Last Place Runner

I really wish I had made more time to write about my training for my first half marathon. It has been so rewarding, so amazing, so life changing. And, surprise surprise, it has been easy, too.

One day I just ran 5 miles. Then six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. Then our last training run was 12.25. Our last group run was yesterday, an easy and fun 6 miles. Whoo!

The race is less than a week away. And I’m ready. Without a doubt.

What kept me away from writing was partly the running! So that’s OK. My job also kept me so very, very busy with work and commuting that any extra time I had from January until now I was trying to get my running done, or just having dinner and falling into bed.

I was commuting 70 miles per day, two hours minimum. I loved my job and the people I worked with. But when something closer to home and much better paying came along — unexpectedly, too! — I took it. So I started a new job last Monday.

I think I’ve already started to mourn the end of my training. I felt really sad this morning and I couldn’t think of a reason. But I cried as I pulled towels out of the dryer, and I cried while I folded and put them away. And I cried a little bit more while I started other laundry and unloaded the dishwasher. But then I felt a little better.

Yesterday was my last time to run with my training group. And even though I’ve spent the past four months running with people I know I’ll get to run with again, it was really bittersweet. Some of the volunteers in our group advised us to go ahead and schedule a race to have something to do after the half, but I haven’t done that yet. There’s no question about whether I’ll keep running, I just think I’d like at least one Saturday of sleeping past 5:30 AM.

So for now, my plan is to run my first half marathon on April 2 and then find a race to do in May. I think it would be great to stay 10K ready, and now that I know how excited I was yesterday to “only” have to do 6 miles, that shouldn’t be a problem. Some of my friends are going directly to another half marathon the weekend after. But I want a breather.

I’m turning 40 in a few weeks and that’s the only plan I’m going to have for now.

The half marathon is creeping up on me. I’m going to hate not having my group to run with on Saturdays, but I may also kind of like not getting up at 5:30 in the morning 6 days a week.

Yesterday’s training run was 9 miles. That’s what I was mentally prepared for. We did 8 a couple of weeks ago and last week was a cut-back week, so we did 6 miles (4.97 of which was our Valentine 8K).

Yesterday was hot, too. I took my Camelbak Charm with me, although I kind of waffled about it. I decided I’d rather have it, even if it bugged me, than to run 9 miles in the sun and 70-degree heat without it.

The Charm holds about 1.5L of water and doesn’t weigh a thing. So the only thing I don’t like about it is the sloshing sound it makes, but nobody else can ever hear it. I was also loaded down with my phone and my fuel. I’d put on sunscreen, pulled my hair back, put on a headband, and had my sunglasses on top of my head. I was never so glad that we keep our keys at the community center. I was out of pockets and pouches and hiding places to carry stuff.

I didn’t sleep well Friday night because I was worried about it being so warm while I was running. And then I was frustrated that I wasn’t sleeping because I was going to run anyway and it would be warm anyway and I’d just be sleepy because all my worrying couldn’t change anything.

The first mile always kind of sucks, but usually I’m pretty happy by mile 3. I was running with my friend Michael and got to tell him we’d just run a 5k! Haha, only about 6 more miles to go now!

I felt good until about mile 7.25. Then it was just hot and I was tired and hungry, despite the two GUs I’d had by then. I told myself just to power through, it was just a little ways more and there was no sense in quitting.

I met a new friend along the way, too, and she ran with me and Michael from about mile 4. Coach had just said that morning that he can’t believe all the chatter on our Facebook group about how we are all just now getting to know each other. “It’s NINE MILES!” he said. “You got time!”

So we were all plugging along, seven miles, eight miles, eight point five … And we were like nowhere near finished, even though we were on the course that was planned for yesterday. It was hot, a GU had leaked in my bra (if you don’t have any experience with GU, you can’t even begin to understand my misery), every part of me was sweat and grime. You seriously could’ve salted the rim of your margarita glass on my face. And as I saw my watch clock that 9th mile, I knew I was at least 8/10ths of a mile from my car.

It may not seem like a lot until it does seem like a lot. Of course I know that if I can run 8 miles, I can surely run 10 miles. And I think if Coach had said the course was going to be longer, I might’ve been able to deal with it more gracefully than I did.

I shut down my watch at 9.53 miles because I was moving too slowly to care about documenting it.

