Ride the White Horse

Since my post on Friday, I am singing a new tune. Turns out all it takes to change my outlook and attitude is a good cry, dinner with a fabulous friend, and a solid Sunday-morning run. I'm staying at my parents' house this weekend. I needed to come home, both literally and figuratively. I wanted to be in a safe place for a couple days. As much as I love my apartment, and living on my own, sometimes a girl just needs her Dad to take care of her. (As I think I've mentioned before, my "Daddy Issue" is that He loves me so much no man will ever be good enough.)

So today I feel safe, strong, secure, empowered. It's a good launching point, and just in time! I have a busy couple months coming up and I have got to get my act together if I'm going to succeed. The Denver Marathon is just 60 days away (October 19), the Las Vegas Marathon is 50 days after that (December 7), my birthday is just over a month away (September 23), and my weekend of too-much-fun with Whitney is the following weekend. In the midst of all this, I'm taking on the biggest client at the law firm where I work, working on a multi-million real estate deal that will have vast implications for clean energy production in Colorado (and for the US), and volunteering at the DNC next week.

The funny thing about depression is that it inhibits you from doing the very things you know you need to do to make things better. I get stuck focusing on the muck in the trench that traps me. I feel helpless, hopeless, and I sabotage my best attempts to climb out by refusing to do the things I enjoy. Just three days ago I sulking over the fact that soon I'll be 27 and I haven't done most of the things on my "list." Last night I was watching the Olympics when Constantina Tomescu Dita became the oldest woman to win a medal in the Women's Marathon at 38, and Dara Torres (44) took home two silver medals. Running this morning I reminded myself that I've got so much life to live! I often get stuck in this mindset of trying to do everything "right now." Acting as though if I don't do it now I may never get the chance to do it before I get bogged down with all the obligations of adulthood. I think the key is to keep those goals in sight and NOT get bogged down with those socially-imposed obligations. Who says I have to be married before I'm thirty? Who says I should have kids before I'm thirty-five, or own a home, or work 50 hours/week? None of those things will make ME happy. I'm learning to give up the expectations that others/society may have for me and just do what's best for me.

Eventually I want to go back to school. I really want to teach Political Science at the University level. So why don't I do that, you ask? Because I don't have to right now. School will always be an option for me. And right now, I have a good job, I'm making serious head-way on being Debt-Free, and I am becoming convinced that if I buckle down, work hard, make some good connections in the legal field, I will have the freedom to pursue my academic career in a couple years. Right now, I believe I am in a good place. While my free-spirit wants to pack up and move some place new and different every three months, I want to set myself up for success by sticking it out right now. Also, I still have military obligations that limit my ability to disappear as an ex-pat in Argentina. In the meantime, I'm going to try to satisfy my desire for escape with long runs in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.