This drizzly morning, I have been doing much thinking. I need to blog about the 24-Hour race, but since I feel as if it’s all been said, I keep making lame, failed starts. Here’s what I’ve been thinking.
My life has been divided into 20-year increments. Every 20 years, something major changes my life.
1956—I was born.
1976—I married Dwight. Hence…
- I was a pastor’s wife.
- I had two children. Nikki and Josh, of course are such amazing humans that I can’t begin to capture what they mean to my life in a short paragraph.
- I became a runner.
I wouldn’t have started running if not for Dwight. He chose—or rather felt called—to attend ORU (Oral Robers University). My connection with that school is a long story in itself, and affected my attitude about organized religion most drastically, but the school requires every student to be active intellectually, spiritually, and physically. We had to attend class, attend chapel, and accrue aerobic points every week, every semester. The first semester we had to run. By December, I was addicted and obsessed with running. Running became a cornerstone of my life for the next twenty years.
1996—I ran the Boston Marathon after qualifying for it. Five weeks later, I crashed on my bike while on a ride with my son, and broke my knee, severing the tibia. Days later, I was supposed to run in the Olympic Torch parade traveling across the country before the ’96 Olympics in Atlanta, but I had to do the torch run in a wheelchair, pushed by Josh. I healed and worked my butt off to get my former strength back, but I could never again run hard and comfortably; I became a cyclist. I was also in the middle of my life with Terry Davis—a big factor in this 20-year cycle. Terry was the best writing teacher I ever had in my life, and a huge support of my writing. We are still dear friends though we weren’t the greatest marriage partners.
2016—I recovered from a ruptured brain aneurysm and from a bike crash where I broke five bones (unrelated except in time).
- I married Tom. I’m not a stupid person, but it sure took me a long time to figure out what it takes to make a good marriage. I couldn’t be gladder (I love that word) to have settled into a comfortable life with Tom. That allows me the freedom to pursue the other crazy and obsessive aspects of my life, too.
- I contracted to have my third book published, which came out in 2017.
- This 20-year chunk of life appears to focus on the following:
- Being a grandma and mom to grown children.
- Being married to Tom and continuing to nurture this beautiful home he built into a place of comfort for family and friends.
- Cycling as a senior. I can’t do what I did as a 40-year-old, but I can go hard and train hard and love living as a cyclist. I can emphasize parts of riding that I couldn’t twenty years ago. I am perhaps more bike-obsessed than ever. I’ll talk about that in my next post.
- I’ve never stopped writing since I learned to craft a sentence at age six. However, I didn’t get a book published until this milleneum, and since I get to retire in a few years, I hope my work life can focus entirely on stories I need to get out into the world.
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