I had 25,000 steps by the time I got back to the community center, and still a whole day of living life ahead of me. I got some water, did my leg drains and picked up my official training group shirt.

A little while later, my friend B. came in from her run. I saw her come out of the locker room after a while and she was crying. There were a lot of emotional runners yesterday — we ran 10 freaking miles. We went right on to the double digits. Each one of us can go out now — right now — and run the full 13.1. Who knew?

Honestly, I knew I’d give it my best shot, but I couldn’t see myself ever running more than 2-3 miles without stopping. But somehow it just happens. I just did it. And everyone in my group, all 300+ of us, just did it.

Next Saturday is our 10-mile run, but Coach already made a comment about eating our Wheaties next week. What diabolical plan awaits us next week?

Several years ago, I read a book I really enjoyed — except for one scene. A character finds out the central character has died, and the character throws up.

In a book that was so well written otherwise, I thought the author was at that point incapable of showing us any other emotion. And to have a character react to an unexpected death that way seemed shallow and false. I wanted to feel it and I just thought throwing up was cheating.

But one day last week, while I was in my office at work, I got the news that a woman in my training group had been hit by a car and killed the night before on her training run.

I heard a loud rushing sound, like I was holding a seashell to each ear. And I felt sick. I felt exactly like I was going to vomit. I felt like I wanted to die. And I felt so angry.

Jennifer wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was wearing a light, she was wearing light and reflective clothing. Jennifer was even running on the sidewalk. And still she was hit by a car. I don’t know how many times I cried, “How does that even happen?”

The running community here is the genus, but the training group is the species. We’ve spent the past two months together and this half marathon is our half marathon. The race is still about two months away, and now, with one of our own family members killed doing what we all do every day, I feel like this race is less my own now and more something I need to finish for Jennifer. With 300 trainees and 50 volunteers, coaches and medical staff in the group, we’ve all shifted our goals for this race.

I was worried that our group run this past Saturday would feel like we were running with a limp. And I won’t lie, it was a difficult day. But it was also a great day to honor our friend. The whole town was invited to come out and run with us. We filled the gym of a local mega-church. Jennifer’s parents came from New Jersey to see why she loved this group so much. We cried, oh we cried. And then we ran 8 miles.

Jennifer’s twin sister ran. Her parents were at the aid station at the 3.5-mile mark to give us water and gels. I’d never run 8 miles before, but giving up wasn’t an option.

That’s how training is going. Each Saturday I run farther than I ever have. It’s a great experience. Our two-mile run, way back on the second week of training, was almost enough to break me. It was all in my head — I’ve been capable of running two miles for almost two years now. I woke up that morning convinced that I was in over my head and that I would never be able to finish 13.1. And then the miles started adding up. A volunteer on Saturday asked, “Did you ever believe 8 miles would feel good?” I actually thought it would be hopeless and miserable. I’d given myself permission to quit if it ever seemed more than I could handle. But I’m more than halfway there now. What’s 13.1 miles after you’ve run 8?

What’s 13.1 when you’re running for Jennifer? I wouldn’t give up now for a million bucks.

The past several weeks have been difficult for me. Not, of course, in comparison to what is truly difficult for billions of people around the world. But I was starting to climb into a dark place where I was exhausted and grumpy, which left me feeling sad most of the time.

My typical work day is 12 hours, from the time I walk out my front door until I get back home in the evening. My husband is usually home hours ahead of me, but I still bear the responsibility for the housework, yard work, meals, and almost everything in between. So by the time I’ve cooked dinner, we eat, and I clean it all up, all I can do is go to bed and hope I get some sleep before the cycle begins at 5:30 the next morning.

But then a few weeks ago, the sponsors of my training group announced that the 5K program would begin early this year. And without hesitation, I signed up as soon as registration opened.

I’ve been running every day at the gym during lunch and meeting up with Lauren sometimes on Saturdays to run with her. She’s training for a marathon in November, so it didn’t take long for me to be in over my head with her. But she still invites me to put in my daily mileage with her. So I’m not a total beginner this time around, but I know there’s still so much I can learn, and so many ways I can challenge myself. And I could not WAIT for the program to start.

Our first group run was last Wednesday night. Lauren’s whole family was there to volunteer and support (and, it turns out, to make me run more than the required 2 minutes scheduled for the first night), plus there were a few familiar faces from last year, an old friend of mine I haven’t seen in about 5 years, and a guy I worked with at the newspaper years ago is a volunteer, too!

