoped but there she was, cheering for the other guys and being positive and upbeat. There just wouldn't be Olympics if there weren't families in the background supporting the heck out of their kids and I really enjoyed getting to see a whole new side of the Games. </div>
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-One day I was in the shuttle on the way to my store shift when I got a note from a press officer saying that a gold medalist only had his shoes but could not find his medal's stand uniform and they had just a few hours before he was receiving said gold medal. I pretty much leapt out of the car when we arrived at the Olympic Park, ran into the store, stripped a mannequin and sprinted across to the Today Show set where the athlete would be arriving in a few minutes. I got there early and thanks to my lovely coworker and a nice cameraman, I got to take this quick shot from the anchor desk. Then the athlete showed up and after glancing at his feet I asked where his shoes were. "These aren't it?" Nope! So I sprinted back over to the store, discovered to my relief that the mannequin wore the same size and back I went to the other side of the Park juuuuust in time to escort the athlete and his girlfriend to a green room where we did a quick private fitting and all was well in medals land. I won't say who the athlete was but he *might* be my 2014 athlete crush. I am a professional and I don't really get star struck but this guy is a deadly combination of nice and handsome and scorchingly talented. So it didn't hurt my feelings to lose an entire afternoon to solving this particular apparel crisis!</div>
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I could go on and on but this post is already too long so I'll wrap it up. Oddly enough this was probably my favorite Games experience since Salt Lake. I love my job. I'm grateful for it every day, I get to have experiences that my young self wouldn't even have known to dream. I work with people who are talented and driven and good. I still believe that being part of something bigger than myself is important and that conviction makes what I do very fulfilling. </div>
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I also know that I don't want my job to get the very best of me. We didn't talk about Grandpa's job at the funeral. Doug's job didn't fly to Munich to sit by his bed. I will always be a person who spreads herself a little too thin. There are too many people to love and experiences to have and places to visit and stuff to try and that is the way I like it. But I want my job to be ON that list, I don't want it to BE that list. Being part of the "team behind the team" really is an honor, but when you stand there and watch your friend-who is super talented and a hard worker but still just a human-achieve a dream he's had since he was a kid, you do start to wonder what your own gold medal dream equivalent is. And if you are on the right track to get there. </div>
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So that's where I'll be in 2014. Worrying less. Priority shifting. Dreaming. </div>
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k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-60410649924762614112013-10-06T16:57:00.001-07:002017-07-19T14:09:30.843-07:00Countdown<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I just got home from a pretty cool event. It's the USOC Media Summit and for three days we bring in a bunch of Olympic hopefuls and pretty much every sport media outlet in the country and everyone gets loads of interviews and other content to use in the run up to the Games. It was my first time going and it was a really fun thing to be part of. Any given night you could walk into the bar and end up having a conversation with someone vying for their second or third Olympic team. People with X Games medals and World Championship titles. I went up to our office one night and happened upon Bode Miller sprawled out on the couch watching football in his socks. My sister brought baby Nina up one night and she wouldn't let go of Louie Vito's finger when he came over to say hello.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's not normal this world that I live in. The travel, the experiences, even the actual work that I do is nothing I ever would have imagined for myself. I went to my dear friend's wedding this summer and happened to be seated next to a guy who was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_DeVitto">Billy Joel's drummer for 30 years</a>. After I peppered him with questions about THAT amazing career he asked what I did. And when I told him he thought MY job was cool. It's gratifying every single time I tell people what I do and it impresses them but there is more than a little part of me that can't help sounding a tiny "don't get used to this" warning. Your cool job doesn't say anything real about you except that you are enormously blessed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But also. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I came home from a trip a few months ago. It was late. I couldn't remember where my car was parked. I wandered around the airport lot for awhile and then tiredness and lateness caught up to me and I couldn't stop crying. It all seemed so pointless to have spent all this time building a career and a network and then having no one to pick you up from the damn airport.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm turning 37 next week. I'm sad to report that all those annoying things your parents always said about how they still felt young are true and I look at that number and can't understand how it applies to me. The 20 year high school reunion planning committee has formed and like it or not, I'm on the downward spiral to 40. An age I remember my parents turning. And age that sounds like an expiration date no matter how many ways we want to call it the new 30. Remember when 30 also sounded old?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This brings me to a point of my career and life where I am rethinking everything I ever imagined about what it means to be successful. All the arbitrary things I thought would mean I had "made it" when I was sixteen. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I want to keep growing and challenging myself at work and I hope that means that I continue to have more responsibility and make more money. No question. A fulfilling career is important to me and I'm not going to feel bad about being ambitious and wanting more, no matter how undatable that seems to make me. But I never want to feel that my job or my salary is any indication of what kind of person I am. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am also smart enough (most of the time) to know that my relationship status is not a measure of success either. If I were to be a wife or mother then for sure I would want to be really good at those jobs as well. But again, I don't think having cute kids or a rich husband says anything fundamental about who you are anymore than having a LOT of cool stories from the Olympics does. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A few months ago I got to teach a class to some sport and business management kids at the local university. My friend Garrett teaches there and had asked me to come share some thoughts on sports marketing. I love love love talking to students so I was happy to take a morning off work and spend a few hours answering questions. At the end of my presentation Garrett got back up and said, "I hope you all got some good things out of that and we'll certainly talk more about her points, but what I really want you to get out of Katie's presentation is not what she does but how she does it. That smile and that energy that she has? That's not an act, you'll see that on Day One of the Olympics and it will be just as sincere three weeks later when she is tired and worn down and you'll see it when everything is falling apart. It's really who she is and that is a far more important quality to have than any of the strategy we can talk about here." I almost started to cry. It might have been the best compliment I have ever gotten because it completely nailed that thing I really, really want. My own personal measure of success. Get ready for the cheesiest thing you will read on the internet today but when I die, the only thing I want anyone to talk about at my funeral is not what I did, but how I did it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">These big events like I went to this week are always an interesting study in human interaction. You take a whole bunch of people at the top of their field-not just the athletes but the journalist who come, the agents who represent them, the sponsor reps and the people from my own organization who are pretty darn good at what they do-and you put them in a little bit of a pressure cooker and true colors tend to spill out all over. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have no problem with anyone owning their own success. I like confidence. So I don't have any issue with people who act like they belong at such an event. I don't expect everyone to walk around in a wide eyed "golly gee can you believe this is happening to little me" haze the whole time. But it's always fascinating to me to see the ways people treat each other there. Folks who cannot be bothered to say thank you or acknowledge the person talking to them if it's just a lowly volunteer or intern. People who you have to reintroduce yourself to seven times because they have deemed you unnecessary. Or my personal favorite, people who have zero interest in you until they hear what you do and then suddenly they are super interested in getting your card. And conversely there is nothing cooler than seeing someone with a closet full of trophies being cool and approachable and nice (I don't like to name names but if you need an Olympian to follow this pre-Games who is as delightful in real life as you think he is on TV, Louie Vito is your guy.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I always come away from these things trying to be a little bit more aware of how I treat people but for some reason this one hit me particularly hard. One night I happened to be in my room when the maid came by to do turndown service. Don't get me wrong, I love turndown service. I absolutely love coming back to my room after a long day and having the lights low, music playing and chocolate on the bed. It's awesome. It makes you feel a little bit like a big shot. But somehow it was kind of embarrassing to be putting on makeup while a real person was turning down my bed just because the circumstances of our lives meant that I was the one staying in the fancy hotel and she was the one cleaning it. I have been out in the world now long enough to know that the line between the two of us is thinner than you think. I gave her a big tip and was overly effusive with my thanks. She probably thought I was a nut. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So that's it. That's my goal going into 37. I want my life to be more focused on how I do things than what I'm doing. So if I'm running Olympic Team Processing or I'm teaching the five year olds at Church, I want the way I act to be the same. I have a healthy respect for accomplishments, it's important to work hard. I have a much healthier respect for integrity and kindness no matter the situation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've used this quote before here and I always say it to young people asking my advice but I am trying to figure out how to get tatooed on my body because it's just the best thing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<span style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;">Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen"</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Conan O'Brien usually knows best. </span></span>k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-18853169506434613272013-07-19T09:17:00.003-07:002013-07-19T20:09:45.635-07:00Dry CleanerOver the Christmas holiday I went to visit my brother and sister-in-law in St. George. Three of my favorite nephews live there and it's warm when everywhere else is cold and after the wacko year that was 2012, I was very much in need of the high dose of family and chaos I always find there. Christopher cooks things that you can't imagine and takes me on bike rides, Tasha teaches me how to do my hair and dares me to wear things I don't think I can and the boys are goofy and crazy and they make their Aunt Katie WORK to impress them. I love it there.<br />
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The first day I went to hot yoga with my sister-in-law. I hadn't been to yoga in awhile. When we got to the end of class and we laid on the floor and did a supine twist I was grateful that the sweat on my face covered up the tears that the twist was wringing out of me. It had been an incredible year but it had also been an incredibly hard year and as is often that case after a Games, I come home and spend months trying to figure out if I have another one in me. Tasha said, "do more yoga, the yogis love you. It will help you."<br />
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We did more the next day. And then the next day I met my tall, handsome friend Lex for a 6 am class because who doesn't want to get out of bed at 5:30 in the morning for peace, balance and sweaty, shirtless guys in great shape? We did yoga every single day I was there. I drove up to Salt Lake and found a yoga studio that was open on Christmas Eve and it chased away that creeping dread I have been feeling the last few years as more kids drop into our family that I'm the old maid crashing someone else's holiday.<br />
