Running Into Joy

I write to you after a glorious vacation. Although I'm a little overwhelmed with just how much time I've spent out of town this summer, I'm grateful for the opportunity to spend so much time seeing new places and being outside. Andy and I's big vacation plans for the summer couldn't have fallen during a better time. Exactly one week after my cat died, on the first sunny day in the entire week, we hopped in his car and drove up to Niagara Falls. This part of the trip lasted only one evening--about as much time as either of us could stand in the city when there were mountains to be climbed. As a water-loving Pisces (and fan of The Office ), I loved watching the water fall over the cliff's edge in smooth sheets as much as I loved seeing advertisements for the Maid of the Mist. As an introvert, I really did not like the crowds, which is why I talked Andy into going for an early morning run along the falls with me before we left for the next leg of our trip. ...

I have to confess, after the weekend I've had, I did not expect good news when I stepped on the scale this Wednesday. As an emotional eater, I certainly put away a decent number of Snyder's Hot Buffalo Wing pretzel pieces, my current not quite WW approved obsession. The day my cat died, my boyfriend took me out to lunch, where I consumed an entire sadness pizza. (Thank you, Andy. It was exactly what I needed). But, I continued to track my food and, after that first hard day, tried to channel my grief into healthier outlets, including: Crying while running  Crying while doing yoga on Artemis' favorite mat Crying while taking long walks with fantastic, supportive friends Falling asleep with an episode of The Mindy Project in the background I know myself enough now to know that I have a tendency to wallow, so it's been project Keep Amanda Busy (and active). This week, I went to Dave and Busters and had drinks with a friend and went to yoga. Normally, I hate hav...

Strap in, folks--this is going to be a sad one. This is probably one of those weird things you aren't expected to write about or share, but I'm a writer. I process things through writing. It's what I do. And I believe, firmly and truly, that it is important to share when we are in the bad times, not just in the good. Because when the bad times come, it's a comfort to know you're not alone. On Friday, June 14th, I woke up to a difficult reality. My alarm went off, but my cat, Artemis, didn't come to greet me. For the past five years of my life, ever since we first moved out into our first apartment together, I've been woken up by the sound of his meowing (or, some mornings, the sound of him knocking something off my dresser if he felt I wasn't getting up early enough). So, even though he'd been acting a little off the last couple of days, not seeing his face staring up at me was a huge warning sign. Sure enough, my dear sweet boy was lying on his ...

I've mentioned before that 2019 was originally supposed to be the year of my first half marathon. But ah, life--how often it has other plans for us instead. Now that my injury/ongoing issues with my hip/shoulder/back are (mostly) under control, I've been settling back into my fitness routine. This mainly includes doing yoga every (or almost every) morning and going for a run every other day. For the past year and a half, I've pretty much always been following a training plan for one race or another. But, since my half marathon plans fell through and my next race isn't until September, I'm in an in-between, a lull. It feels weird. I'm so much better about running consistently when I have a schedule, a plan, to stick to. Yet, I think it's important to take a little time to remember why I fell in love with running in the first place, let my body call the shots for a little while.  So, I've been running again, usually for about 30 minutes three t...

Lately, I've been thinking about "home" a lot. When you teach creative writing, "home" is often the chosen topic for a beginning class, an easy, accessible topic for everyone to write about. But is it, really? The other day, I saw a woman wearing a t-shirt that read "Home is where Yinz Are." (Yinz, for the non-Pittsburghers out there, is our version of "y'all"). It's a twist on the familiar "Home is where the heart is," the idea that the idea of home can be people, rather than a place. For some reason, this really caught my attention and made me think. I've lived in Pittsburgh for nearly three years now, and some would say that makes it home. In many ways, it does. Yet, if someone asks me where I'm from, I always say "Cincinnati" or "Ohio." I don't think I'm unique in finding "home" a complicated question. So many of my friends from college came to our University from ano...

Summer in higher education is a beautiful thing. For many of us, the pace of direct service slows down, we shift into project and preparation mode, and summer Fridays begin (workdays ending at 1pm). I'm lucky to get this extra time to slow down, center, reconnect. But lately I've been thinking about the anxious feeling I get whenever someone says "August." That burst of Orientation activity, the month that will fly by with an extra helping of overtime and very little "me time." Last year, August saw me in my first full-time job. I shifted from being a student with multiple part time jobs to working one more-than-full-time gig and teaching two classes. At the start of July, I'd just begun a new relationship. Not only was I juggling more work hours than I was used to, I was also learning how to make consistent space for a romantic partner, something I hadn't done since high school. It was a joy, a surprise, a pleasure—and it was so very new to me...

Lately, my WW journey has been pretty on pause as I've dealt with losing my Half Marathon training, healing my back, etc, etc. Yet for some reason, when I got back from my mini-trip last weekend, two Milestones rewards were waiting in the mailbox. The first was my 5 lb milestone keychain, celebrating being 5 lbs down from my starting weight (which was, apparently, higher than I remembered). The second was a 10 lb keychain that I've only earned if you squint really hard at my tracking and give me slack for the weeks I refused to admit what I'd gained back and just didn't log anything. Needless to say, that milestone is staying in the envelope until I actually earn it. I'm still struggling with this weird duality of believing we need to stop shaming fat, wanting to shift my own perception of beauty and be more body positive, while simultaneously feeling wrong and frustrated at this weight. It's one of those "I contain multitudes" situations, I thin...