Ten and 15 years ago, when I was a drinker, I sought out friends who drank. And they were easy to find. Just open a door to any bar past 10 o’clock on a weeknight. Some of those friends are still dear to me, but most of them were just people I knew from the bar. And it’s funny to me now that I have running friends. Friends I’ve made through running, that I never would’ve known otherwise. Kind of like my drinking friends, who gathered often to drink, there’s never any need to make too much of a plan with running friends. We get together and run.

Although Wednesday was a long day for me, I felt better than I had in a long time when I finally got home. I’m going to get with the coach this week and have him modify my training schedule so I can give myself a little push. But really I like not having a goal other than to run until I can’t run anymore.

Tuesday starts my virtual half marathon with Marathon High. I’ll have seven full days to complete 13.1 miles, which should be pretty easy. I’ll have to run what I can during the work week, but I’m going to challenge myself to complete as many of the miles as I can on the weekend.

And I hope that I can keep up here more regularly now that I’m back in real training.

Yesterday, after talking to my friend Lauren about how we’re doing on dietbet (me: fatter; her: skinnier), my husband took me out to dinner at an Italian restaurant. Where I ate basically three small loaves of bread in olive oil dipping sauce and half a stromboli.

On the way home, I told my husband, “It’s not that I feel bad, I just don’t feel good.” And sure enough, I was awake before three this morning paying for my dinner. If you know what I mean. I was exhausted, but I survived it, so I took a sick day. I just took a shower around 11:30, and I’ve taken out the trash and gotten the mail, but otherwise I’m convalescing today.

Yesterday wasn’t all a wash, though. My local running group opened registration for this year’s 5K training program. So I signed up immediately! I’d been going back through the training at the gym, mostly to try to gain some speed. I’d been doing so much HIIT with the trainer that I started to worry I couldn’t run a mile any more! And considering how unbelievably good the program was for me last year, and how many people I met that I wouldn’t have known otherwise, I was already considering redoing the training.

Last year we started in October to prepare for a 5K in December. But this year we start toward the end of August. So it is going to be really hot, sometimes maybe even dangerously so. But that’s one of the benefits of the group: Training with coaches who know what they’re doing and who know how to help you make the fewest mistakes. Plus, when I told Lauren about it, she told me she would volunteer again, which is how we met anyway! She stuck with me while I learned to run! Then she asked me to be on relay team for the half marathon.

Today, for the first time in more than a year, I’m not wearing a fitness tracker. I like my new Vivofit, mainly because I can see a countdown to my step goal. That’s really fun. But Vivofit is also really lonely after being with Fitbit for so long. My husband said he likes that I haven’t been using the Fitbit because now he always beats me in the daily steps. But today I did what I should’ve done instead of ordering that Vivofit two weeks ago. I upgraded my Fitbit.

Today is Prime Day on Amazon and, as a long-time Prime member, I was able to get a Fitbit Charge HR and a $25 Amazon credit. I can’t explain, though, why the Charge in the small size was $5 more than the large. The Charge has an adjustable wristband like a watch (not like the wristband on the Flex with the awkward metal bauble), so I measured my wrist and decided I could wear the large on its last notch. (WHY can’t I say the same for my belts? I mean, other than I don’t wear a belt because I’d rather eat three loaves of bread and a stromboli with as little inference as possible.)

So now I’ve got to decide what to do with my old Fitbit and my old, but very new, Vivofit. I asked my mom if she and my dad would use them, and she gave me her standard answer: Maybe! Because they are going to totally, totally start using their local rec center!

And, of course, I got my Kindle edition of “Go Set a Watchman” yesterday. After 20 years of pining for a first-edition Harper Lee, it never even occurred to me to actually order the real, live book. Until yesterday when I was trying to sync my old school Kindle and I thought, “There’s got to be a better way!” And I just realized I’ll have something from Amazon on the doorstep every single day this week.

Don’t ask.

Well, OK.

Fitbit, arriving Friday

Go Set a Watchman, arriving Thursday

Toddy Brewing System, arrived Wednesday

Body Back Buddy, arrived Tuesday

I’ve worn my Altra running shoes to the gym for a week now. I’m glad I ordered two pairs! It was not difficult really to adjust to them, but I could tell my alignment was different as I ran. It also seemed like I was making the treadmill shake — maybe just a difference in how my feet were striking?

