Letters from NYC

Milestones: measured in strides & tears

My mood has been somewhat off since yesterday, and I wasn’t quite able to figure out why. After all, it was a text book successful interview from what I observed and from the feedback I received from my former colleague. I’ll be back Monday to interview with the person I didn’t have time to see yesterday as the interviews where long.

For me the only challenging moment happened when I was asked 'What was my singular or main goal in life?' That took me completely by surprise because I just don't have one goal, I have many goals.... I have anywhere from 5 to 15 goals for each area of my life.

Somehow my mouth began to move. As the words slowly began to come out of my mouth, I began to form sentences regarding my career. My first thought had been say, ‘to continuously become a better person and to be a good mom’. As I came out of my head and back to the interview, I heard myself suddenly say: "and in 10 years I should be finished with law school in the evenings, enabling to use my degree in a variety of areas within the firm."

The instant she took her eyes off me to write down some notes, I thought to myself Whoaa! Law school?!!!! Where the hell did that come from. Since when have I been subconsciously thinking about going to law school so that it would even enter in a conversation. When on earth did that mind shift happen. Okay, for the record, that must not have been me talking. It had to be somebody else.

So today, I forced myself to go to the gym instead of staying home in my little funk. While running on the treadmill I began to replay the interview in my head to try and figure out where the hell that law school thought came from.

Suddenly from behind me I heard my trainer’s voice breaking my concentration by giving a little shout and saying: “You did it! And you did it ahead of schedule.”

I had been running in an intense running stride for about 12 minutes so all I was able to say was, “Did what?”

He said excitedly, “You passed the 7 mile mark!” That’s when I lost my stride, and felt a pull in my right calf muscle. As I frantically pressed the button for the treadmill to slow down my eyes began to well up with tears. I tried walking but the damage had already been done and the pulled calf muscle let me know that I needed to get off ASAP.

Once off, I began to walk away from my trainer, but not before he saw the tears streaming down my face. As he walked beside me he asked if I was OK. I nodded yes because the lump in my throat was too big to simply swallow and pretend all was fine. It wasn’t. As I moved past him he said let’s walk it off on the roof. I followed him, relieved to have a quiet place to retreat to, find solitude and have a place to cry. The 2 flight walk up the staircase, and the strain on my calf muscle helped ease the lump in my throat.

When we finally got outside, the cool humid breeze helped settle me enough to answer his “What’s going on?”

“The last time I did 7 miles was on Sept. 10th 2001. It was the last run I had with my friends; it was the last time I saw them alive.” With that last statement I turned away from him and began to cry inconsolably.

All he could ask was: “Do you want to be alone? Will you be OK?” To which I just nodded yes to both. I don’t know how long I was up there, but I was glad that I had a quiet place to cry all the accumulated sadness in my heart out.

You see, I hadn’t realized that I had wanted to call my friends yesterday to let them know how well things were going. So every time I passed a phone booth the thought of calling someone entered my mind momentarily, only to be brushed aside by reality.

Today’s workout was a major milestone. True, I hadn’t run the entire 7 miles, but neither did we that last day. We were having too much fun with each other and enjoying life to think of training. It’s the first time the memories of that entire day have come back to me. It was simply too painful to think about it until now.

Today I’m grateful for each moment we had together that last day.

Posted by Michele at April 23, 2005 05:27 PM