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I got plenty of sleep and family time in Utah. The yoga though, the yoga flipped some switch I'd been looking for. I bought a pass at the studio near my house and put yoga into my regular life. <br />
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I went on a business trip to New York in February and over dinner my friend Lindsey and I were discussing our hectic schedules and lack of sleep. She told me to go to bed earlier. I rolled my eyes. "What are you even doing after 10:30 on a weeknight? Just go to bed! You'll feel so much better, " she said. I have a sheet of paper from my doctor next to my bed that says "go to bed by 10:30." I have looked at it and laughed at it a million times because who goes to bed at 10:30. And then over table side guacamole, Lindsey, who is fun and cool and brave and interesting says "just go to bed".<br />
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And I tried it. And I felt better. And life didn't get less fun.<br />
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I had come home from Christmas to my company opening a gym on the second floor of our building. A gym with a studio and towel service and soap in the showers. On the second floor of the place I go every day. The gym practically takes your hand and leads you to it. My friend at work started really working out seriously. She wanted to do the Insanity videos and needed a partner. I never liked working out at lunch. Packing a gym bag, bringing snacks, taking two showers every day. Laundry. How do you do your hair after you sweat like a pig for an hour? And things are busy and I don't even take lunch most days. But I packed a bag. And we did a week. And then we did two, three, four. I went to LA for work and we did spin classes and drank cold pressed juices. I came home and we did the entire two month Insanity cycle. I didn't miss a day. I didn't make excuses. Some days I didn't want to go and Lisa made me. Some days I made her. My new afternoon hairdo became the top knot. We got a weight training routine and I learned my way around the free weights. I did squats. I saw muscles appear I had never seen on my body before. Someone made a comment one day about my "guns" and I almost fainted. <br />
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I felt better. I got just as much work done. I stopped staying late.<br />
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I was sleeping. I was working out. I was eating way, way too much junk. My friend Jennise was raving about this cleansing system she uses and one day in a fit of frustration after too many nights of fast food I texted her. What is this cleanse? Will you help me?<br />
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So I bought it. It wasn't cheap. But it seemed like a good investment given the enormous time and energy commitment I had already made to being healthier.<br />
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It was nine days. Five days of shakes and four days of fasting. I eat handfuls of M&M's at 2:00 in the afternoon and make nachos while I'm downloading music at midnight. Shakes and fasts and salads in a jar are not my lifestyle. But I spent a lot of money and I made a committment to a friend so I tried it.<br />
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Day 1 was not hard at all. Day 2 my friend Jess and I organized a girl's night that started at Buffalo Wild Wings and ended in movie popcorn. I was tempted. Wings and movie popcorn are two of my happy places. I didn't eat any wings. I sat next to popcorn and was grateful that Melissa McCarthy kept me laughing and forgetting and I survived.<br />
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The fasting was a little harder but something happened in the second day of the fast-I wasn't craving Chipotle or grocery store frosting cupcakes (I know, I know, I'm disgusting), I wanted salads. I wanted a chicken breast. And I wanted to keep wearing all the clothes that had gotten a little (lot) snug since the days last summer when they were hanging off my stressed out Olympic body. <br />
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I went to parties for the 4th of July, I baked a cake I didn't eat. I went on dates. I didn't cheat. The 8th day I went to the Farmer's Market and the direct from the ranch store and I filled my fridge with good things. I made soups and quinoa and homemade hummus. I didn't plan out the first Diet Coke I wanted to have when it was over, I didn't put a cupcake in the freezer for the next day. And when it was time to be done, I made a shake for breakfast in my shiny new Vitamix. And I had a salad for lunch. And chicken and asparagus for dinner. The cleanse didn't solve all my problems but it made me mindful of when and why I was eating things. It felt good to feel some control. I bought another kit, for later, when I forget. When it's hard again. <br />
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I have had this fantasy for about two years about getting into really good shape. I don't have any kids, no one lives in my house asking me to make time for him so there is no reason I shouldn't have time to work out and cook meals and go to bed on time. But it takes work to do those things. It takes discipline. It takes not worrying about your hair after 1. It means sometimes you miss a house show because you listen to your tired. It means you don't have to always eat the cake at the going away party. And it means that you change your life, you change your choices, you commit. These are all things I am not great at. I like to fill up my life with too much-people and music and treats and caffeine. I love to say yes. I hate to say no. I said no for a long time out of fear and out of worry and then for a long time I only said yes. And now it's time to balance. <br />
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It's not revolutionary to figure out that true change is really hard. It's so easy to do what you've always done because it's comfortable and it's a known entity and also it's not very hard. But then you are 36 all of the sudden and you realize you don't want to give in to soft middles and sensible haircuts. I don't want any "glory days", I want every year of my life to be better and richer than the ones before. So if 2013 is the first time I have strong deltoids and can do a headstand, then I feel like that is far better than remembering the distant past when I used to be fit. So I pack the gym bag, and I make a week's worth of salads on Sunday night. And I get up for yoga on Saturday instead of sleeping in. <br />
