I’m done
rehashing the past and ready to think about today. Whatever feeling it was that compelled me
several short months ago to begin writing this blog and delving into my past
has disappeared. Whatever I thought
could be unearthed by reliving the not too far distant past on the internet for
the world to see has either been unearthed or buried deeper again. Either way, the past couple times I’ve sat
down to write a post, I’ve wanted to write about the here and now, not the far
and gone.
However, because the “premise” of
this blog was to write about the evolution of my running and how Lucy influenced
it, I felt required to continue the chronological retelling of events. But then recently I realized that I’m the one
that made that “premise.” And now I can
change it. Because I have that
power. Because it is my blog, and I said
so.
That is not to say that the past
won’t return. The story isn’t over yet,
I’m just done telling it in a sequential, logical fashion. Now it will be tucked into bits and pieces of
today as it becomes relevant. Because
that’s the way the past is anyways, right?
It pops up when we least expect it to, memories creeping over your
shoulder as you smell a familiar smell or stand on a street corner you stood on
once before, long ago. It overwhelms you
when you see an old friend, or taps you on the back as you make a mistake…again. No matter what, the past is never gone
forever. It’s just tucked away in
memories somewhere waiting to appear when needed.
But for now, until the past creeps
up on me, I want to talk about today. I
will still typically keep with the themes of running and Lucy, but it will be
current events instead. Because today is
where life is. When I was in high school,
I always wanted to be one of those people who lived for the moment (uh oh, that
was the past…see what I mean, just when I thought it was gone?). “No day but today,” in the words of Jonathan
Larson. “Carpe diem,” in the words of
Robin Williams (I know, he didn’t write them, but he said emphatically in Dead Poets’ Society). Make today worth living, relish every moment,
because who knows what will happen tomorrow.
I had an incident today in my car
that kind of instigated all of this. I
was on my way home from work after going for a run with our after school teacher
running club at work. I had Lucy in the
car with me because she spends Wednesdays at doggie day care, since I typically
have meetings after school on these days and then run with the running
club. Lucy was sleeping comfortably in
the back of the car.
We were on the highway and it was
POURING. Not the typical Seattle
sprinkle, but New York style downpour so heavy that even with the windshield wipers
on full speed it’s hard to see. I was in
the left lane (yes, I am always in the left lane, because I admittedly like to
go fast and “beat” the other cars), but in Seattle there is a 2+ person carpool
lane to the left of the left lane. This lane
fills with puddles during heaving rainstorms and I typically avoid it when
carpooling on days like today. I was
travelling a substantially safe distance from the car in front of me (because,
unlike most Seattle drivers, I actually know how to drive in the rain).
Suddenly a car came speeding up
next to me in the carpool lane, passed me, and then just as it was passing the
car in front of me, it hit a huge puddle, spraying an obscene amount of water
onto the car in front of me. I can
imagine that panic of the driver as the water hit the windshield—all lines of
sight completely obscured in a loud shower of pelting water. But in this driver’s panic, instead of
gripping the wheel with white knuckles, holding steady and waiting for the
water to continue on its way, the driver SLAMMED ON THE BREAKS. It took an instant for me to realize what
happened, then I SLAMMED ON THE BREAKS, heard Lucy go careening in the back of
the car, heard my head scream “DON’T HYDROPLANE,” let go of the breaks, then
SLAMMED them again to just barely miss hitting the stupid driver in front of
me, heard Lucy go careening again, and then finally had time to feel my heart
jump out of my chest as the other car began to regain speed. My heart is currently speedily beating again
just thinking about it.
My immediate reaction to it all was
to throw a hand back and feel Lucy’s entire body for any possibly injuries,
even though she had already righted herself (when I got home, I checked her
belly for internal bleeding—I have no idea what internal bleeding feels like,
but I checked). She seemed fine,
although quite shaken for the rest of the ride, unable to settle and sleep as
she typically does in the car.
The rest of the car ride (another
35 minutes in the rain traffic), I couldn’t help but run through worst-case
scenarios of what could have just happened.
I almost brought myself to tears, thinking about situations where Lucy
is crushed under the weight of an overturned car, or thrown forward through the
windshield as I forcefully rear-end the driver.
Of course, the dooms-day disasters seemed to focus on what would have
happened to Lucy, not me. I also worried
about the car. I did NOT want to have to
buy another and extend the awful loan payments again (that simple word again
means the past just re-emerged, but I won’t elaborate on that right now).
This harmless, yet scary and
life-threatening close encounter on the rainy highway got me thinking about
today. And so from now on, expect to
hear about today. Current marathon
training, new experiences on my bike as I train for the 2 day, 200 mile bike
ride from Seattle to Portland in July, current Lucy antics and stories. The past will still be around, because you
simply can’t have today without all the yesterdays that came before. But today is more important than yesterday,
because you can have today without
tomorrow. Today I am living. And today I am running. And today I am teaching and learning and loving. And today, I will give Lucy a big huge
bone-squishing bear hug before I fall asleep.
Enjoy your today.
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| In case you were worried, here is Lucy alive and well with no internal bleeding in her typical post-doggie day care couch position. |
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