Running a race is very much a metaphor for life and all of its milestones. The ones you plan on and especially the ones you don't.
You spend a lot of time working up to something. You get nervous before the big day. You face your fears, you hope you "studied" enough and that all the work and hours you've put in were enough, and finally, the big day comes. The day you've been training for. Whatever that is. And that's when you see what you're made of. And it almost always surprises you.
Because you do so much more than what you thought! Every time.
Every day of our lives, we're in training for something. Getting a promotion. Having a family. Getting married. Every day's experience contributes to whatever milestone lies ahead. And sometimes milestones in our lives happen whether we plan for them or not and they're not always the happy kinds of milestones.
Like finding out you have cancer. Like one of my dear friends, Rose, a former co-worker and former roomate.
We were producers and our company was closing our bureaus. Mine in Tampa, hers in Chicago. They gave us the option to move to the New York headquarters. We jumped at it and decided we'd get an apartment together and take on the big bad city like two Mary Tyler Moores, hats and all. We shared all of the ups and downs that came with moving to an unknown place and working together and sometimes competing, but we stayed friends. We both moved back to our hometowns and got married and started families.
In 2007, she found out she had a tumor. She was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. She battled the cancer in the way I knew she would, boldly and with reckless abandon. She went through chemotherapy. She went through radiation. She lost all of her hair. Her four-year-old noticed her new "haircut" and told her he liked it. She's a fighter and today she's cancer-free. She tells her story so much better than me, go meet my friend Rose and watch her story, she was on FOX News channel.
Why am I telling you this?
Because I am running for her this June in San Diego at the Rock and Roll Half-Marathon that benefits the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I am running with my favorite virtual sisters in the world, The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans as part of the Team In Training program. And I am running for Rose and for all who battle cancer.
The fun part is that right here, I vow to do some crazy to raise some money. Because I have to raise almost $3,000 and I am at the very very beginning and time is ticking. I'm starting to panic!
Won't you consider going over to my page right here and donating? In the next two weeks, I will let YOU vote for what CRAZY I will do IF AND WHEN I reach my fundraising goal! Yes! You decide! You decide just how silly I will be. And there is not much that I won't do in the name of fundraising for causes I believe in! (Just so you know!)
Some of you have already made suggestions that will go on the list. They are:
-dye my hair purple for the race
-get a (temporary) tattoo. Some of the girls on the team have talked about getting actual tattoos. I think I know how my husband feels about this one, but I love me tattoos (I have two.)
-get a mohawk. Unfortunately, I won't cut my hair to do this, but I might be willing to make a faux-hawk out of the existing hairs.
-eat mushrooms. *gag* I hate mushrooms with everything inside me. But someone my mother in law suggested this one, I really thought she liked me! and so here it is on the list.
I will blog and vlog and tweet about what I do so you will see it all for yourselves if you care to.
In the meantime, suggest away here in the comments below! And please help me reach my fundraising goal! Again, my fundraising page is here! I will open up voting 2 weeks from today!
Love and hugs!
Follow me on Twitter.
Subscribe to my blog.
Tuesday
Mile by Mile, Step by Step; Some Crazy for Some Good
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
i definitely vote for the faux-hawk. the mushroom thing is too cruel. what if the spores get inside your body and hamper you on race day? *shutter* (my fear of mushrooms is 2nd only to my fear of nuclear radiation)
ReplyDelete