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I feel better physically than I have in a long time. But the secret is that all this changing and growing has less to do with zipping up my skinny jeans without laying on the ground and holding my breathe-although that is marvelous. Especially when my 36 year old skinny jeans are skinnier than my 26 year old pair. It's way more satisfying to know that real change is possible at any stage of your life. I have a heart stopping fear of getting stuck-in a job, in a relationship, in a city-and the big lesson of the last few months is that I'm the one who chooses that. I get only get as stuck as I let myself. My job, my friends, my church-none of those things are in control, I am. And if I feel too tired or too stressed or too chubby-those are all places I can get out of when I decide to. The only barriers in our lives for most of us are the ones we choose to put up ourselves. Mine come from fear and worry and sometimes sheer laziness. But I am tired of them and kissing some of them goodbye is just what the yogis will tell you to do. "They love you. It will help you," Tasha said. <br />
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So I did. And they do. And it does. <br />
<br />k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-73715726892564271022013-06-18T20:18:00.001-07:002013-06-18T20:18:32.865-07:00Family TiesDear friends who read my blog,<br />
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I am not a fan of asking people to vote for things on the internet. You probably don't care about the prize I am trying to win and I burn up valuable good will for the times I want to post music or cry about boys or instagram photos of my feet in exotic locations.<br />
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However, I AM a fan of people turning misfortune into an opportunity to help other people, especially when those people are my baby brother Logan.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiW8U8bqxLrItN64Tu4VfVED0iIK-t9sbWpFHrHt3jdLdKUElostvzBWwAYcHAj17SSc0RBZYSlmbEeeIC3JxrAAjGMFy_FnycP4wbsc1XiLaRupox19S5YvPg5fxui6fZVLyT9A/s1600/IMG_0458.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiW8U8bqxLrItN64Tu4VfVED0iIK-t9sbWpFHrHt3jdLdKUElostvzBWwAYcHAj17SSc0RBZYSlmbEeeIC3JxrAAjGMFy_FnycP4wbsc1XiLaRupox19S5YvPg5fxui6fZVLyT9A/s400/IMG_0458.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uncle LoLo with Baby Nina. </td></tr>
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I don't have favorite siblings but I think if our whole family voted on who was the most fun, Logan would win. He is a person who can come into a room and just fill it up with light and laughter. He will chase nephews until THEY are tired. He is a devoted husband who I have actually never heard speak an ill word of his wife. He's a hard hard worker, with a sharp wit and a kind heart.<br />
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Last winter, he and his wife found out that the cancer <a href="http://www.replikate.blogspot.com/2011/06/michigant.html">they thought she had kicked </a>had returned. A week later they found out she was expecting their first baby. And on the heels of this roller coaster, they got the news that Logan was a match for a complete stranger who needed bone marrow. Off they went to Seattle where Logan donated bone marrow to someone he will never meet. Doctors have been watching Kristen carefully and after she delivers their baby girl next month, they will get rid of that cancer once and for all.<br />
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Logan decided that a good way to take what could have been some dark times for their little family and spin it into something awesome would be to train for his second Ironman and raise money and awareness for the <a href="http://bethematch.org/Home.aspx">Be The Match</a> bone marrow registry.<br />
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To reach as many people as he can, Logan is trying to get to Kona where he can elevate the profile of his cause. He's entered a contest <a href="http://konainspired.thismoment.com/base/kona?region_id=us-en&content_id=809">right here on the Ironman site</a> and he needs loads of votes to make it. If you have a moment, may I ask for your vote? You don't have to register for anything and you can once day for the next week.<br />
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Thanks friends.<br />
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k8<br />
<br />k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-62932139377426388622013-05-29T22:16:00.000-07:002013-05-29T22:16:20.938-07:00NightfallMy friend <a href="http://songsfortheday.wordpress.com/">Adam </a>sent me his summer mix today. Every season he sends me a mix and every season I fall in love. It happened early this mix. Like three songs in.<br />
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Here's hoping I have as much fun to this soundtrack as I did <a href="http://www.replikate.blogspot.com/2012/06/bucket-list.html">last summer</a>.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rAXMTZi0w34" width="560"></iframe>k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-71340589733783720112013-05-26T15:52:00.002-07:002013-05-26T15:52:37.701-07:00Sleepyhead<br />
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I belong to a church where all of the work is done by volunteers. If you are an adult in a Mormon congregation, you likely have a "calling" in addition to to whatever you do professionally. </div>
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Because my work schedule for the last 14 years has ranged from random to truly insane, I have had mostly teaching callings or responsibilities I can do on the road. I could write a zillion words on the alternating feelings of guilt and glee I have felt about that situation but that is a post for another day. It's also sometimes tricky for family oriented LDS "wards" as they are called to figure out what to do with single people. I have no global solutions to that stickiness but I currently have a ward leader who is more sensitive to trying to include me than some have been in the past and it feels nice. He asked me in a meeting at Christmas what I thought I could do in a down year from an Olympics and I said that I didn't want to do something I constantly had to flake on but I was up for whatever he needed. </div>
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So that is how I found myself being asked to be an advisor for 25 high school juniors and seniors at Girl's Camp this summer. Every year for a long, long time LDS wards have been taking all their teenage girls into the woods for a week of detox from boys and makeup and technology and teaching them how to hike, light fires and have some spiritual experiences. I'm sure it will not surprise you that Girl's Camp memories account for some of the best AND worst of my 12-17 years. </div>
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When I came home from my mission 14 years ago (ouch) all I wanted to do was work with the teenage girls. I wanted them to see an example of a woman who had gone to college, served a mission and was working at a great job. I had a lot of good leaders as a kid but the teenage Katie sure would have appreciated a role model who had taken a different path than marrying early and starting a family right away. I wanted to be that leader.</div>
