Twas the Night Before Turkey

I'm at my parents' house making pecan pie. I've mixed the dough for the crust and it's resting, wrapped in plastic wrap (I hate plastic wrap), butter properly melting into what will be the perfect base for a classic Southern mixture of karo syrup, pecans, and molasses.

My brother won't be here this year, which is more than sad. It is less of a home for the holidays when one of us is missing. All the food will be the same (with the addition of black-eyed peas) but without Rob's characteristic laugh and teasing of older and younger sister, it just won't be quite as warm a day as it could be.

It's odd, how relationships change. I remember my dad telling me once that I was "more related" to my brother and sister than I was to my parents. I am made up of half my mom, half my dad (simplifying the genetics, I know) so we are only half-related to either of them. But my siblings and I are all the same combo, the same starting point, the same raised voice when we came home too late, the same kiss on a skinned knee, the same "no, you cannot skip church" to the same impertinent teenage question.

But despite that sameness, I honestly loathed my brother when we were younger. I really did not understand the point of his existence. If he had a purpose beyond annoying the snot out of me, I could not figure it out. In my eyes, we had nothing in common, nothing to bond over, nothing to share. This anti-relationship continued until I was in high school, a couple years after my sister entered the world. My baby sister was impossibly easy to love. She was like my little doll and she loved me unconditionally, never yelled, never snatched the TV remote from me, never tattled. Not like my brother. At all.

My relationship with Rob shifted in high school. I remember realizing once that we liked the same band, which seemed odd to me. And I gave him a hug when he fought with dad. But I think we really grew closer in the summers after freshman and sophomore year of college, when I was waitressing the graveyard shift at Denny's, 10pm to 6am. On my off days, when my sleep pattern was totally messed up, I'd bring Rob into Denny's for cheap seasoned fries and we'd sit in the smoking section so I could be the bad influence and coolly smoke cigarettes and drink coffee and expound upon the life experiences of a college student. I still think cigarettes make a person look cool. Anti-smoking campaigns in the education systems of Arkansas and Missouri clearly failed me.

Shortly after getting his license, Rob drove with me back home after I graduated from college. Rob drove the majority of those miles, many of them in the winding mountain roads of West Virginia, as I sobbed over lost friends. And somewhere in Indiana we stopped at the worst excuse for a Denny's in America, whose lack of seasoned fries was the cap to an already surreal manic breakdown on the highway that left us both laughing so hard we had tears rolling down our faces. I have no idea what was so funny.

It's an odd, wonderful thing when your sibling becomes a person beyond your blood. When you realize you'd genuinely want to know them even if you didn't grow up in the same houses, with the same dogs. My brother and I are infinitely different. Conservative vs. liberal. Sports fan vs. theatre nerd. And the differences run deeper than those surface affiliations...

But I would not want to know the person I'd be without my brother. It is cliche to say, "I would not be who I am today..." but it is wholly accurate. And the people that truly fit that category, the people who have actually shaped the human you've become, are so precious and so few. To be surrounded on Thanksgiving Day by the other three people who have molded my life just makes it all the more striking that the fourth is not here.

I miss you, Rob. And we are due for seasoned fries.

So This Is Adulthood

I am a big fan of getting older. I've wanted to be 30 for at least a decade. 30 always sounded so grown-up, as if the world would suddenly crack open and make sense. I'm approaching 29 and I assume no life-shattering truths will be revealed on my birthday either this year or next. But I imagine quasi-adulthood (am I a full blown adulthood yet?) has its ebbs and flows like any other process. Moments of "Yes! I can do this!" coupled with moments of "My life is completely stupid!"

Tonight included one of the latter, tomorrow morning, I hope, will include one of the former.

