kdiddy.org

I think it’s safe to say that summer 2014 is finally coming to a close. My kid has been in 7th grade for a few weeks and today the weather had that familiar cool crispness to it. I was initially a little sad to see summer go. We had a hectic-at-times summer but a good one. (Highlights are behind the “Read more” via photo essay.)

I’ve been busy with work/tired from being busy with work. I’ve never been comfortable posting too much about my job (any job) but I’m involved in some Big Things. This is simultaneously enthralling (“I’ve always wanted to be involved in Big Things!”) and terrifying. After particularly stressful days, I find myself thinking/saying things like, “I just want to go be a sister wife somewhere and take care of babies and make jam.” I feel terrible about this. For one, it’s not like that line of work is easier. (Plus, I would manage to turn it into The Most High Stakes Sister-Wifeing Ever We’re All Gonna Die Fail Which Is Worse I Don’t Know.) Also, I’ve never even made jam so I have no idea if this would even be a viable option.

The husband has been busy with music. His group, Pittsburgh Track Authority, has been doing really well, along with other related projects that he’s involved with/heading up. They’ve been getting a lot of press coverage, locally and nationally, and they’ve been DJing all over the place. It’s all very exciting.

The kid has been busy hanging out with friends, hanging out with grandparents, etc. I was upset the last week or so of summer vacation because I felt like I had barely seen him and it’s not like he’s going to be looking to spend less time with friends and more time with me as he gets older. I’ve been pushing our Great Race training because it’s 40 or so minutes that are just for us. It’s just unfortunate that we spend them huffing and puffing and figuring out how to avoid running up this one horrible hill by our house.

This was all kind of exacerbated when we went to see Boyhood a few weeks ago, which I loved. Richard Linklater gets a pass from me on certain aspects of movies that would otherwise bother me. I don’t know. He does the meandering-thoughts-and-experiences-of-not-extraordinary-people thing so well. It was very striking to watch a story unfold over time with the same people, especially, of course, the boy at the center of it.

My kid is still very much a kid, but he’s really looking forward to growing up and experiencing all of the failures and successes of becoming an adult. I get that and I don’t immediately tell him to just enjoy being a kid, “because being an adult is so much harder.” I don’t really believe that. Being a kid is easier only in mechanical ways that mostly have to do with money and being a candidate for blame. He seems to really be looking forward to the experiences that he’ll have, though I’ve cautioned him not to set his expectations too high. Parties and whatnot are never as epic as they are in the movies. “You’ll have fun, I promise,” I tell him. “But nobody has the time or energy for a drunken odyssey.”

(more…)

We were at my mother-in-law’s house three times over last weekend: on Friday for her 4th of July party, on Saturday to eat 4th of July leftovers, and on Sunday to eat more 4th of July leftovers. She keeps a radio on in the backyard tuned to the oldies station and during our leftover stops, the station played “Cecilia” a number of times. It also played that “In the Summertime” song by Mungo Jerry, which sounds awesome and is a classic summer song, but that line, “If her daddy’s poor you can do what you feel,” makes me uncomfortable. Bother. Let’s put all these deep thoughts aside and sing along to a traditional hymn.

Speaking of 4th of July, it was a nice and low-key affair. I was sitting and talking with the husband’s cousin about some aspect of living in the city, but added that Pittsburgh is pretty country. As if on cue, my mother-in-law’s cat emerged from the small wooded area behind her house with a snake in its mouth.

After the snake got passed around to all who wanted to play with it, we went past the swimmin hole and got us some sodypops yeehaw.

Speaking of that guy in the picture/video above, I heard him tell one of his Little League teammates the other day that he’ll turn 13 in December, which brings me to my next point: ASAK&@(&(&@@%)(*AUP87(*&)(%#hijokl?

A teenager. I’m going to have a TEENAGER. As I (far too) often joke, I don’t see how he can be 13, since I’m 13.