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I also wanted to date Mormon boys and a pretty great way to meet them was to be in one of the special "singles" congregations and even though I lived in Utah and there was a Mormon boy behind every corner, I was seduced by post Church dinners and campouts in Moab and I jumped ship from the Young Women's program. And then I left Utah and singles wards became the best shortcut to a social life and then suddenly you are 31 and they are tossing you out (which is another blog post as well) and you are back in a family ward after 10 years of never seeing a child or an old person at church. It takes some readjusting and since my own migration out of the singles ward came just as I was moving to Colorado and didn't know a soul, I definitely haven't done a great job of jumping into the family community. I have made a few good friends at church and just sort of left it at that. The chance to get to know the girls and their families a little bit seemed like a good way to finally make a contribution even if it means taking some vacation days I would likely rather use holding baby Nina or chasing nephews. </div>
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All of this long intro is to say that a few weeks ago we had a Camp Kick-off activity where the other leader and I hosted a sleepover with all the older girls who will be helping out with various camp responsibilities and setting good examples for the younger ones. </div>
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I have been apprehensive about these girls. What if a bunch of nice Mormon teenagers look at me and all they see is their worst nightmare? I'm 36 so to 16 year olds I am definitely an old maid. I was a relatively feminist youngster and I for sure thought unmarried ladies in their 30s were kind of sad. And while I have all manner of mixed feelings about being this age and this single, I do not want to look out into a sea of teenage pity when I have a really, really great life. Also, I was not popular with teenage girls when I WAS a teenage girl so there is a fear that they will just find me hopelessly uncool. </div>
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All day at work on the Friday of the sleepover I was so nervous. I want them to like me but I still want them to see me as an adult and I don't want them to feel bad for me but I do want them to see that life is so good even if it doesn't go exactly how their romantic teen brains are planning and I want to keep their attention but I want them to have time on their own and really I just want to drill it into all their little heads that the very best thing they can learn in the mountains is how to have a relationship with God and honestly everything else falls into place but I know they have to figure that out on their own. It's a lot. It's a lot to put on a sleepover. It's a lot to put on kids who don't even know me. </div>
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So we get there. And right away they are spilling out of minivans with braces and sleeping bags and long hair and cell phones and they all seem so cool and confident even though I know (and have to remind myself) that they are not. I take a deep breath and separate from the other leader even though I kind of want to be her siamese twin all night. I plop down at a table where they are filling out forms and I ask them questions. And I know I'm trying just a little bit too hard but I also know they are a little nervous because even thought it was 20 years ago I still remember what it was like. I think one advantage to never doing some of the "grownup" things everyone my age has done is I am still worrying about boys and shifting social groups and if the size of my thighs is the reason I'm not dating much. I have a lot of the same fears and problems they do so I can get myself back there quickly. </div>
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The girls have been there about 30 minutes when I discover that a dear friend of mine taught one of them in sophomore English class. She's a cute little thing who takes AP classes and does theater and is having an easy time talking to an adult. I am relieved to see that a) there are still teenagers who take AP classes and become Thespians and want to please adults and b) that my singleness and kidlessness has so far not caused her to eyes to glaze over. </div>
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I'm not completely clueless when it comes to kids so I have brought a piece of Olympic apparel as a prize for a game. The girls eat it up. The other advisor is also my age and has three little kids. She moved here after a few years in Japan and she has long hair and she's pretty and halfway through our presentation I feel like we are really killing it. We have to shush them a few times and we lose them to their screens a couple of times but for the most part, it really seems like they like us! It helps that the other leaders have introduced us as "the fun ones" which I think lets us a bit off the hook. I am a way better good cop than bad cop so I think my role is the right one. </div>
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We have dinner, we make s'mores, we do some leadership training (well, the bad cops do, the other leader and I do some yoga moves in the back and maybe I post some Facebook updates because I have to document this). I show them some photos of Ryan Lochte trying on his medals stand jacket which I believe lays to rest any concerns because I do not have a boyfriend. We manage to stay up until about 1 but the girls are so good that we don't worry when they are still laughing as we find our ways to our sleeping bags and pass out. I'm sure chasing a few little kids around all day is tiring but I cannot believe how much energy that many raging hormones can zap. </div>
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The next morning we go to the church where all the younger girls will be gathering to do some hiking and fire training in preparation for Camp. As we drive over the girl in my passenger seat, a girl with big brown eyes and a pixie cut who tells me she's headed to college on the other side of the country, asks me what we are listening to. It's a quiet folksy band and I assume she'd rather it was One Direction but she says "no I really like this-do you have any other recommendations like this?" and of course she is now my favorite. </div>
