The Next Chapter... Becoming Unbroken

This weekend I took a retreat from the chaos of my everyday life and did something I haven’t done in ages – I read a book from cover to cover in two days. It was wonderful. Absolutely delightful to be lost in a well told story. There was a passage that spoke to me so loudly that I transcribed it so I can devour it over and over again. And it inspired me to come back to writing.

Perhaps the words touched my heart because of where I stand in my particular journey. As some of you know, I am preparing to take another leap of sorts. I have opened my heart to someone and in the next few weeks he will move from Denver to Austin to give us an honest chance. The amount of vulnerability required on both of our parts to take this step (and to share it with our worlds) is beyond measure.

At one time in the not so distant past, each of us experienced the greatest of loves with our respective partners – the love found in fairytales. Filled with adventure and joy, our independent stories also included tragic endings. Cancer entered our life equations and left us without our other halves. Broken.

A mutual friend saw that we might be able to help one another through our darkest days and made the introduction. Here is where the passage from this weekend’s novel (Unwritten by Charles Martin) fits in:

… and somewhere in that intersection of cracked hearts and shattered souls, they find that maybe broken is not the end of things, but the beginning. Maybe broken is what happens before you become unbroken.

What’s more, maybe our broken pieces don’t fit us. Maybe all of us are standing around with a bag of the stuff that used to be us and we’re wondering what to do with it and until we meet somebody else whose bag is full and heart empty, we can’t figure out what to do with our pieces.

And standing there, face to face, my bag of me over my shoulder and your bag of you over your shoulder, we figure out that maybe my pieces are the very pieces needed to mend you and your pieces are the very pieces needed to mend me but until we’ve been broken we don’t have the pieces to mend each other.

Maybe in the offering we discover the meaning, and value, of being broken. Maybe checking out and retreating to an island is the most selfish thing the broken can do because somewhere on the planet is another somebody standing around holding a bag of all the jagged, painful pieces of themselves and they can’t get whole without you.

Maybe love, the real kind, the kind only wished for in whispers and the kind our hearts are hardwired to want, is opening up your bag of you and risking the most painful statement ever uttered between the stretched edges of the universe: “This was once me.” 

This literally took my breath away.

I’m not saying I believe that in all circumstances one has to be broken in order to be unbroken or that one can’t be whole without another. But in our circumstances, in the story of our lives, that’s how it unfolded.

I’m also not saying “everything happens for a reason” because no sense can be found in the premature ending to two bright and shining young lives and I know we’d do almost anything to have them back. Cancer doesn’t happen for a reason. It just doesn’t.

But what happens in the aftermath – what pulls us through the darkness and back into the light – well maybe that’s when the “plan” starts to get back on track. An entirely different track, but one where light and laughter and love can be found once more.

And so with an open heart, an open mind and with all the vulnerability I can muster… I walk* further and further down the path toward becoming unbroken, toward the beginning, hand in hand with the one whose pieces fit with mine.

  

- Jen Garza

* Because this is a blog about my journey to 4,000 miles, I should mention that Britton fully supports my goal and is willing to run, bike and swim by my side to help me reach it. He loves Texas 4000 and the cancer research we support. He’d rather be hiking, climbing and skiing, so we sprinkle those in (without counting the miles) for fun ;)  I imagine a future adventure will include an outrageously tall mountain in the name of breast cancer research, but who knows. The rest is still unwritten!

Running Into (and through) the Rain

Or is it running into (and through) the pain?  Last Friday, for me, it was both at the same time.

I think a year or more of built up tears and sadness hit me with a sneak attack.  Not that I haven't had the occasional cry, but not as often as you might think.  Fear of sinking too far down has kept me from allowing myself to go there.

There were some contributing factors to my recent meltdown - feeling like there isn't enough time in the day to get it all done, ups and downs at work, financial woes, a more rigorous training schedule than I'm used to, the rain, the gray and dismal day, the holidays rapidly approaching, the picture-perfect Christmas cards, the quiet house - all with underpinnings of grief and an emptiness that is subtle, yet relentless.

But how I faced the meltdown - that's what I want to focus on today.  After giving into the tears for a while, paging through my wedding album, and crawling into bed for five minutes - that's when three powerful influences came to mind: the book I'm reading, a blog post written by a Texas 4000 rider earlier in week, and music.  That's what got me out of bed and out into the rain for an emotional 7-mile run.  My longest, to date, since my half marathon a year and a half ago.