I took the trash out tonight in slip-on shoes, sweatpants, and a tshirt. It's 30 degrees outside but the dumpster sits just behind my building and I was too lazy to grab my coat. I grabbed the trash and my keys (my building locks automatically when the door closes) and slipped down the hall, out the door, to the dumpster. I then tossed said trash into the dumpster as well as my keys. A string of curse words might have ensued. I had to climb into the dumpster (which is not an open dumpster, you have to hold open the lid while you climb in and this is really tricky) in my tiny, unhelpful shoes, in the dark and feel around for several minutes for my keys. After a couple minutes one of my neighbors came out to throw his trash away, only to find me cussing and shivering, digging through trash. He was kind enough to hold the lid open for me and was about to climb in to help me (bless him!) when I found the little buggers. He helped me climb out and I returned to my apartment smelling like pizza, laundry detergent, and diapers. This was a moment in which my life felt completely, ridiculously stupid.

But early tomorrow morning we're supposed to have a meteor shower. I always try to get up early to watch them when they're predicted, even though I live in a city and I know the chances of spotting even one are slim. I saw a falling star in Morocco once, on a night that I slept on a roof on the outskirts of the Sahara. It was Thanksgiving Day 2002, I had turned 22 and celebrated with a pseudo-carrot cake baked in an ornery butane oven. We slept on the roof overlooking date palms and I will never adequately describe that sky. The falling star was perfect, and so quick that when I asked my friends if they'd seen it, they said no. A blink or a nod of the head and you'd have lost it. I've always wanted to see another but never have. I don't mind if I don't see it tomorrow morning. I'm sure I'll find one eventually, probably, hopefully, when I least expect it. But I still get up to watch them if I can, if I learn of some shower making its presence known in the Northern Hemisphere. I'm practicing my falling star-spotting, I guess.

And that fits nicely in the "Yes! I can do this!" category.

Now What?

I ran my first marathon over a month ago. After a couple weeks hiatus from any kind of serious workout, I joined the YWCA and committed myself to giving a few new classes a whirl. I've found a couple I really enjoy, and I plan on making use of the pool one of these days. But I am not someone who can go to a gym without a goal. Or, rather, I can, but I know that working out "for the fun of it" lasts about 6 weeks for me and then the invariable, "now what?" begins. I don't always need a race or a time to train towards, but I need something, and classes in a gym rarely do that for me. Although I will admit to seeing a woman do a really wacky one-legged dancer-y pose in yoga class that I would not mind attempting someday...

But since I've started thinking about the "now what?" I've also started thinking about other races. I decided less than a week after the Twin Cities Marathon that I wanted to run Grandma's, everyone says it's so beautiful, maybe shoot for a better time. If I was 10 lbs lighter I'm positive I could shave at least 10 minutes off my time. And I'd train better this time around, I know where I was a little fuzzy, where I could have buckled down a bit more.

But I also know how huge a time commitment that is and I'm not sure I'll have it in me come February, when I'd need to start training again (I run now occassionally but really just for fun or to warm up, I'm not tracking mileage or anything). I definitely want to keep doing races but I really think I may just be a half-marathon girl. I did my marathon. I crossed that line. But when I look at the pics of that day, those first 13 miles I am smiling the whole time. Those 13 were FUN. And 13 isn't anything to sneeze at! That's a good ole run! And training for half-marathons is much more manageable in terms of having a life. Plus, I'd really like to be a bit faster. I've started thinking that maybe I could focus on half-marathons instead, work on getting my speed up that way. And if eventually I feel like doing a marathon again, there's nothing stopping me. Right?

It's early days yet. Grandma's sign-up isn't until mid January. I may get a post-New Year's boost and feel the need to get geared up for another marathon. After all, if I ran Grandma's and not Twin Cities, I would have all summer to just ENJOY, and not be training with long runs every Saturday/Sunday while everybody else is out doing what people do in the summertime. I didn't go out on boats near enough this summer. And I can probably count on one hand how many beers I drank on a patio.

This isn't to say that the training wasn't worth it. Running that marathon was one of the best experiences of my life. Definitely one of my proudest. But, as with anything, you do make sacrifices for the sake of your goals. Less time with friends, staying away from the cheese fries, exhaustion. Mmmmm, cheese fries...

So I'm building a "what" in answer to the "now what" that's been popping in my head recently. It's a heady thing, to know you have a feasible, totally accomplishable choice. I know I can do a marathon, that's no longer the question.

Do I want to do it again?