The Little Things
This week I plopped my injured self on our solarium couch to proof pages of an upcoming personal finance book. Each chapter opens with a quotation, and all day yesterday I kept in mind the passage introducing a section on having children.
I know what Thoreau was driving at, but in my current state, I chose a slightly different interpretation.
Someday soon I will look back on this marathon and this month and forget it opened with pain and anguish and uncertainty that just got worse as the miles and weeks progressed. Instead I will remember the giggles among us girls in the starting corral when I whispered that my “invigorating” spray to ease aches had mysteriously migrated to my nether region. I’ll remember Marissa snapping us smiling into her disposable camera as we ran with determination, and to avoid eye contact with the guy in the sombrero and Speedo. I’ll remember being one sentence from giving up again, then suddenly seeing Susan and just knowing I’d go on. I’ll remember the hearty hugs from the RBF folks, the soft, tickly grass and blue sky just before I passed out at the MCRD, and my just-buck-up-and-shut-up kind of husband silently and repeatedly bending down to tighten my constantly loose, marathon-issued Spenco sandals during that slow, mile-long migration to the airport car lot.
I won’t forget a single blog comment ‘cause I’m keeping each handy for emergency meltdowns. Nor will I forget the creamy seafood ravioli during lunch with Louise, if only because the doctor’s scales say there will be no more of that for a long, long time. The e-mails and cards from my running friends are keepers too. As is the comment from the radiologist: “I knew from those legs you were either a runner or a wrestler.”
Isolating seemingly minor moments and giving them their due is not unlike the strategy to dedicate each mile of a marathon to a person or a personal trait. It certainly helps the time to pass. For some of us, it helps the painful aftermath to pass too.
“Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”
--Henry David Thoreau
I know what Thoreau was driving at, but in my current state, I chose a slightly different interpretation.
Someday soon I will look back on this marathon and this month and forget it opened with pain and anguish and uncertainty that just got worse as the miles and weeks progressed. Instead I will remember the giggles among us girls in the starting corral when I whispered that my “invigorating” spray to ease aches had mysteriously migrated to my nether region. I’ll remember Marissa snapping us smiling into her disposable camera as we ran with determination, and to avoid eye contact with the guy in the sombrero and Speedo. I’ll remember being one sentence from giving up again, then suddenly seeing Susan and just knowing I’d go on. I’ll remember the hearty hugs from the RBF folks, the soft, tickly grass and blue sky just before I passed out at the MCRD, and my just-buck-up-and-shut-up kind of husband silently and repeatedly bending down to tighten my constantly loose, marathon-issued Spenco sandals during that slow, mile-long migration to the airport car lot.
I won’t forget a single blog comment ‘cause I’m keeping each handy for emergency meltdowns. Nor will I forget the creamy seafood ravioli during lunch with Louise, if only because the doctor’s scales say there will be no more of that for a long, long time. The e-mails and cards from my running friends are keepers too. As is the comment from the radiologist: “I knew from those legs you were either a runner or a wrestler.”
Isolating seemingly minor moments and giving them their due is not unlike the strategy to dedicate each mile of a marathon to a person or a personal trait. It certainly helps the time to pass. For some of us, it helps the painful aftermath to pass too.