I recently downloaded Chrissie Wellington's "A Life Without Limits" on Audible for inspiration to kick off my Half Ironman training.  Of course I had never heard of her before, but Chrissie's story sounded like one of personal triumph, so I gravitated toward it.  She is most widely known for showing up on the Ironman scene, practically out of nowhere, and taking it by storm.  Not much of an athlete as a child and haunted early on by eating disorders, she surprised herself and the world when she quickly rose to four-time Ironman world champion as a young adult.  

In case you don't know, an Ironman consists of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and a 26.2 mile marathon - back to back to back.  I will be aiming to do half those distances on April 13th for my first Half Ironman.  I've been listening to how Chrissie trained through painful injuries, times of personal loss, intense weather of all kinds, personal doubt ... all while building strength, endurance, mental fitness, self-confidence, and resiliency.  Something else that draws me to her is her charitable involvement and use of her fame as a platform for social change.  She embodies this Nelson Mandela quote: 

“Sport has the power to change the world.  It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.”

Which brings me to the second reason I got out of bed and into the rain for my run... Courtney Schutze's blog post from earlier in the week.  Courtney is a 2014 Texas 4000 rider preparing to cycle from Austin to Anchorage this summer in memory of her father.  Courtney lost her dad to cancer six months ago, and on that anniversary she shared some powerful thoughts on grief and moving forward that resonated with me:

"(My counselor) helped me realize that everyone grieves in different ways, but you don’t lose somebody and all the sudden become a completely different person. It is not like me to fall and crumble and not be able to get up, so that is not how I am going to grieve. Today as I thought more about (that) I became more and more content with how I am grieving. The pain of losing my father is real and it’s tragic, but I don’t have to also live a life that is completely consumed with pain and tragedy. I want to grieve through joy and happiness; I want to grieve through positivity and light. It honors my father more to be happy and seize the day than to spiral into a sea of sadness focusing on the time we have been apart.  

Grief is not mathematical, there isn’t a formula that tells you how long it will take, how much it will hurt, or how you will react. I do think there is a secret to it though; you have to find a way to create something positive out of all the negatives, to find a way to pick yourself up when there is no reason you should. Texas 4000 has been my secret. Everyday I am reminded of how blessed I am to have a place to give my dad’s fight purpose. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t get to do something that helps in the fight against cancer. Words can’t express how much of a difference it can make in the grieving process when you have something positive to hold on to, to be a part of. Time will go by but there are things that will stay the same: my love for my dad, the immense amount I miss him, and the way I will choose to grieve the loss of him."

I draw inspiration daily from Courtney, her teammates, their stories, and the mission of Texas 4000.  I know how blessed I am to find infinite purpose in my job.  Part of why I'm training 4,000 miles this year and participating in a Half Ironman is because it gives me something to hold on to and to be a part of.  I'm pushing myself physically and mentally while raising money for cancer research, but I'm gaining purpose, sanity, strength, and motivation along the way.  

Which brings me to last Friday when I thought about Chrissie and Courtney and decided to get out of bed, put on my sneakers, and set out into the rain for my long run.  Instead of putting on my usual "pump up" playlist, I turned to my "Remembering Ruben" playlist to accompany me.  Many of the songs are slow, but they are filled with memories and meaning.  While this music evoked tears, it also brought unparalleled beauty to the experience.

I love this quote, but I think that I was running INTO the rain (and pain) as much as, if not more so, than running AWAY from anything.  Trust me, I have a long list of distractions I use when I don't want to hurt/feel/cry/remember.  This was more of a conscious choice to embrace all of that - to bring it with me - to work through it.  As I made my way around Town Lake Trail, I let it all flow through me.  Not surprisingly, it was an emotional run.  But there were moments when I looked up with a smile and a laugh, because that's where the song and the memory took me.  

Another train of thought during the run led me to recognize how much I've changed over the years.  Of course this is true on so many levels and due to a host of various influences and circumstances.  But one particular recollection was of my high school track days.  I joined track because our school dropped the gymnastics team and I didn't know what else to do with my time that season.  I figured I could probably jump, but I hated running.  In fact, on more than one occasion when directed to do a "long run" of a whopping three miles, I went to a friend's house within walking distance to watch TV and eat cookies.  We would splash our faces with water (to look like sweat) and timed our return perfectly so the coach wouldn't be suspicious.  I would do anything to get out of a run back then, and even in more recent years.  It's a minor miracle that I'm working toward tacking a 13.1 mile run to the end of a 1.2 mile swim and 56 mile bike ride.  By choice.  And loving every step in the journey.

I took this photo from the walkway under the Mopac bridge during my run.  You can hardly see them, but there are two swans crossing the lake in the rain.  To me, this symbolizes the fact that I'm never alone, no matter what I'm wading through.  The second swan changes identities in my mind, sometimes from moment to moment - it often starts as Ruben, but changes to a dear friend, a family member, a Texas 4000 rider, a new partner, a power greater than myself.  Whoever or whatever it may be, I am not alone and I am not without hope.

