Guest Blog: New Year’s Resolutions: Marathons, Publications, and Being Present In The Moment
A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I’ve played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
~Edgar Guest
Now that 2012 is winding down (WTH? Was just saying this about 2011), it’s time to self-reflect and whip out the personal report card to see how well or how much I sucked (see, a new potential New Year’s resolution identified: stay positive) fulfilling the goals I set earlier in January. Everyone has them with the most popular ones focusing on career advancement, personal and physical improvement. All noble, lofty aims (I’m going to be promoted AND save the world while looking svelte doing it, right?). Awesome but did I actually follow through or just set goals because everyone else did too? Did I do a song and dance for show (maybe, if it burned calories) or did I achieve what I set out to accomplish?
Last year, I set the following goals:
1. Do a 10k or a half-marathon
2. Become a professional writer
3. Lose weight (obviously #1 and #3 go together)
4. Be present
I have to start with this disclaimer: I used to hate New Year’s resolutions. I would laugh at people who would go to the gym seven days a week in January and then dwindle off until I turned into one of those people.
I get it. Life is busy but it dawned on me if I didn’t take care, tomorrow would be in jeopardy. So I just started walking. One mile became two, etc. Then I put a concrete goal on the calendar to do a 5k (three miles) in March to prepare. Uh, but I didn’t expect it to rain and hail with 40 mph winds on Race Day. Bundled up like an eskimo, I didn’t give up and crossed the finish line. With that completed, I signed up to do a 10k (six miles) in October, and although it was a beautiful day, 6 miles is no joke (for a non-runner). But I did it. In training for these races, I lost 40 lbs. Still have more to go but it feels good.
In terms of becoming a professional writer, I suppose I wouldn’t be doing this blog if I wasn’t one. Will take one step at a time and am excited to see where this takes me. The last goal on being present I still need some help with as I DO really need to unplug without electronic distractions occasionally. P.s. I challenge anyone to a game of SongPop.
In 2013, I’d like to:
1. Do two more 10ks comfortably
2. Lose more weight
3. Volunteer more
4. Write for as many publications as I can
Above all, as Edgar Guest suggests (teehee, I rapped), I hope we all have a happy year.
-Carlita
Guest Blog: Run
I restlessly pace the front room anticipating the impending arrival. My hearing transforms into a hunting dog as I detect sounds as beneath the human frequency range. I am listening for the palpable reverberation of my boyfriend’s vehicle. I peer out the window, my eyes peeking through the cracks in the curtains, each car blows past. A recognizable intonation bounces around in my ears. That’s it! My legs decamp and dash to the one that holds my heart. I bound into his open embrace clenching my legs around his mid as he holds his cherished treasure in the air. There’s nothing as euphoric as the moment our lips brush, our bodies converge, and our hearts unite. Our tight squeeze has the capability to barricade blood flow from reaching vital organs. If all clocks desisted I’d want time to standstill in the midst of our amorous greeting. My arms never to break away from the back of his neck.
Time continues and the amorous greeting has shattered and disintegrated into piddly pieces of heartbreak. My lungs gasp for oxygen as I tear through the parking lot charging for my car. Salty tears stream down my cheeks and land on my numbed lips. Once again I transform into a dog searching for its game, auscultating every noise that ensues behind my gait. My heart yearns to sense footsteps behind me, but why am I barreling the diametrically opposed direction of the footsteps? My heart pines away for a self-inflicting pain because the endorphins of the highs of love have strung me out like a hophead. Nevertheless, I recognize that I must run away from the drug that formerly drew me in so near. Now I long for time to fast-forward so I may escape the aftermath of the cataclysmic roller coaster that brought me so high and has now drug me literally to the ground, writhing in a pain so unfathomable I could be considered an addict.
Love has taught me how to run. Which direction you are supposed to run, only your heart knows.
-Summer
Please welcome Summer to our team!
Guest Blog: Adios, muchacho? Um k bye?
“Separation penetrates the disappearing person like a pigment and steeps him in gentle radiance”- Boy George
Before grabbing the lactose-free version of your favorite Froyo , curling up to watch your go-to rom-coms to break out of a wallowing love funk in your favorite college sweats, think of this for a minute. In our current age of cyber dating sites (complete with virtual winks, gifts, rankings and likes), meeting potential dates in the office (not really a fan of this) and at Trader Joe’s (you both reach for Cinnamon Tempest tea tins and sparks fly), there are plenty of guys around. But, of course, just because there are plenty of guys around, doesn’t mean they are straight, single and looking and/or compatible with you. After being on this planet dating, hopefully you’ve come to this realization. Even if you do manage to be the brown bear (hey, I like Animal Planet) who catches that spawning salmon swimming upstream in your teeth, there’s no guarantee you’ve caught the right one, not full of polycyclic hydrocarbons (in other words, stuff that’s harmful). Cynical much?