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These older girls are going to be the advisors for this activity and they are taking it seriously. They fan out and take control of various groups and call roll and give instructions. These are such good girls. We didn't have of the eye rolling, "I'm over this" variety and I am grateful. I am powerless in the face of cynicism in general and it makes me especially sad in young people. I am glad that even though we for sure have some awkward girls and some odd little ducks in some cases, they are nice. They are good. They are taking younger girls under their wings and they are trying to be examples. </div>
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I like these girls. I am not afraid of these girls. </div>
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k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-24037360077025052172013-05-15T10:02:00.001-07:002013-05-15T10:02:29.227-07:00Dance BreakI'm working on a post about my sleepover with 20 teenage girls from my church group that I promise will be nothing short of profound but for now, this.<br />
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<iframe embed="" height="315" http:="" src="<a href=" width="560" www.youtube.com="" yuwu_gyu-s="">http://www.youtube.com/embed/RyuWU_Gyu-s</a>" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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One of my favorite music gurus and <a href="http://www.michaeljohnkelly.com/">artist extraordinaire</a> claims to be unable to listen to anything else right now but the !!! album and frankly, I get it. This will be on every summer mix I make. I predict some serious jamming on the beach in Martha's Vineyard. In my sun hat.<br />
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Summer I love you so. k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-52743912629889439552013-04-28T14:06:00.000-07:002013-04-28T14:06:02.922-07:00HighlightsI just got back from a six day photoshoot in LA with 100 Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls in preparation for the Games in Sochi. These are some things that happened while I was there:<br />
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-Lindsey Vonn ate the MoJo bar I put in my backpack for my China trip and forgot to take out<br />
-I increased my lifetime Louie Vito hug total from 1 to 3<br />
-I did some light flirting in line at the Pressed Juicery in West Hollywood with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1769806/">this guy</a><br />
-My coworkers and I petted Julianne Hough's dogs and then tried to be cool during dinner at Chateau Marmont with Jim from The Office sitting about 10 feet away<br />
-I finally got to see finished samples of all the amazing Nike and RL gear for the Winter Olympics and they look so awesome I want to cry about it<br />
-I crushed all the uber fit LA ladies in the spin classes we went to<br />
-The Ralph Lauren stylists confirmed that white can be worn year round ending years of internal debate<br />
-I finally got to see my dear friend Corey after too long of not seeing here and we spent a glorious night listening to Sufjan Stevens sing about planets in the Walt Disney Music Hall in downtown LA<br />
-I met the future husband of my other dear friend Beckie<br />
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But the biggest and most important highlight of the week, and a thing that matters way, way more than celebrity sightings and athlete bonding and fancy food is...<br />
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I FINALLY GOT A NIECE!! Little Nina arrived Friday night around midnight and she's beautiful and perfect and I'm so anxious to meet her that I'm getting on a plane Thursday night so I can hold her for the whole weekend.<br />
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I'm not posting any photos yet, she's only up on closed social media networks for now but she's got a ton of black hair and big, big brown eyes.<br />
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Once again, I sigh with relief that my sometimes shallow seeming life is still anchored in the right kind of priorities.<br />
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<br />k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-36487058353152147002013-04-15T21:07:00.001-07:002015-09-03T11:10:50.570-07:00BeantownOne of the proudest achievements of my life is running a marathon. A year after my own race I had a pretty killer opportunity to be in Boston over marathon weekend, to go the Runner's World pre-race party, and to stand just around the corner from the finish line and cheer on thousands of my brothers and sisters in the "marathoner" fraternity.<br />
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I moved to Boston the next year and spent several more glorious Patriot's Days in downtown Boston, cheering for people we knew, finally being outside on one of the first warm days of the year and basking in a day off that none of our friends anywhere else were getting. I loved watching the elite athletes come in first but what I really went to see were all the thousands of people doing something that at some point, I bet they thought they couldn't. I knew just how much of your life got sucked up into being in that race and I knew that every person out there had a story. In many ways my marathon set a solid foundation for the rest of my adult life and I can't watch one anymore without getting excited for all the other people getting to experience that life change as well.<br />
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Boston is a funny place-it's a big city that kind of still sees itself as a small town. You go downtown on Marathon Monday, or the 4th of July, or during playoff season, and you'll run into half your friends. Geographically it's tight and emotionally it's tight too. It'll freeze your guts out for six months and act like it doesn't want you around and then suddenly spring comes and it's like the whole place is just dying for you to come have a picnic on it's lawn.<br />
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I felt a lot of things today. Relief as I got in touch with friends I knew would be down near the finish because if I'd been there, we would have been down near the finish. Overwhelming sadness for the people who went to celebrate the best day in the city they love and are now facing the loss of a loved one or a totally changed life due to a horrific injury no one should get celebrating the best day in the city they love. As a person who works in the sports industry, and someone who plans events, I couldn't help but feel a certain melancholy that this will change the way marathons are managed and change it in sad ways. Part of the magic of a marathon is being right there, lining the street, watching the regular folks run in the same steps as the Champions. I don't know what the change looks like but I know it involves more rules, less access. And it has to right? I felt heartsick for all the organizers and the people who work so hard to put on this event. I have certainly spent moments at venues filled with athletes and volunteers imagining what would I do if something unspeakable happened and always feel a tremendous sense of relief when we pack up safe and sound. I watched all those first responders today and felt grateful that there are people in the world who choose professions where they have to run towards the bombs we are all escaping.<br />