Learn more about my journey to 4,000 miles and how to support my efforts.  I have currently raised $525 toward my $11,000 goal and have trained 341 of my 4,000 miles.  I still have lots of work left to do on both fronts between now and September 30, 2014!

The Little Voice In My Head

There’s a video I’ve wanted to share that was edited from an interview I did over a year ago.  I wasn’t sure what context to use it in, but the connection came to me in an inspired moment tonight and this blog post is the result.  (Note: if you're short on time or interest, the video is about halfway down the page!)

This evening I was tasked with wearing a costume to my trail-running group run.  To be perfectly honest, if I wasn’t writing this blog and needing mileage for my 4,000-mile challenge for Texas 4000, I can guarantee you this is a night I would have skipped – giving some lame excuse to get out of it.  But I feel accountable, so I decided to go.  Of course I got busy, waited until the last minute, and ended up digging a “doctor costume” out of the bottom of my closet.

I had to laugh when members of the group joked, “Good thing we have a medic here.  We’re all safe now with Jen the doctor in our presence.”  The “little voice in my head” had a field day.  “Doctor?  Ha!  I can barely take care of myself, let alone anyone else.  I’m about as much an athlete or a trail-runner as I am a surgeon.  At best I’m an occasional jogger.  I’ll probably trip over my scrubs and sprain my ankle.  Then they’ll all see me as I really am.”  We passed a rock-climbing wall I’ve recently climbed and I thought, “That’s where I pretend to be a climber, kind of like how I’m pretending to be a trail-runner and a doctor right now.”

Somehow I ended up in the middle of the group, spaced out enough at one point to where I was running alone with time to think.  My mind wandered to other times when that little voice gained volume and power in the past.  Throughout various stages of my time with Ruben I heard, “I’ll make a terrible girlfriend/wife/partner/caregiver.  I’m not equipped to handle our circumstances.  I’m not qualified.  There’s no way he can really love me as much as he says and seems to.  I don’t deserve to be this happy.  I can’t take care of him.  I won’t survive the loss.  I will never get out of bed again.”

This video, a relatively raw and honest account, was filmed about a year ago after I spoke at a Seton AYA Survivorship event.  When I was approached about speaking, the little voice said, “They’re only asking me because their first five choices were probably busy.  After they hear me, they will regret ever asking me.”   Here it is – basically some reflections on being a “caregiver”…

Watching this a year later, I’m able to call bullshit on the little voice.  Participating in that day was really powerful for me, and also for those who attended.  I received great feedback. 

I’m reminded as I listen to my own words that I was wonderful at every role I played in Ruben’s life, regardless of whether or not I knew what I was doing.  You don’t have to be qualified or flawless to love or be loved unconditionally.  You don’t have to be a medical professional in order to provide exceptional care for someone who is sick.  You don’t have to allow the loss to drown you forever.  You just need to face what’s immediately ahead of you and put one foot in front of the other.  Over, and over, and over again.

Somehow I ended up leading a portion of the group during tonight’s run.  It was dark out and only my second time running at night.  The trail was rocky, muddy, slippery, and occasionally steep.  The little voice piped up, “Why on earth would anyone want me in front and pacing them?  Is my headlamp even working?  I can’t see an inch in front of me.  Which path should I take?  Am I about to run blindly into poison ivy, a snake, or a wild dog?  I’m tired, I’m sweaty, I’m lost.  I need a break.”

But that’s life, right?  The path isn’t always illuminated for us.  We don’t know what we’re walking into or if we’re going in the right direction.  Do we freeze?  Stop moving forward?  Regret our choices?  I prefer to approach life the way I approached Ruben and his illness (most days).  Without fear.  With blind faith.  With a willingness to leap every now and then.  With trust that I will be okay no matter what.  With permission to fail.  With permission to slow down if necessary to regain my footing. 

I needed to be reminded of these things right now.  That nagging little voice has been creeping up from time to time to say, “What if I’m not on the right path?  I’ll probably never have a family.  There’s no way I can hit 4,000 miles.  I’m getting too old.  I’m not good enough at my job.  Am I really helping anyone?  Nobody even wants to read this.”  Tonight I’m calling bullshit on the little voice.  I’m putting one foot in front of the other, with faith and hope and trust.  I’m choosing to believe that I will be okay.  That I’m making a difference.  That we will all be okay.

Learn more about my journey to 4,000 miles and how to support my efforts.