Finished Being Fat: An Accidental Adventure in Losing Weight and Learning How to Finish (11 page)

The tortoises were the racers who kept a steady and maintainable pace throughout the race, never running faster than their legs could sustain. And the penguins? They didn’t even know they were in the race. Just like their counterparts in nature, they kept going no matter what to get to the end. Real penguins made a journey to the ocean, crossing hundreds of miles to get the fish because their instincts tell them they have to. If they don’t, they’ll die. For racing penguins, it’s not about the rank in the standings; it’s about making it to their ocean, the finish line, because they have to. Run, walk, waddle—it doesn’t matter. All that mattered was getting to the end.

These were the thoughts that kept me going through miles nine, ten, eleven, and twelve. Jarom had slowed down since his leg was bothering him, but I stuck by him, because we were penguins, and we were going to finish or die. When he stopped at the final aid station for some water, his legs did not want to get started again. With one mile to go, there was no chance in hades that I was going to let him keel over now. Linking my arm with his, I pulled him forward until his cramps eased and he could resume his gait even if it was lopsided.

I’d love to tell you that we finished arm in arm, but I got a little too excited about a hundred yards from the finish and took off. Two hours, seventeen minutes, and thirty seconds after I started, I crossed the finish line. Apparently Jarom had one last shot of adrenaline too because he finished with a time of 2:17:34, only four seconds behind me.

There are no words to describe the emotions that roiled through me. Anything I say wouldn’t come close to explaining what I felt, so I won’t even try. What I will say is that the finisher medal they put around my neck could have been Olympic gold and I wouldn’t have felt a bit different. For the first time, I saw the world as a hallway with open doors, and I only had to choose which one to walk through. Nothing was closed off for me. I could do anything. Maybe even a marathon.

When we got home, our daughters saw our medals and excitedly asked, “Does this mean you won?”

Without skipping a beat, I confirmed that we had, because we finished.

T
he finisher medal from the half marathon became my favorite accessory. It wasn’t as pretty as the Park City one, but this one was around my neck and not some picture on the Internet. I didn’t take it off for hours after the race, and then only because I badly needed a shower. I wore it to church the next day. It only clashed a little bit with my dress. People came up to me and asked what on earth I was wearing. I was all too happy to tell them about it.

“Oh, what’s this you ask? I totally forgot I was wearing it. I got it yesterday by running a half marathon. Yes, that’s thirteen point one whole miles. I just love the number thirteen, don’t you?”

Yes, I realize I was terribly obnoxious. I can only ask that you excuse my behavior as finisher’s delirium. The elation from finishing my first race was a thousand times better that any lame old starter’s high. With finishing, you got to pack two punches: the excitement from starting and satisfaction of finishing. If I could bottle this feeling and sell it, I would make millions.

It took a whole week for the giddiness to wear off. I needed more, but the full marathon was another two months away. I couldn’t last that long, and what if, heaven forbid, I didn’t finish that race. After all, it was like running two half marathons in a row. Would this wonderful feeling disappear and take me from Super Betsy back to Dumpy Betsy? No way, I wouldn’t let it. I needed to figure out how to make this feeling last.

It was time for my brain to switch gears again. First I had gone from being a lifelong quitter to making the commitment to never quit. While the no-quitting thing was great and all, it was merely a half measure to keep me from giving up on the things I had to do. It wasn’t good enough anymore; now I wanted to be a finisher. A finisher set out to find new challenges on purpose. The non-quitter just kept doing the things that were required. You may not see much of a distinction between the two, but to me they were miles apart—literally. Thirteen point one miles to be exact.

***

Common sense told me that if I wanted to be a finisher, then I needed to look for something to finish. I could go get a bachelor’s degree. Naw, going to school was a nice long-term goal, but that wasn’t going to help in the immediate future. I could finish that book I’d started, but that would take a long time too. Probably not as long as a four-year degree, but still longer than I wanted to invest right now. I needed something that would take me about a week to complete. I started sifting through the boxes of junk in the guest room, looking for something I’d started that needed to be finished. Around the fourth box, the lightbulb went on in my brain. This room was a disaster. It desperately needed to be cleaned out and organized. I’d known it for a while, but I kept procrastinating because it looked like a lot of work. About a week’s worth if I didn’t miss my guess.

