Successfully Losing Sanity

Sometimes I write blogs in my head that never make it to the computer.

And because I have successfully lost my sanity, I occasionally feel like I owe it to my head to put those thoughts on paper.

This in turn, leads to days of stewing over how to include Christmas miracles, sand art sagas, snowboard how-not-tos, and New Years revelations all in one giant, jumbled, and yet well transitioned, super post.

I have come to an important conclusion.

I am not that good.

And so here I am, all out of order, ignoring beautiful stories about Christmas cookies, bath towels, and world travels.

And instead skipping ahead to the more boring topic that is riding on my brain today: running.

A few years ago, when my mom finished a marathon, and my dad nearly killed himself finishing his 500th marathon, I realized something--

I was going to have to run a marathon.

Like it or not. And despite the voice in my head that kept saying, "But Alec, you hate to run."

I told my family over and over in the months leading to the marathon that I would never, ever run one.

But I knew even then, deep in my heart, that my slipping sanity and over competitiveness would never allow both my parents to finish marathons without forcing me on that 26.2 mile path to stupidity.

Now, don't get excited. I may have successfully lost my sanity, but that does not mean I have yet gained some super will power that will wake me up every morning early enough to go outside and run for more than 5 minutes.

What was the point of that ten minute ramble then?

All I'm saying is I think when I'm feeling particularly lazy, I'm going to put in my i-pod and run down the street.

I think I'm going to need something steady this year. Something constant. Something like running.

Last year, as I stood on a beach in Mexico, dancing salsa to bring in the New Year, I knew it was going to be a great year. I didn't need the bag of grapes they gave me to tell me which months were going to be good, I knew they all would.

And I was right.

Just not in the way I expected.

I didn't think that ringing in the new year dressed in a white skirt and flip flops on a warm beach would be some sort of premonition of a year where I would spend my summer shivering in Argentina's winter, where I would start to love history on the cold streets of Boston, and where I would end the year shivering again under a fleece blanket in Colorado.

If the start of this year told me anything, it's that I should be excited because expectations are going out the window.

I have no idea what to expect from 2010.

I'm moving back home to finish up my last semester of school where I am taking 18 credits of writing classes.

Ha. That's all I have to say about that.

Sometime in May I should graduate. And then...

Ha. That's all I have to say about that.

Then I imagine I'll spend a couple of awkward months trying to figure out what I want to do with my life.

And then I'll probably start to figure it out.

Or maybe not.

Remember, this post is about now. Not about tomorrow or yesterday or sometime in May.

And now, I am putting on a running shirt. And trying something steady.

After all, as long as I'm successfully losing my sanity, I might as well run a marathon out of it.