About 6 years ago as I approached my 40th birthday my face suddenly started getting oilier. So, I went to the Clinique counter andI laid out some serious cash for product. Within 6 months, my face suddenly flipped to dry. I waited, but it stayed dry. Eventually, I gave out or tossed the "oily" product. I slowly started amassing my dry skin supplies.
Recently, it suddenly flipped to oily again. This is just bullshit.
So. Anyway.
I was in therapy with Nan and I was telling her about some feelings that I'm having trouble with, the feeling that I wish I had accomplishments that were just mine.
It's hard, to have friends who are so freaking fast. In the past, I always queen of the trailer park. It's easy to be queen of the losers. But when all your friends are highly accomplished people--racing and otherwise--I'm sometimes bogged down in the thought that there's really nothing that I can do that they can't do, but plenty that they can do that I can't. I know, and I tell myself, that I have plenty to be proud of. But I don't feel it, I said. That's the thing about feelings. They are hard to control.
Nan took two pieces of paper and drew a bell curve on each of them.
On one of them, she wrote lifetime accomplishments and on the other she wrote running.
She pointed to the one about accomplishments and said, "where do you think you fall on this curve?
Oh, hell. She had me. I pointed to the right end.
"And running? where do you feel you are on this curve?"
Well, that depends, I said. Are we talking about distance, or speed?
"Either," she said. "Of all people who run, where you think you are on this curve?"
Well, if we're talking speed...all people who run?
"Regardless of if they race. All people who run."
Well, then I guess, statistically, wellll.......I'm somewhere near the mean, I said, pointing to the middle of the curve. I have always figured, honestly, that the real reason I'm at the back of the pack is that most people as slow or slower than I am don't bother entering races.
"And distance?"
Shit. She had me again. I pointed to the far right side of the curve again. As slow as I am, I have to acknowledge, few people have crossed the finish lines that I cross.
So later I was thinking I needed a visual reminder to keep me focused on these good things. Some kind of visual reminder to see each day. So I made one, and I put on my mirror where I do my makeup every day. I shared it with a couple people, and I'll put it here, in case anyone else finds it useful:
