Comparisons

27 minutes AFTER a car ride (with three children) home from Billings today...I KNOW!...and yeah its cuz I'm from planet Awesome! 

I think everyone I know has run a half marathon. No really, I’m completely serious… from the time I started this endeavor five of my friends on Facebook have either run a half or full marathon. AND the bitch of it is they just mentioned it in a status update like no big thing. Something like…

Susie McRunsalot is on her way to her second half marathon this year…hoping to be done in under two hours!

Or

Joe Neverranincollege just finished a marathon in sunny San Diego for a personal best!

While I am extremely happy for these friends and inspired by them too, I am feeling a bit ridiculous with my 25 minute runs. Yes, I admit I’ve fallen into a sea of self-judgment and silly comparisons. Seems like Missoula, Montana is a running “Mecca” and I didn’t even notice before. But once I started thinking about it I spent at least a good twenty five solid minutes (note this is about the timeframe I can currently run) listing names off to my husband of people that have completed this feat. “Well, there’s my friend from high school that is trying to get into the NYC marathon, there’s Chad that never seemed to do anything in college but be sarcastic and drink beer, of course…my old boss, my best friend who runs on the treadmill at 7.2 speed…that’s damn fast…the other day I turned the machine up that fast just to see how fast that was and I thought it was going to start a fire but I digress, there’s that elderly woman down the block, oh and all of my bridesmaids, and our friends in Hamilton that don’t have kids yet and run together in couple bliss, then ALL the women I know at the Y and what about my cousin the ultra runner and of course Kevin the ultra runner…those guys are nuts by the way, oh and my BIG sister…she shouldn’t do anything I can’t do.” MAN.
Needless to say…it seems to me that I have got to stop looking around at what all these other people are doing and just be proud of my own effort…proud of each minute I still fight for on that treadmill in my basement. It’s easier said than done. It’s difficult to accept the things you need to work on and not get indignant some of the time. It’s not easy to avoid the pitfalls of throwing your hands up and the air and saying, "screw it…not for me…who needs it…and so on.” I was struck by this after I read the update on Hannah this week. She’s in a bit of a fog herself right now. She’s going to need to make a decision to accept some things and keep fighting for every minute too.
Her primary Jessica writes:

This past week, Hannah seems to be taking a big step backwards…She is becoming passive aggressive when it comes to rules and expectations. She has yet to complete our assignment sheet, and has started making many excuses on why. She even went so far to be passive aggressive while denying being passive aggressive over this daily struggle. She is choosing to reject staff’s feedback, and is even becoming rude at times. Hannah has said that she is a pessimist during group therapy, and seems to want to be stuck in her ways and is unwilling to change her behaviors.


On the flip side, Hannah also seems to be very needy of staff’s attention. She seems to want to spend time with them, but is unsure how to pursue it. She tends to be a bit awkward and will stand in the same room quietly until she is acknowledged. Or, she will become loud and immature to be the center of attention. Hannah seems to want us to be entertaining her, but when we offer suggestions she is quick to dismiss them.

So once again I humbled by my task in comparison to what's in store for Hannah and am thinking of her everyday...hoping she can find her way.