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Mostly I just felt heavy hearted for a city that used to be my home. There is no way something like this happens and doesn't leave a scar. I think about all the events that didn't worry us a bit, all the times we crowded onto the Esplanade, or jammed into the Hatch Shell for movies and concerts and fireworks, and how those "best days" will now necessarily make people pause. If there is a group of people who will just stubbornly refuse to let this change them, it's Bostonians. I would give just about anything to be at the next Red Sox games because I know Fenway will come up with some perfect way to get the tears out and then everyone will say how much the Yankees still suck and they'll belt out "Sweet Caroline" and it will feel like Boston again. I sometimes felt like that town was trying to kill me and when I left it was time. But today I wanted to be in someone's living room in Somerville, sharing stories and sitting really close to some of the best people on planet earth.<br />
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I really do love that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5apEctKwiD8">dirty water</a>.k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-82339901852585511992013-04-14T20:56:00.000-07:002013-04-14T20:56:00.402-07:00On the road againIt's been nice to be home for a few weeks but Wednesday I leave for another long haul trip. Three days in Portland with our friends at the swoosh and then seven glorious days in West Hollywood outfitting 100 darling Sochi 2014 Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls for a photo shoot with pretty much every sponsor we have. Since I have about 10,000 favorite people scattered around PDX and Southern California I'm hoping to squeeze in some good friend time in addition to all the admittedly fun but still work, work stuff.<br />
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It's been pretty quiet around here as of late, mostly just trying to continue my healthy habits theme for 2013. Lots of cooking, working out, and getting to bed at a reasonable hour. I had a baby epiphany this year that although I sure do like to be doing interesting and fun things with my life, it's ok if I'm not doing them EVERY SINGLE SECOND. It's ok to have a routine that keeps me fit and sane that is punctuated with episodes of "doing epic sh*t". We had an outstanding closing day at Breckenridge this weekend where I actually managed to get real live air on a whole bunch of jumps. It was a pretty ok balance to spending most of my evenings this week making CDs for a bunch of friends. I put a note up on Facebook that I was in the mood to make some mixes and suddenly I was addressing 30 packages to people from DC to Truckee, CA.<br />
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One of the songs I put on a few of them is a song that might be the only one to ever make me wish I was a rock star. I would love to have written this and I would probably be beside myself to perform it in front of a screaming crowd. I'd also take Grace Potter's legs since we're being honest.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MKkI7pRt9hU" width="420"></iframe><br />
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And with that, it's time for bed before 10:30.k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-13240835550122895702013-03-29T11:13:00.002-07:002013-03-29T11:13:55.445-07:00AmericaLast year was remarkable in a lot of ways but one of them was that 75% of my vacation days were spent in other countries. Not a bad record right?<br />
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But I love love love so many parts of my own country and so this year, I'm trying to take most of my vacation days enjoying the people and places I already love or want to explore right here in the U.S. So when three of my lady friends in California got a hankering for an East Coast adventure, I signed up for whatever that entailed.<br />
<br />Turns out we all mind-melded and everyone wants to do exactly the things on my East Coast adventure TO DO list. We're flying to Martha's Vineyard for a few days of lazy island life and what I hope is an almost unhealthy amount of time on a beach cruiser. Then we'll drive to Newport, RI where I will be attending my VERY FIRST multi-day music festival. We picked one with a boatload of history and a less flashy but super meaty <a href="http://www.newportfolkfest.net/introducing">lineup</a> than you find with some of the Coachella, Sasquatch, Bonnaroo type festivals. I would like to hit one of those one day but the <a href="http://www.newportfolkfest.net/">Newport Folk Festival</a> has been on my list for years. Throw in that some of my dearest friends live just outside Newport and then we're headed to Boston for a crazy 24 hour cap to the trip and well, my heart leapt with joy when I booked the tickets. Beth Orton, The Lumineers, Cold Specks, ANDREW BIRD, Jim James, The Felice Brothers, Hey Marseilles. From artists I have seen in Heather Browne's living room to people who have been on my playlists since before there was an iPod to put them in, add in a venue that is right on the water and a group of friends who will be willing to soak it all up, I feel like I am hitting the vacation jackpot. <br />
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The festival posted this video the other day and you can call me a nerd but I got tears in my eyes watching it. America the Beautiful indeed. <br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/60846129" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br />
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A few of the artists I am excited about...<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_yLmWQT8Bag" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VQgdOsYLtQI" width="420"></iframe><br />
(this song might be in my all-time top ten. i can't listen to it without being right back into my first time living in Boston.)<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Gsnrzr0Bm80" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/C6e5wxzPsQM" width="560"></iframe><br />