I’d been having some burning tightness in my outer right calf. I noticed on my first day in the Altras that wasn’t happening. The shoes are nice and roomy and so well padded on the heel. I’d like my husband to try a pair because he is never happy with any pair of shoe EVER, not since the pair he bought for our wedding and was discontinued by the time he wore them out several years later. He’s still not sold on the idea — and I know he has to think things he does are his idea alone. So I’ll enjoy my comfy new running shoes while he keeps looking for his perfect pair.

I also upgraded my fitness tracker recently. I’ve been using the Fitbit flex since last summer. And I liked it … BUT …

I wanted something with more than a line of lighted dots on the display. I was not so hot to have it that I bought a newer one. But a couple of weeks ago, Groupon had the Garmin Vivofit for $59.99. (Last I checked, Amazon had it for the same price.) It sets your daily goal for you and if you sit around too long, a red band creeps across the top of the display. It shows date, time, calories, steps, and goal. I haven’t compared it to my Fitbit (maybe I can wear them both tomorrow, if I remember) as far as tracking steps, but after having worn a Fitbit for so long, I know pretty well how much I move around on any given day. And I know, too, (sadly) about how many steps I can pack in during a trip to the gym. It seems pretty close. The Vivofit tracks sleep without having to be put to sleep (like the Fitbit, which put itself in sleep mode every time I pushed a grocery cart from the store to the car), but it usually doesn’t know I’m awake until after my shower. Which is my fault, anyway, because the Vivofit can be worn in the shower, but I take it off. And I’m not too concerned about how accurate the sleep tracking is because I usually know if I slept well or didn’t.

So, TL;DR: I like my Vivofit OK. It doesn’t have a backlight (the newer model does), and it runs on a battery with about a one-year life span, so no more charging.

My friend Lauren posted on Facebook that she and her husband had joined a six-month challenge on dietbet.com. I had heard about it before, but I didn’t know anyone who had done it, so I didn’t look into it much. But I looked over the challenge, which is to lose 10 percent of your body weight in six months. It’s $25 per month, which you can win back and then some if you hit all your goals. So I decided to go for it and rely on Lauren and her husband for moral support and good-natured taunting. Then today I decided to not go wild on holidays, but also not kill myself trying not to eat all the fresh sweet corn we bought at a roadside stand.

So that’s where I am right now.

The first phase of my challenge is over. I did not lose an ounce. But, strangely enough, I lost three inches from around my middle. I know that’s what I should care about. THE NUMBERS ON THE SCALE DON’T MATTER, they say. But kind of they do and you know it.

I was out of town last weekend, so I went with my mom to one of my very favorite places ever. It’s a drug store, but the entire store is devoted to my favorite aisles of the grocery store: health and beauty. This place carries essential oils, high-quality supplements, hard-to-find brands of shampoo and row upon row of kitschy drug store stuff. When I was itty bitty, my mother worked in a local pharmacy (that was much later used as a setting for a well-known film about a simple-minded killer), and I have always loved the way certain places like that have the deep, waxy smell of lipstick mingling with the sterile plastic scent of bandages. The place I went to last weekend does it for me. Although I hadn’t been there in 15-20 years, the place could still satisfy the itch I didn’t know I had.

One thing I couldn’t get over was the selection of protein shake powder and meal replacement shakes. I don’t know if that kind of thing has always been available in that store, because I just started using protein/meal replacement shakes (sparingly) about a year ago. They good ones can run to the expensive side and I usually make my decisions about shakes based on calories, protein, and carbs. I had never even considered that there were as many types of protein powder as I saw at that store last weekend. I ended up buying four little sample packets of a brand called Spirutein. This morning, being in the challenge phase where I can have a meal replacement shake, I tried the red velvet mix I bought last weekend.

I always make my protein shakes with unsweetened vanilla almond milk, ice and a little bit of water in the blender. The red velvet Spirutein had a very chocolaty scent and it blended up a nice red velvet color. The texture was perfect. In reviews of Spirutein I’d read online after buying my samples, I’d seen a lot of people complain about a bad aftertaste. I didn’t notice it with the red velvet shake. It tasted OK, but it was not what I would call delicious. And I think the GNC Lean Shake in Rich Chocolate is delicious. I am also a big fan of Advocare’s chocolate mocha and berry meal replacement shakes. The red velvet Spirutein was just OK, but I won’t be buying a canister.

