Junk drawers

Today, I came up close with my junk drawer. The real one in my kitchen, and the one in my head.

To be honest, I have way more than 1 junk drawer in my kitchen, but I TRY to keep one full of all the cords and chargers for the electronic crap I own. Thankfully the good people that make all those cords put the name of the device on the charger making it easy for me to identify what cord goes to what small metal object I can't live without. Otherwise, I'm fairly certain I would have blown up/burned out all of these little electronic things I own.

Rifling through one of them today, I ran across my Garmin. I bought this when I first moved to NC, HAD to have it...and I did use it, for about 3 months. It has a setting where you can tell the garmin how fast you want to run, and it will yell at you in electronic fashion, when you are going too fast, or too slow. I *thought* I would like that, I did NOT. It did keep track of my pace, and my miles per week. I also found, in my drawer, two stop watches and two heart rate monitors.

I closed the drawer without removing any of it, and drove to a neighboring town for my run. I couldn't find my running schedule, but I thought I was down for 4, maybe 5. I ran 6. It was one of the best runs I've had in a long while. The night before I had read an article about negative self talk - the article was about weight loss and self-sabotage, not running, but it applies to running, plenty of people tell me they don't run, because the "can't". I've always wondered where that comes from.

As I started tonight, unfettered by worry about heart rates or splits or even just pacing, I wondered if I had negative self talk ahead, so I let the thoughts roll through.
I always think of Al D. when I run. He was a friend of my brothers and a multiple IRONMAN, Al used to tell me to 'just keep putting one foot in front of the other', as I came up a small hill, my head jumped to 'this ain't no E. Maple Avenue', my predawn running days in Sterling at Chrismas with all those gigantic blow up grinches and santas and the like, the first time I ran 10 miles by myself, crossing the bridge over route 28 and listening to Eye of the Tiger, I thought about my dogs, my family, my potential Thanksgiving plans, realized my tennis shoes matched my shirt and shoes, felt like a dork for matching, saw a cairn terrier on the trail and wondered when Wizard of Oz would be on TV again, wondered how I was going to discreetly dislodge my running shorts wedgie, and realized I left wet laundry in the washer.

I'm no Rebecca of Sunnybrook farm, and I'm fairly certain I've run into negativity when running before. I just can't remember it very clearly. One of my running coaches told me during marathon training to check myself. Lungs ok? Legs ok? Are you hurt? Or is this just hard? Those four little checks are all I've needed. That last one, it's the kicker. Running is sometimes hard, but I *can* do hard things. Hard is not impossible.

I had new music for my run, because there are some electronic devices I can't give up., some of it made me laugh, I believe Pink's "leave me alone tonight" is very possibly my new theme song (that is, if I had an old one, this would replace it) and some of it made me sad, some of it pushed up the hill and to run hard for the last .25 miles. Train like you'll race, Cravey.

There's been a lot of JUNK in my life lately. I've been stressed out, angry, frustrated, tearful, regretful, over-tired, scared, restless, losing sleep, and downright cranky. I am sick of it. I do not now how to deal with most of the things that are working me over like a loser in the UFC octagon. Most of it is unchartered territory for me. I am angry that I am letting myself be so affected by all of this STUFF.I am disappointed that I can't look at the rest of my life, at all of the great, wonderful, fantastic, things and people I have surrounded myself with and AM truly grateful for.

Running usually clears my head and helps me better prioritize my junk drawer, I don't know yet, if that happened tonight, I just know I desperately want to close the damn drawer and walk away from it.

My Beach Ball*

This is the chair I took from my brother's house when he died.
I don't know where he got it, or why. I know it sat just to the left of his fireplace directly across from the big chair Mark always sat in. When I would come to visit, or to drop off the dog; this is the chair I always chose to sit in to visit with Mark and anyone else who happened to be there. It's more comfortable than it appears and I always liked the creaky sounds it made when you shifted your position.

I took home to my condo in Sterling, and moved it from room to room, I used it to stand on to reach high places when I was painting. There are still paint spots of institutional white on the lowest rung. I moved it to North Carolina with me where once when I was cleaning I moved it out onto the deck and forgot it about it and it got rained on. It's a bit worse for wear these days. Yet, I cannot throw it out. These days, this chair holds pillows, mail, magazines and sometimes my feet, but I never sit in it like I did when it was in my brothers house.

I am not much of a 'things' person. I don't care if you spill things on my couch, or my clothes, or if your dog vomits in my car. These things will all clean up, for the most part, and what stains remain are just remnants of life being lived around these things. I can't quite bring myself to let go of this chair, though. I don't know if I just see him more clearly as time goes by when I look at the chair, or if I'm just being overly sentimental. Bottom line is, I don't care. It's staying. I can't/don't sit in it anymore, but I did just move it out of the corner of my living room, and I'd be happy to offer it to a friend stopping by for a visit.


*For all but one of you, the title won't make sense, for the one that does - thanks for sharing that story with me.