(this one time, i was at a Lumineers show, and they needed a glockenspiel holder and they picked me. and there were like 200 people at that show. and now lookie. so cool.)k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-8377727907417629422013-03-13T22:30:00.000-07:002013-03-13T22:30:06.415-07:00Oh HelloI'm inexplicably giddy this week. Maybe it's flying all the way around the world in the space of ten days. Maybe it's nephew time in about 36 hours. Maybe it's two baby nieces on the way. Maybe it's spring coming soon. Maybe it's an influx of great music. Maybe it's too much flirting (but thank goodness there has been some flirting!). I don't know. What I do know is there is a lot of dancing happening in my kitchen lately. Solo dancing mind you, but the serious, like no one is watching, whole soul, shaking it like a polaroid picture kind of dancing.<br />
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My soundtrack is really killer.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cTMObl4CqoU" width="420"></iframe><br />
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Brother and sister duo? Yes please.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MyD0mvrQWIw" width="560"></iframe><br />
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(braggy sidenote-my super talented photographer friend <a href="http://www.dusdincondren.com/">Dusdin</a> did the cover of this fantastic you must get it album)<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/d5KbJqSjuUU" width="560"></iframe><br />
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I saw these guys play in a coffee shop here in the Springs last night on an old couch sandwiched comfortably between my friend Casey and a very cute fella who was way, way, WAY too young to talk to as much as I did but way way WAY too cute to ignore. The kind of night that reminds me what it was like to be 15. (He was 22 just so we are clear-no actual 15 year olds were involved)<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bgjwAZ9TR3U" width="560"></iframe><br />
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I have a huge crush on Mackelmore. Like I giggle through his songs kind of crush.<br />
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Pickwick. I mean, if you haven't gotten on board do it now because they are blowing up. We'll be seeing them Tuesday night in a venue ten times the size of the one they played just six months ago. Get with it.<br />
<br />k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-32421754136201814352013-03-11T20:09:00.001-07:002013-03-11T20:09:52.987-07:00Ready or notAfter spending last spring and summer in the clutches of the Olympics, I am almost beside myself with excitement to have these two seasons to myself this year. Weekends in Utah, a jaunt to Martha's Vineyard, a Rhode Island music festival, camping with the Young Women in my stake and all the hikes and day trips to fabulous parts of Colorado I have yet to see are just a few of the things on my agenda.<br />
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I'm getting a little preview this weekend when I head to Salt Lake for my sister's baby shower. My St. George nephews will be around and we've already planned way, way more activities than we can actually fit into three days. Just the way I like it.<br />
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My friend <a href="http://songsfortheday.wordpress.com/">Adam </a>sent me his annual Spring Mix yesterday and although the whole thing is wonderful, this is the song that keeps me hitting repeat. It's 4 and a half minutes of joy. I can't stop smiling.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DAeJyWfq02Y" width="560"></iframe>k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23566989.post-30005034743825284322013-03-02T02:55:00.001-08:002013-03-02T13:56:30.922-08:00Learning to FlyPerhaps the most disappointing part of getting older has been discovering that, contrary to my childhood belief, adults don't actually have all their sh*t together. Even as a law abiding citizen with an education and a good job, I am still constantly learning and making mistakes and then sometimes not learning at all and making the same mistakes over and over. It often feels like the more I think I have figured out, the more I see how much there is I still don't have a handle on. In theory I think that is a good thing-it means that I am not staying in one place, that the bar is ever raising on what I expect from myself. In practice it means that my teenage dreams of knowing everything when I grew up seem more and more naive by the day. <br />
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Some days though you get flashes of real growth and get to experience some peace about an experience that was incredibly hard. <br />
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Without going into to much personal detail, there was something I wanted for pretty much my entire twenties and early thirties. Something I wished for and prayed for almost everyday. Something part of me knew probably wasn't the right thing but that I continued to pursue even if it sometimes meant ignoring my own intuition.<br />
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Slowly slowly I started to question why I was holding onto this dream and began to realize that it actually wasn't good for me. So I let go. At first it felt like I had lost a security blanket and I missed that dream. And then it became clear that my narrow focus had blocked other possibilities. Saying goodbye made space in my life for things I hadn't considered. I mourned a little bit for the years lost chasing a shadow but I felt stronger when I stopped leaning on it. <br />
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This whole thing was a couple of years ago and I use it as an example to myself when I'm frustrated about some lesson I think is too hard. I think about all the tears and anguish and frustration and heartache and disappointment that didn't seem fair at the time. And then I look at what true change it brought and I feel thankful.<br />
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So that is enough. But sometimes you get a little bonus. A bit of "a ha" information that is almost physical in it's power to confirm that you made the right choice. That what you wanted wasn't what you needed.<br />
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I'm writing this from a cozy hotel room in Germany. Earlier this week I was in China. By the time I get back to Denver on Wednesday I will have flown all the way around the world. There are things about my life that keep me up at night with worry and fear and things that absolutely take my breath away I feel so lucky. I suppose that makes me fairly normal. I hope that makes me fairly normal. But I'm grateful for the moments where the lucky outweighs the scary and I feel that much closer to being the person my mother thinks I already am.<br />
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This version of a great song cycled through my iTunes this morning and I have had it on repeat. Learning to Fly indeed.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/K0tD_vJGlQw" width="560"></iframe><br />k8http://www.blogger.com/profile/11840786903333344189noreply@blogger.com0