Perhaps, Karma Chameleon. Take this shining example of true story buffoonery (on both sides, actually). You might know the typical drill- you meet someone and connect intensely from the start. You’ve magically managed to find one who finds your annoying quirks adorable, to whom you equally expound about Pablo Neruda and the Lakers until the sun comes up and with whom you make all these plans, clearing your future calendar. You break the cardinal rule of forsaking your girls, not putting “chicks before pricks,” spending all of your free time with him. Then suddenly, like a punk, Adios, muchacho.
Just out of the blue, it’s as if he went into the Witness Protection program without telling you. No warning. Not even the standard guy handbook explanation and you’re left wondering, “WTF?!” Robin Cockrell offers some reasons why:
“He’s just not that into you.” By now, we know that concept has been beaten to death in movies. Sure, it’s always possible that this is the case but he wasted both his and my time coming to that conclusion.
“He’s not ready for a relationship.” Fair enough. Perhaps that expectation of what we were both looking for should have been set from the jump. I wasn’t ready to run to the chapel immediately but perhaps he never wanted to go at all. Lesson learned.
“It’s not him, it’s you.” Actually, I think it was both of us. I might have moved too fast but if someone doesn’t have the decency or the balls to say so in person, he’s got a problema as well.
I’m definitely not alone, right? Is this a global phenomenon? I certainly hope not. When the next guy comes along, I just hope I won’t think: “Do you really want to hurt me?”
-Introducing Carlita, one of our new writers. Please welcome her to our team.
Cockrell, Robin. The Disappearing Man Syndrome – Why Men Disappear. 11 August 2011. Website. December 2012.
Guard Well Within Yourself That Treasure, Kindness.
Treasure my kindness. Work on my posture. Find effervescent and magical places to go when I get to Paris. If I ever get to Paris. Lose without regret, move on without guilt. Give without you’re welcome. Swallow disappointment without a heavy heart. Acquire more ‘life skills’ and sign up for Salsa dancing.
“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
Like Kurt said, all of the things you can’t see from the center. Forgive bigger. Better. Stop hiding internal welts. Long shots are possible. Understand that I am lactose intolerant even though the macaroni looks redunkalously mouth drenching. Get some decent sleep and quiet the mind. My wireframe is off, and this one cannot be fixed in Visio.
Accept my happiness. Accept my happiness. Accept my happiness. Accept my happiness like Stephen. These are all of the things I want to do and be. Treasure my kindness and all the kindness that has been given to me.
“It was the kind of kiss that made me know that I was never so happy in my whole life.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Oh mysh*&^@#$!*ers!
There are few things that cause me to lose sleep.
1. Worry, mostly about things I cannot change
2. Overload
3. Spiders
Everybody take a guess of what caused my eyes to be bloodshot for my workout this morning?
Yes, this inappropriately placed being has landed across my pillow and in the midst of my panic and shoe throwing–has slipped between the headboard and nothing short of a wondrous crevice… escaping my grasp, and not without an attack of hearts. Mine that is.
Ever since I was a little girl I’ve hated spiders. Feared.
Dad: “Baby, you know how much bigger you are than that spider?”
Lanii: “You know how much scarier that spider is than I am?”
So I haven’t an ounce of sleep, or a smigid of energy for any of anything today and the best part?
I’ve yet to find him. Sprawling through clothes and covers, cleaned through the closet. He likely slipped into the wall and is laughing deeply at me. Puffing at the fact that I needed to sleep with a candle as a nightlight last night.
I tossed. I felt things crawling on me. Nothing worked. And then it was 5 a.m. time to wake to a beautifully exhausting day of looking for the best way to defeat the enemy! Rahhhhhh! What are you afraid of?
“Beautiful Again” new nonfiction has been featured in The Citron Review
The moment I met Evan I knew we would fuck. We took Astrology together; he wanted to study aviation. “Make a wish,” he told me in the back seat of his old Camry. Stars dazzled through the open sunroof, then faded away. I wished to be beautiful on nights with no visible moon. [Click here to read more]
“Beautiful Again” a new nonfiction story by yours truly has been featured on the front page of The Citron Review.
The names of the people in this story have been changed because they, unfortunately, happen to be real people.
Mad Passionate Love, I Say, Mad Mad Mad
Trust myself in the process. Through the process. Have faith in another person’s choices. Because if it weren’t possible; if people couldn’t change for the better (or potentially even the worse) all the psychiatrists on this wide universe would be out of business. Side of the road. Luggage in hand. And let me tell you, I’ve known and conversed with quite a many, and none of them have empty pockets.
Because it is maddening. Going against your best judgments to go beyond what you know you’ve been conditioned to be thus far. Because it has to fully unteach you what every other bad experience has taught you. It has to be the feeling with your heart that says ‘go slow’—but the feeling in your mind that says ‘you still have to go.’
Because it has to be the big hugs for the small reasons.
The consistencies. Never wanting to leave.
It’s got to be wide and mad.
I don’t know how to feel it anymore, do you?
I don’t know I’ve really felt it before.