Sweet! I had purpose again. The next week I ran in the morning and then spent the next few hours on the guest room while the girls were at preschool. Little by little, one box at a time, the room got cleared. I had finished, and looking around the neatly arranged room, I felt that bliss of satisfaction. It wasn’t on par with running a half marathon, but then again, I didn’t expect it to be. There was also the relief that came from crossing something off the to-do list in my head. Now there was a little more space in the room as well as space in my mind that was previously occupied by nagging reminders of a task needing to be done.

When Jarom got home from work, I covered his eyes to give him the big reveal.

“Ta-da!” I pulled away my hands.

Jarom blinked in either amazement at my fabulous job, or at the sudden influx of light to his eyes.

“Holy cow. Where’d everything go? If I open the closet, will I be hit by an avalanche?” He opened the door cautiously, expecting to be assailed by various camping equipment.

“Nope, just nicely stacked and labeled boxes.” Okay, here it came. I was ready for him to tell me what a great wife I was. How he didn’t deserve me or, better yet, what he was going to do to prove he deserved me.

The superfluous praise never came. Instead all I got was, “Very nice.” And then he walked from the room.

“Very nice? Very nice? I spend a week cleaning, and all you have to say is ‘very nice’?” I was incensed, and the timbre of my voice escalated half an octave for each very nice.

“Umm, yeah. Can you do my office next?”

“No, I will not, you little snot. Clean your own darned office.” And with that, I stormed out of the room.

I fumed for a good long while muttering to myself. “Why do I even bother? I mean, really! Horribly underappreciated, that’s what I am. Well, see if I ever do anything like this again.”

Hearing myself whine aloud reminded me why I cleaned the room in the first place, and it wasn’t for a pat on the back from Jarom. I was supposed to be basking in the finisher’s glow, remember? But thirty years of bad habits are hard to break. It can take a while to retrain your mind into a whole new thought process. And my brain needed a little spark of correction.

Previously I had done things mainly to get accolades and acceptance. I needed to be told what a good job I had done. I wanted to hear that I was special. And before you go thinking that I was a jerk that needed my ego inflated, let me just remind you that I didn’t have one. What I was searching for was validation. For someone to tell me I mattered, that my life meant more than the oxygen I used. And that is a hard mind-set to escape.

But I was escaping. I may not have crossed over the wall yet, but I was working on it. I didn’t need Jarom to tell me I had done a good job, because I knew I did a good job. The goal of the task was not to be told how wonderful I was; it was to get something done. And I had, therefore, I had finished my goal, and no commentary from the peanut gallery was necessary.

I felt much better, once again finding the peaceful place that finishing something gave me. Now I needed to pick a new task, but still not Jarom’s office.

My house was a disaster, so I had plenty of things to choose from. I had kind of settled on cleaning the garage, maybe even digging out all that framing equipment again. There were two impediments to my plan. The first was that my morning runs were taking longer and longer as the mileage increased. It took two and a half hours to run fourteen miles. So my free time before the kids got out of preschool became nonexistent. The other problem was something I hadn’t planned on and couldn’t have foreseen.

***

In mid-summer, Lily and I went to the dentist and found out that she had seven cavities that needed to be filled. Being a nice mommy, I paid the extra for sedation so she could be more comfortable. Big mistake. She had a “psychotic” reaction to the drugs administered. When she woke up, she was like a wild animal—all claws and teeth. It took an entire day of holding her wrapped in a blanket until she finally calmed down. I figured that was the end of it, and from then on, I’d make sure that we brushed her teeth five times a day so she would never get another cavity.

But that wasn’t the end of it. The drugs had trouble leaving her system. That combined with her sensory integration problems gave her major anxiety attacks. Poor kid. She would be fine one second, and then something would startle her like a sound or getting an owie, and boom—flip out. Her nervous system went into overdrive, sending her into a fight-or-flight mode. Understandably, that’s scary for a little four-year-old.

Any free time I had was gone, now filled with holding and rocking Lily. Usually she lasted just long enough in preschool for me to finish my run. As soon as I got back, I’d get a phone call telling me to come get her—that she’d had an anxiety attack. I swear that kid is psychic, or has mommy radar, because her timing was impeccable. More often than not I’d have to skip my shower and go get her. The next hour or two was spent calming her and reassuring her that Mommy always came back and no one was going to take her. She followed me around like a little baby duckling; I could rarely be out of her sight. Even bathroom breaks were done in tandem. My other daughter, Autumn, had to spend a big chunk of the day at Grandma’s because I couldn’t manage both kids. (Thanks, Mom!)

For about a month, every day had its fair share of tears from both Lily and me. Nights weren’t much better since she started waking up at all hours from night terrors. Eventually she was afraid to go to bed at all. I had to start getting my runs in before she woke up, which was tricky because she was usually in my bed. It was a rough time for everyone. Nobody was getting any sleep, so everybody was on edge.

Jarom tried to sympathize with my frustration at not being able to get anything done. He knew I’d had my sights set on cleaning the garage, a rather large undertaking. He would routinely ask me how it was going. One day I snapped.

“How do you think its going? I get maybe five minutes alone at a time. At this rate, I’ll never finish anything ever again. I made it an entire day without beating my head against a wall, so I guess I accomplished one thing. Hey, maybe tomorrow I’ll see if I can go a whole day without bawling.”

“Who said you had to clean the garage? Nobody. I only asked because I knew it was important to you,” he snapped back.

“I don’t give a crap about the garage. I just want to feel like I’ve accomplished something. Because holding Lily and not being able to fix it kills me. I can’t help her, and I can’t help myself. I don’t know what to do. I need something good in my day. I think we both do.”

Thankfully, Jarom recognized my outburst for what it was: lashing out because at that particular moment on four hours of sleep, life sucked. Instead of further escalating the discussion, he came over and rested his forehead on mine.

“Then find something little you can do together.”

It was certainly worth a try. It’s not like things could get much worse. So in the mornings, Lily and I would plan out our day, making sure to include a goal that we wanted to do. For the most part, our goals were small and tangible like getting the grocery shopping done. Sometimes we also included intangible goals like trying to get through the day without crying—both of us. On the days that we accomplished our goals, she got a jewel in her treasure chest (our newest reward system). She told me that she loved being “my little helper.” That it made her happy.

I truly believe that finishing things together helped Lily. Within a few weeks of being my little helper, her panic attacks became the exception rather than the rule. She wasn’t so anxious anymore. I’m sure it was a combination of the doctor, time, and finally sleeping that pulled her through. She had gained the same peace and quiet confidence that I associated with finishing.

Maybe it was just my own feelings rubbing off on her because I felt so much better. I was happy because I learned I could still be a finisher without grand projects every week. I decided I would set a new goal. I would find something to finish every day.

Some days I scheduled things that needed to get done. One day, someone at church needed my help fixing her computer. So the goal for that day was to get her computer up and running. It may have taken twice as long as I thought it would plus about five calls to my tech-savvy husband, but I had made a commitment to myself to finish what I started, and I made sure I did just that.

On days that had nothing much going on, I picked something on the to-do list and made sure it got done. Some days were focused on my messy house, like ten loads of laundry needing to be cleaned and folded. And other days all I could manage was focusing on my little ones, like trying not to raise my voice all day. It may not sound like a big deal, but it instituted a change in attitude and lifestyle that I really needed.

Before, I would start the day thinking of all the things that I needed to do and immediately be overwhelmed. Then I’d either run around frantically accomplishing little, or sit on my duff, accomplishing only a deeper imprint in the couch. Nothing much got done, and at the end of the day, I was left with the feeling that the day had been a complete waste.