(Aside for those of you reading along: these recent posts feel very awkward to write and I imagine they’re awkward to read. Much like the huffing and puffing that I’m having to do with running as I get back into a habit/routine, these sound out of breath and wheezing to me as I get back into writing shape. Just getting into WordPress and putting some thoughts down is a challenge. Thanks for your patience and I sincerely appreciate it if you’re stopping by.)

Facebook has a handy little year in review for users. Looking through mine and one that you can generate for InstaGram, I found them a little dissatisfying. They didn’t really seem to capture all that was good and bad and huge about 2013. The big things were included, like my new job, but as I’ve pulled away from the internet more and more, I have less of a record of what has happened. I’m not particularly happy about this. It’s not necessary to document everything. There are, after all, only so many memories that you can truly cherish. But I’ve always liked being able to look back on an ultimately inconsequential moment.

There are also constant hums that I’ve become more aware of this year that are impossible to condense and articulate into a tweet or a stats update or even a blog post. My anxiety about basically everything has been pretty tough to contend with. I have really complicated feelings about key people in my life and I can’t tell if they’re valid or not. My kid is undeniably growing up now and I feel hyper-aware of the time that he still spends in childhood. Any time he cuddles with me or drops the front of tough adolescent that he tries on here and there, I breathe a sigh of relief that I haven’t missed it all yet.

Anyway, neither the Facebook or InstaGram reviews contained any moments from July, and I realized that that month contained one of my favorite nights of this year, one that I think/hope that I’ll always remember. Just in case, I don’t, though…

On July 11th, there was a brief but significant thunderstorm in the very early evening. The power went out and we went through the normal stages of reaction: sitting very still for a minute, sighing when it becomes clear that it wasn’t a momentary outage, pacing carefully.

Since it was still light out, the three of us sat on the porch and admired the pretty, midsummer sunset.

We could hear our neighbors shouting their theories about the power outage at each other. So-and-so a few blocks away still has power. Did a transformer blow? What did Duquesne Light say? Have you seen one of their trucks go by? How much stuff do you have in the freezer?

I wanted a popsicle and got some to cool us all down.

It started to get really dark and we needed some source of light. I gathered an odd assortment of scented candles and clustered them on the porch. They were mostly Christmas-related scents. It was odd to smell cedar and sugar cookies mixed with summer stickiness and rain.

After a few hours, we were getting hungry and frustrated. An alert chimed on my phone letting me know that the Pirates game had finally started after being delayed for the power outage. “We could go to the Pirate game,” I suggested half-jokingly. But the husband pointed out that at least there would be power and we could get something to eat.

“Let’s do it.”

We rushed over to the park and purchased bleacher seats. The crowd was pretty sparse since it was a weeknight and the game was just starting at 11 p.m.

I held our seats as the husband and the kid went to the bathroom. A girl coming up the aisle in a sequined skull shirt caught my eye. I quickly noticed that her date was Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

The game turned out to be great. The Pirates added one more win to what would ultimately be their best season in 20 years. And the three of us did something spontaneous. We went on a tiny adventure and escaped life for awhile.

A large rubber ducky floats by on the river
Nearby are Pirates, with excitement they quiver

The fountain shoots gold up into the air
Others are pink, for boobs they’re aware

Art explodes out of Carnegie’s Brutalist form
While children crawl through a bright cheery worm

Byrds will take flight with every crackling homerun
There’s a party on the bridge named for the great 21

Pierogis are racing; who knew they were sentient?
Steelers are pacing; their losses? A detriment

Artists will visit the world VIA Pittsburgh
Bringing music and sounds unlike any you’ve heard

At Honcho, we’ll dance in the dark til we sweat
During the best and gayest time we’ve had yet

Dippy is getting his scarf into place
He’s the most stylish dinosaur in this space

In October We have questions we can’t help but ask
And answering them is a formidable task

Will we go to the World Series? Will there be lots of snow?
Will these stinkbugs ever just leave us alone?

