So it begins...dusting off the treadmill

http://www.youthhomes.com/

So I’m going to do something kinda nuts. I’m committing to something I have no experience with…no practice at and not a lot confidence that I can complete it. I am going to do something I’ve never attempted before and had no reason to try. I’m going to test my patience, my tolerance for pain and my character. I’m going to want to give up. I’m going to need support.
I’m going to run a half marathon in July and I’m doing it in honor of a kid at Youth Homes. Some kid I haven’t met and probably never will. I’m doing this because I can’t come up with any more excuses. I’m doing it because I am in awe of what this kid I have never met will need to do to survive.

This kid will need to wake up each morning and fight their urge to self medicate with drugs or alcohol. They will feel small and alone and need to build themselves up with little or no support from family. They will need to fight demons of past history from memories of abuse, neglect and family conflict. At age 4, 9, 15, 12, 17 ½ …they will need to overcome self abuse, self hatred, insecurity, chemical dependency, rape, incest, hunger, poverty, mental illness, ignorance, and negative role models that they happen to love deeply. And the amazing thing is they do overcome these things (or learn how to deal with them) with time, practice, self determination, love and support.

So, at age 37 I can no longer crack jokes about being “40 something” because I see it around the corner. After three kids, I have three real big reasons to get healthier. As I contemplate how hard it is to run 5 minutes in a row after a lifetime of never really (not kidding) exercising into a full sweat, I know it pales in comparison to what kids struggle with each day as they try to get healthier with the odds against them. Knowing the odds are against me too…no time, weak bodied and weaker mindset…I will do this, largely in part, because I know you will help me get it done. If I have your support, then that kid will have our support.
As some of you know, I used to work at Youth Homes as the Development Director. I resigned from that position after 8 years to be home with my family and practice art. In the last week of the job this happened:

A therapist on staff at Youth Homes just paid me a visit in my office. She just got a kid back. This kid had been “on run” for almost a year. The girl… I’ll call her Becky, chose to run away because she feared having to go back to live with her family that represented conflict and pain in her life. At the same time, Becky longed to be home with her family but worried that the expectation of being home in a healthy environment wouldn’t actually happen. Seems like she almost felt if she got “too healthy” they might reject her. She also chose to live on her own terms instead of dealing with the restrictions and guidance she received in a group home. She started to listen to her own rationale again instead of her head and heart and maybe she just wanted to see if she could live by her rules instead of what she knew in her gut was a healthier path. Often “healthier” means a difficult road ahead. It’s strange how we sometimes choose physical pain over emotional work but it happens all the time.

Becky is now seventeen and has a tremendous amount of all kinds of pain. It turns out, the last year of her life produced fear, physical abuse, risky behavior and decisions that lead to a young life almost wiped out. She spent time with pimps, drug dealers and even in hospitals. She was degraded and neglected. She was left on the side of the road. She was 16. Don’t forget she is someone’s baby. Yet she was alone. Becky was looking for freedom and days without having to wake up and decide to actively choose to not do drugs, work hard at school and look to a future. A major issue that often causes this confusion in a kid facing hard work is a lack of a foundation….nothing to build on. No one to draw guidance from… No ability to reach inside and turn up anything but emptiness… And here goes the similar themes we hear time and time again with the kids at Youth Homes. One parent died violently when she was young. Another made horrendous parenting mistakes to the point of losing custody. Both parents suffered similar if not the same fate they handed down to Becky consisting of lack of education, affliction of poverty, drug use at an early age, unspeakable abuse and the list goes on. And that’s just it….it often keeps going on.

The only hope I’ve seen as a common dominator in this mess of human suffering is that people are mostly good. They want better even when all odds are against them and they seem to never be able to make a good choice. People dream of happiness…all of us do. As for Becky, she was lucky to have good people trying (sometimes desperately) to convince her she deserved this happiness. Becky had Youth Homes. She spent what she describes as the most stable and happy time in her life in a group home in Missoula, MT. There she received challenging therapy, a drug free home and a network of caring role models as well as “siblings” to share experiences.
The silver lining in this heartbreaking story is that Becky learned her worth at the group home. I know this because she showed it while on run. You may ask, “Where is the success in her story?”

Well, here it is…in between putting herself in situations you see on television dramas or shutter at the thought of as you read a newspaper headline, she reached out to the staff she trusted the most. She would email and then they would hear nothing. Then a few months later she would call and then nothing again. And then just last month (May 2009) she bravely asked to come home. She wasn’t sure they’d take her back. But she knew she deserved more. She knew she needed a better life. She knew she wouldn’t last much longer on her own. She knew she was disposable to the people she was with and not to the people here. She made a choice and finally it was a good one.

This of course is not the end of her story. I have hope that she will “make it.” I have hope she will know in her head, heart and gut that she is worthy of a good and happy life. I guess only time will tell but I do know she was here today with her therapist. She smiled at me and said “I’m doing okay” when I asked her the common question, “How are you?” Funny how when I asked her that I had no idea what this young lady had been though. But I heard something in her voice that stopped me. I’m pretty sure it was relief mixed with regret but most importantly …a little bit of hope.

So I’m asking you to join me with the Youth Homes Run 4 Kids team and run or walk the half or whole marathon on July 11, 2010. If you can’t do that, please give a donation. I need to raise $500 (although I’d like to raise more) and I would love your support. I will have a first giving web page coming in the next couple of months so I will be in touch if you don’t join the team yourself. Last year the whole team raised over $60,000. I’d like to help them raise even more this year. For me the raising the money is not the scary part…it’s the running. I need to run at least 4 or 5 days a week. To some that amount of exercise is nothing, kinda like waking up in the morning feeling safe, happy and content. But I remember kids like Becky wake up feeling scared, worried about how to take the next step and most of all…alone. Please join me…I need the support and the kids it will benefit need it too. Contact me at kimandersonart@yahoo.com if you are interested in joining the team and I’ll get you connected. For those of you that care about running…the Missoula Marathon was just given Runner’s World Readers choice of Best Overall Marathon…pretty cool.

I agreed to “blog” about my experience with this. Wowza…I know…another blog in the world. But I promise I will fill you in on how a kid is doing in the Youth Homes each time and hope to make it relevant to you and your support in this endeavor. Also, I will make it MUCH shorter than this initial plea (I need time to run for God’s sake). Please consider passing this blog address on to others and bookmark it for future reference. I will plan on updating it through the big day in July!

Thanks for your consideration and all my best,

Kim