I still have three others to try, and because I’ll be out of town much of this coming week, I will probably bring the packets with me to make a quick breakfast.

Another thing that happened this week: I have really wanted to try a pair of Altra Running Shoes for the longest time. Good running shoes, like good protein powders, are expensive. I don’t object to that at all. I just couldn’t justify a new $100+ pair of running shoes while I’ve still got two pairs of Brooks Adrenaline with plenty of miles left in them.

But this week, Altra announced a sale on their Facebook page. The Intuition 2.0 was on clearance for $49. I didn’t hesitate at all. I went to their website to order and, although I can pretty well wear any shoe in a 6 or 7, Altra’s website had a great tool for helping determine your size in the shoe you want to buy. You select the size, make and model of the shoe you have now and it tells you the size you will need in their shoe. It also tells you how their shoe will feel different compared to what you’re wearing now. So I ordered a green and white pair.

Then, a little later in the day, I talked myself into a second pair. My thinking was, well, what if I just LOVE these shoes? So I snatched up a blue pair, too, and still came out ahead if I had bought one pair at regular price. If I don’t love them for running, I will still have my two pairs of Brooks and I can wear the Altras for my workouts with my trainer.

Nothing beats a proper fitting from your local running store, though. Shoes make a big, huge difference to a runner. Without the right shoes, you could end up injured. And that concludes my public-service announcement.

Lastly, I’m a beekeeper and we have to check our hives today to make sure nobody’s honey bound. It has rained and rained so much for so long, I’m not sure how the honey production will go this year. But it’s finally drying out and warming up. We will be gone several days this week, so we have to do a hive inspection today to make sure we won’t leave our bees in a tight spot while we’re gone. I can tell by glancing out the window that the sun is already relentless and it’s only 9 in the morning. So I better get to it so I don’t die of a heat stroke in my bee suit.

As promised, I weighed myself this morning. And I wasn’t happy. And I said, “I will be better today and weigh in on Monday.”

That was the first reality check I had today and I had been out of bed like two whole minutes.

Running, HIIT with a trainer and nearly a 10-pound weight gain in 6 months. It’s not one day of eating that brought those pounds back. I must’ve been really trying to gain that kind of weight.

So here it is. I have two digital scales (and an analog scale) in my house. Maybe something is wrong with me to be so fixed weighing myself. One scale measures half-pound increments and the other one, which I just bought a few weeks ago, measures in tenths. It also differs by up to three pounds in the wrong direction over what the other scale says, so I hate it. A lot. But it showed an even 209 pounds this morning. And my nicer scale showed 207. So clearly, either way, it’s a situation that could be better.

But, feeling defeated and flustered, I got in the shower to get ready to go to the grocery store. I was standing there in the warm water, thinking hateful thoughts, being mad, basically saying FUCKIT.

Next weekend I’m going out of town for my best friend’s grandmother’s 80th birthday party. Mawmaw is one of those people who doesn’t know she’s 80. She’s smart, liberal, sass-mouthed, funny, and she loves me like I’m one of her own. There’s no way I would miss her party, to which I was invited weeks and weeks ago with a fancy invitation. It was that invitation I was thinking of as I combed knots out of my wet hair in the shower this morning. “Cake and dancing!” I thought, “The invitation said cake and dancing.” Going to Mawmaw’s party meant that would not allow myself to have cake. And not allowing myself to have cake defeats the purpose of going to a party entirely.

I mean, if I catch myself denying that I have some kind of problematic relationship with food, please refer my ass straight back to this post.

Then I realized something. I’ve been to tons of parties, millions of weddings, thousands of baby showers. I remember bits and pieces about the good time I had. But I could not recall a single crumb of cake I had eaten at any of those events. I thought about my own wedding. And while I can verify that the cakes were beautiful, I can only tell you they were delicious because my husband’s sister made them for us. I don’t remember eating any, although I have seen photographs to prove that we did feed each other a bite of each cake. But did I have more? I don’t know. That’s not what I remember about that day. And still I look back on our wedding with such sweet fondness, such tender happiness. I think of our wedding cakes as a display of love from my sister-in-law (a kick-ass baker) and never as sinful calories that were the only reason I showed up for the wedding.

