More Happy Times Than Sad Times

by - Friday, September 07, 2012

Thank you to those of you who left kind and heartfelt comments on the post about my college mentor's death.

As you can probably imagine, this has been a really hard week for me. Her funeral is this morning, and I'm both looking forward to it and completely dreading it.

Looking forward to it in the sense that it will be good to have a chance to celebrate her life with many of the other people she touched as much as me.

Dreading it in the fact that it's a funeral, and funerals are never fun or easy.

My emotions this week have been in a complete tailspin, and instead of trying to reign them in and feign some sort of normalcy, I've just sort of let them do their thing. That's meant crawling in to bed way earlier than normal, it's meant fitful, restless sleep and it's meant a heavy heart that can't fathom running or taking the time to cook a real dinner.

I've eaten ice cream for dinner multiple times this week, and I haven't run once.

Sure, that's probably not the best for marathon training (or my health in general), but it's a cutback week and at the end of the day, one week of missed workouts isn't going to destroy my training.

I've taken this week to let myself be sad and to mourn in the way that works for me.

Starting next week, I have three big, important weeks of training and long runs of 18, 20 and 20 miles. I know these weeks and workouts are vital if I want to have a good race. It's the largest build phase I have coming up and I need to be a good mental place to hit those workouts and to finish them feeling strong.

So after a week of sadness, it's going to be time to get back in the saddle and start living my normal life again. I'm sure I'll still have moments of sadness that creep in to my days, it would be foolish to think I won't, but starting next week, it's time to have more happy moments than sad moments.

I will always miss Penny and her laughter, joy and sharp wit, but she wouldn't want any of us sitting around mourning her for too long. She'd want us to get back out there and live our lives because that's what she did every day.

So yes, starting next week, more happy times than sad times, more running than not running and more vegetables for dinner than ice cream.

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2 comments

  1. It's smart to allow yourself this time to grieve. Everyone's process with dealing with grief is different, and it's healthy to recognize your needs ahead of what you may think is expected of you.

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