Deciding to decide

I can say with complete certainty that discernment is not my spiritual gift.

I have struggled with making decisions my entire life, and I feel the problem has only perpetuated as I’ve gotten older. I mean, I am the girl who went to four colleges in four years—two of them twice. I just couldn’t decide where I was supposed to be or what would be best for me at that point in my life.

Does anyone really like making decisions??

And it’s not like I don’t pray about these things, because I really do. The problem comes in discerning whether it’s God telling me to go a certain way or my own voice trying to convince myself that it’s part of His plan. It becomes this complicated mess that I just continually make worse.

My sister likes to play on my lack of decision-making skills by forcing me to make them. When we go to restaurants, she makes me choose where to eat; when I ask for her advice, she will offer words of wisdom but never flat-out tell me what to do. For a person like me, that can be a bit frustrating.

My most recent bout with trying to make a decision came in regards to the Boston Marathon. Ever since I became serious about running, it’s been something I’ve dreamed of doing—I mean, isn’t it every distance runner’s goal?

I qualified for Boston when I ran my first marathon in 2005, but I was in college at the time, taking 19 hours and working three jobs. I really didn’t have the time or money to make it out there then. So, when I ran my second marathon in 2009 and qualified again, I was excited about the fact that I would actually get to run Boston this time. Because the 2010 race was already full before I even ran my qualifying race, I knew 2011 would be the year.

Then came the pelvic disaster.

It’s always so awkward to say I had a pelvic fracture (Who gets those??!),, but it’s the truth. I couldn’t run the Chicago Half Marathon or the Chicago Marathon, two races I had already signed up to run and about which I was pretty pumped. Needless to say, it was pretty depressing not being able to run them—after all, I couldn’t walk for three weeks without my stupid crutches.

I even struggled with making the decision of whether or not I should still make the trip to Chicago to watch. I went back and forth, back and forth. Finally (with the help of advice from friends and family, of course), I concluded it would be best not to go, which I think was the wise thing to do.

Back to Boston: why is this even a decision? To be honest, I am not sure how much I really like marathons. Yes, I love running, and I love running long distances. However, I get worse pre-race anxiety than anyone I know. It’s beyond ridiculous. When you combine that with the distance of a marathon and then factor in the travel and unfamiliarity aspects to the race, you have a colossal Nat-tastic disaster in the works.

I actually made a pros/cons list for this decision, which is something I generally avoid. (Maybe that’s why I am so bad at this!) To be honest, the cons of running it outweighed the pros. Yet, for some weird reason, I’m still almost certain that I will be on that starting line on April 18.

I would like to say that I am completely comfortable with that choice, but that would be a lie. The truth of the matter is that I still don’t know if this is something I want to do. After all, I am not sure my pelvis can handle it. (Yes, that was an awkward sentence to write.) Plus, I really want to focus more on improving in the half, which is my favorite race, anyway. If I go run Boston and re-injure myself, I feel like all the training and work I’ve put into coming back will be tossed out the window.

I often wonder if I will ever be good at making decisions. Why is it so hard for me? I know I’m not the only one who struggles with this skill (or lack of it), but I feel like it’s more of an issue for me than most people. Or maybe they are just better at hiding it.

So, for right now, Boston is in my plans. I haven’t decided how I will feel about this tomorrow, though.

Don't speak now

Every once in a while, I think everyone could benefit from a muzzle.

I often find myself saying things and then stepping back and thinking, "Did that really just come out of my mouth?" These are usually moments when I say something really ditzy—a role I really don't like to play. I mean, I don't want to sound like I belong in the movie "Clueless" or "Mean Girls," which, by the way, happen to be rather quality movies. I need to add "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion" to that list, as well. It's a highly quotable movie—mostly because half of the things that you can quote only make sense in Barbie's world, where education is optional.


Sometimes I should not be allowed to talk.



Then there are moments where I say things that I immediately want to take back because they aren't very nice. When you are angry or frustrated in situations, it's so easy for emotions to get the best of us and let our mouths run amuck. I'm sure some people have more control over there tongues, and props to them for that, but some of us really do need to stop, breathe, count to 14, then just not say anything. My mom always used too tell me the trite advice: "If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all." While I definitely can't say I adhere to that all of the time, I think it would be wise to follow in certain instances.

I can't even count how many times I said mean things to family members when we got into arguments while we were growing up. My sister and I still do it sometimes. Then, one of us comes back into the room with that "I'm-so-guilty-and-really-don't-want-to-apologize-to-you-but-I-really-have-to-because-I-missed-talking-to-you-these-past-27-minutes" look on her face, and the other knows what's coming.

"I didn't mean what I said. I'm sorry."


Why is it so hard to admit that we didn't mean something? Oh, maybe it's because we realize that we let our mouths run a bit too freely again, and we don't have as much control over our tongues as we thought we did.


Ugh. I had defeat—especially when it's my own.