To deprive myself of celebrating with Mawmaw next weekend because it will fall in one 10-day period that I simply won’t be eating cake is just really stupid. And when I realized it would never remember the cake anyway, eating cake is what seemed pointless.

I went to the grocery store. I came home and made egg muffins with turkey sausage and veggies. Then, after dinner tonight, I made a big stir fry of chicken breast, peppers, onions and lots of red pepper. I sliced up a pear and sprinkled it with cinnamon. And then I packed a little bag with what I’ll need for my cleanse while I’m away next weekend. It all fit in a sandwich-size plastic bag. It ain’t hard!

I’m still going to weigh in tomorrow and see if I like those results better. But whatever it is, I know it won’t be what it was 6 months ago. And it’s time to change that.

You in or what?

Since I’ve been gone, I haven’t given up on running! In fact, there’s a trainer at my gym who has been helping me with strength training and high-intensity interval training (HIIT).

My new job, at almost three months in, is great in a lot of ways. But sometimes it is very demanding. So writing, which is what I want to do, gets pushed off and just almost forgotten about. But I want to write here. I recently read through some old posts and saw how well I managed being without a job for a while, and what I wrote about making the most of my free time — and that I really did do the things I promised myself I would do — was kind of amazing to me.

Tuesday starts another 24-day challenge for me. And June is going to be a challenge in a lot of ways. I’ll be traveling for a big 80th birthday party next weekend. And my dad is retiring during the challenge, too. So we’ll all be going to a big old party then. But, after talking to my friend Amber and talking to myself about making my own self a priority, I’m ready. I’ve had to carry around a jar of peanut butter in my purse before. I’ll do it again!

Tomorrow will be my prep day. My goal is to go into Monday eating like I’m already on the challenge. Because my husband has type II diabetes, he’s been really focused on his health lately, too. So being on plan is a must for us, and not just for weight loss. I want my husband to be around to say, “Huh?” to everything I say for many years to come!

So stay tuned! Official weigh-in will be published tomorrow. Yep, I’m going for it.

How many days did I wish I didn’t have to be stuck in an office? How many times did I wish I could spend a day doing only what I wanted to do? Too many to count.

So this morning, on my second morning of joblessness, I found myself showered, dressed and sitting on the couch with a big bowl of Christmas candy. It was really depressing.

My brother manages a restaurant, so I sent him a text to let him know I was coming to see him. Now, of course, I’d already applied for jobs and all that stuff and I needed to get out of the house. The guys that work for my brother are always glad to see me, especially the dishwasher, an adult with special needs. I got there before the lunch crowd came in and they all made a fuss over me and made me laugh. And my brother bought my lunch!

When I sat down to eat, I checked my phone. Sure enough, I had a missed call from the company I had the all-day interview with three weeks ago. I called the guy back, but I already knew what he had to say. And I knew because I felt that I wasn’t right for the job. Not that I couldn’t do it and excel, but there was certainly something about it I just couldn’t put my finger on. I spent three weeks hoping I wouldn’t get the job so that I wouldn’t have to accept. Still, as I waited for the guy to pick up the phone, I knew I would accept if they made an offer.

But they didn’t.

After lunch I had another little errand to do, but then I was facing an afternoon of nothing much. And I couldn’t get behind that. So I came right in the door and changed into some running clothes.

So many times I swore that if I ended up not working, I wouldn’t waste my days in front of the TV. I would run or go for long, long walks every chance I got. Our town is small, but I pretty well covered a wide swath of it this afternoon. Again, I went without my GPS watch or heart rate monitor. I just went out the front door and started walking.

There’s a new-ish trail that cuts across part of town, past a lake and parks.

But it ends rather abruptly at a gravel road. So I kept on truckin’.

The gravel road kept going, but it also lead me to a neighborhood, so I opted for the asphalt. I wound my way through that neighborhood and eventually picked back up at the trail, so I knew I was still about 1.5 miles from home.

I walked about 80 minutes. I think if I had spend that chunk of afternoon in the house watching TV, I would have been miserable. Not just for wasting a day when I could be doing whatever I wanted, but because it really is difficult to not have places to be.

I need to make a plan for how to spend my days if this joblessness drags on, but I realized today that I am kind of in a little bit of denial about what might not happen.

And I think part of that is doing whatever I want, to an extent. Long walks, runs, catch up on TV, keep my house clean. What might be an unhappy time can still be pretty enjoyable.