For Jeret

Perhaps you’ve seen this.

I went to high school with Jeret. We weren’t, by any means, close. But we were friendly and had friends in common. In junior high we were in band together. From my vague memories I remember him being a jokester. But my brightest memory of Jeret was maybe 9th or 11th grade. My best friend lived across the street from our school. She had a pool and a trampoline so, obviously, it was a pretty popular gathering spot after school. We were over there one afternoon and I think at the time it was just me & Jeret, though there could have been other people and I’m just blocking it out. He had broken his arm a couple of years earlier and was showing me how his elbow sort of popped in and out since he’d never had it reset. His eyes twinkled when he laughed and I left Jessica’s house that day nursing a huge crush on him.

I watched in the Olympics and I cheered for him when he jumped and felt like he was robbed when he didn’t place in 2006. I jumped up and down in 2010 when he landed his jump and got his medal.

And yesterday, when my mom told me that he’d taken his own life I jumped to the internet hoping that it was some sort of sick joke. I was shocked when I realized that it wasn’t. I didn’t know him in the past 10 years, but like a lot of people in our home town, I did follow him. I was friends with him on facebook and I read articles about him when they came out and by all those accounts he seemed to be content in his life. But, of course, it’s hard to tell how good or bad things are based on a couple of status updates.

I hope that Jeret’s last thoughts were of peace and not regret. I hope that his suicide can be a learning moment about depression for a new generation of kids.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

For me, the beginning of any exercise is a constant struggle: between sleeping in; between eating right; between having that second glass of wine. When I’m exercising I tend to not look too closely at my eating habits because I’m positive that all the work I’m doing will not only allow me to lose weight but also to allow me to eat whatever I want. Which I think we all know is not true. So the first few days of P90X was an internal struggle of me debating whether I needed sleep or exercise more. And then when we settled in it wasn’t too difficult to start waking up early every morning to get it over with.

Just when it started to become routine, though, something would happen to detour us and we’d have to start all over again. The biggest detour yet has been having visitors because who wants to wake up early when you’ve been busy enjoying family and friends with a cocktail or two the night before? Certainly not me. So we push it off one more day or two more days or tell ourselves that we need a clean start and we’ll start fresh next Monday morning. But Monday morning comes and we’d rather sleep because Sunday was such a full day.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Until something happens that knocks you over with the realization that you have to do something now. Like a pair of pants not fitting and all of those pounds (ok, only two for me and if I’m being honest, that was probably due to me getting sick and barely eating than any exercise, but whatever) come right back on, which is what happened to both me and Wes yesterday. So we set our alarm for 4:15 this morning and by 4:20 we were coming up with excuses and reasons why sleeping an extra hour or two would be more beneficial than just getting up and exercising. But I remembered that this is how people lose control of their weight and add 30 pounds without even realizing it: because we make excuses. So I insisted that we get up and do it, which is odd because my job is usually to talk us out of waking up early (I love to sleep) and Wes’ job is to make sure that we do get out of bed.

While we were exercising we came up with some dietary restrictions to help us and though I hate to cut bread and pasta (carbs may be second to sleep in things that I love), I know that it’s something that needs to be done. Not completely because I’m not prepared for that, but cut down on them.

Yesterday I mapped out some races for the fall, starting in September. I much more likely to get out running and swimming and being active when I know I have a race coming up. When there’s nothing out there to work for I tend to laze around until the next training session. I need to realize that working towards a healthy body should always be a reason to work out. That having a healthy life is the ultimate race. I should always be training for that.