"Nobody makes me bleed my own blood." Chalk that up as another quote that really should have had more thought put into it before it was said. Good movie, though.

I think one setting where it's really easy to say things that don't carry much value with them are at sporting events. I mean, how many of us have caught ourselves yelling things at opponents, refs or even the players we love so dearly simply because we get caught up in the moment? I know I'm guilty of this. I would never talk that way to people in a normal conversation, but I will surely yell to a player that he's a "talentless flopper who should take a bus back to dirty San Antonio." (For those in confusion, I am referring to Manu Ginobli.) I can't even begin to spout off all of the nasty things I've said about Tim Duncan, Tom Brady, the entire New York Yankees organization, TCU sports, Barry Bonds, Warren Sapp--the list just goes on! And some of the players I've disliked the most have been ones whom I've really come to find quite entertaining in their post-playing careers (i.e. Charles Barkley and Reggie Miller).


My most recent "oops" moment actually didn't even happen, thankfully. I was at a hockey game with LizRaz, Plankton and Mama Parsons on Sunday, and the refs were really frustrating me with their lack of calls against the other team. I mean, sure, the team had already had numerous infractions that resulted in two-minute penalties, but some of the foul plays they were ignoring were worse than the ones that they actually called against a pretty dirty team. Yes, this was a recreational league. Still, you have to make those calls. I said some things directed at the other team that I guarantee I wasn't thinking earlier that morning at church.

After the game, we were walking past the ref's room, and I was about to say something rather snide to Olson, the ref who stuck his tongue out at us at the end of the game, when he stepped out with a bunch of pink/red/black beaded bracelets in his hands.

Olson appears to have a side hobby.

"Happy Valentine's Day," he said as he let us choose which ones we wanted to adorn our wrists. He had made them himself. Wow, I felt like such a jerk. Imagine how awful it would have been if I had said something to him about his inability to see a dirty hit if it slapped him in the face! I mean, this guy was a decent old man who is just like all of us: imperfect. Sure, he's going to mess up every once in a while when he's out there on the ice. I should have been complimenting him on the good calls that he did make, combined with his talent to stay on his feet the entire time. I'm not sure that even my Phiten would keep me from combing the ice with my face plants.


Thank you, Olson.


I had joked with Plankton during the game that he needed a muzzle, but I think it's pretty clear that we all need them in our rashest of moments. So, pause, count to 14, and see if what you were about to say is really the best idea. Because once you let them leave your mouth, there's no turning back.

Just make sure whatever leaves that trap isn't something that will get you in a trap later.

Unhibernating

As it turns out, I do not want to live in a cave.

This past week has been rather horrid. As Snowpocolypse 2011 took over Dallas, boredom and misery took over many lives of those in the DFW area. You would think four snow days in row would make a teacher happy.

Negative.

I cringe at the thought of having to make those days up later when the weather is actually nice outside and the mindset of being in the final stretch to summer has set in. Plus, we are only allotted two bad weather days a year, so I don't even want to know what we are going to have to do about those other two days. Please don't tell me now. Break it to me after I gain a bit of my sanity back.

Being trapped inside of my apartment for so long was rough. Sure, I tried to venture out as much as I could, but let's face it—there's only so much you can do when the roads are iced over. People can barely drive when it's raining outside; don't even get me started on how they handle these "wintry mix" conditions.

For a brief stretch, it was as if most of society had stopped altogether: School? Canceled. Bible study? Canceled? Many local businesses? Closed. Speeds on the streets? Practically crawling. Even the grocery store shelves got wiped clean. I went to Kroger one night when I was out of milk, and there was one gallon left in the entire store. One. And it wasn't even the right kind (it was skim, and I drink 1 percent).

I think what was brought to my attention most, however, is how important it is for human beings to have relationships—especially friendships—with other human beings. Those connections we make with other people outside of ourselves are so vital to our well-beings. I honestly don't think we were placed on this earth to be hermits—God wants us to connect with others. After all, how else can you spread love if you're trapped in your little cave, isolated from the rest of society?

On Friday (even though I had completely lost track of the days at this point), I went over to my friend Jade's so that we could build a snowman. It's really weird that we both wanted to do this, because neither of us is a fan of the cold weather. But, for some reason, this sounded like a good idea.

Valdy is awesome.

We built our guy by a bench in a courtyard so that he could wait there for his true love. We named him Valdy and left a bottle of perfume with him—you know, so that he could allure that special lady to look his way. He really is just the most precious thing.

I know that Valdy will eventually melt, and technically he isn't actually "real," but I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from the little daredevil: sometimes you just have to stand out in the cold for things that matter.

Relationships and connections with others are so essential, and it was nice to be reminded of that this week. It's all about engagement—honestly, aren't things usually more enjoyable when others are with you? (Think falling on your backside on a patch of ice.)

It might be beneficial every once in a while to go stand by a bench in a courtyard. The good news is that, unlike Valdy, you won't melt.