Will Cutch clutch the MVP? Is Pittsburgh the best place to be?
The answer to all? Absobucnlutely.

image source

I have a sort of wrap-up of Summer 2013 post coming along. I started it a month ago when it would have actually been relevant but obviously my commitment to documenting my life has, uh, evolved. But I have to take a moment to document September 24, 2013, the day after the Pittsburgh Pirates clinched a playoffs spot for the first time in 21 years. I wrote about my hopes for their then-potential first winning season for Draft Day Suit back in July, though my hopes for that milestone are now replaced with bigger goals.

The baby and I were watching the game, which was one of the more stressful things I’ve ever watched. There were multiple moments where my heart sped up in excitement or terror, but I don’t think I want to know what might surpass the final play of that game in terms of sheer insane intensity.

I’m not exaggerating at all when I tell you that I was SCREAMING during this play. Screaming obscenities, screaming prayers, screaming in tongues. Rewatching it later with the husband, who had been DJing during the game, the sensation wasn’t at all diminished. Watching it now, my heart still pounds.

As someone noted on Twitter last night:

It started 21 years ago with a play at the plate. It ends 21 years later with a play at the plate.

— Tyler Graham (@TGraham930) September 24, 2013

This win, of course, is still many steps away from the real goal. But the poetic bookends of our losing streak beginning 21 years ago at a home plate in Atlanta, a bomb in the shape of Sid Bream, to last night’s excruciatingly marvelous play at a home plate in Chicago killing that streak could not have been written better.

I stayed up way too late last night, too wired to sleep, looking at any pictures I could find of the game. This one struck me and I checked this morning to make sure that it was actually that perfect or if my brain was just exhausted.

I’m fairly certain that this is one of the finest sports pictures I’ve ever seen. The umpire’s melodramatic stance and gesture, the utter defeat of the runner, and the triumphant catcher. It’s a perfect sequence of a defining moment in time, a story told in one flick of the eyes from left to right.

The more I looked at it, the more my eyes kept drifting up to the man in the stands, his arms raised in triumph, his shirt giving the slightest detail to communicate who he is cheering for. It reminded me of a somewhat similar picture, taken over 40 years earlier, when the celebration was even bigger.

In between Manny Sanguillen and Steve Blass, a lone Pirates fan cheers for his new World Series champions.

These are not the same kinds of moments, because any wins that we get beyond last night’s will be even bigger and more important. But everyone who was in Pittsburgh last night, either physically or in their hearts, struck the same pose. And, man, did it feel good to stretch.

I recently lamented on Twitter (twit-mented? lamentweed?):

Literally every weekend for the past month or so has been outstanding. Downside is that they’re making Mondays increasingly brutal. #fb

— kdiddy (@kdiddy) October 14, 2012

This past weekend was similarly excellent, though not because of all of the events going on, but because of the lack of them. For the first time in many weeks, the husband, the baby, and I got to be together from Friday evening all the way to Monday morning.

While the baby was at his piano lesson Friday after school, the husband and I went on a little date to Fuel & Fuddle. We met up with the baby and my mom afterward and then headed to Squirrel Hill to see Samsara, a documentary that I’ve been anticipating for years. I had told the baby going in that this was a different kind of movie: there wasn’t any dialogue or a story, per se, just images of life and the world for the purpose of giving you something to think about.

SAMSARA Teaser from Baraka & Samsara on Vimeo.

He did have a few questions of the, “Where is that? Why are they doing that?” variety during the movie and I tried to get him to save them until after. A film that quiet and atmospheric needs a similarly serene and receptive audience. Overall, however, he handled it amazingly well and even had some really interesting thoughts afterward.

(The fact that a 10-year-old was able to experience it that way should have made the grown people sitting behind us feel that much dumber for talking the whole time and drunkenly getting up and falling down several times. If you’re over the age of say, 15, and you can’t sit still and contemplate life for at least a little bit, you need to just put your eatin’ dress on and stay in the house. We have shit to do out here.)

During our furious discussion of the movie afterward via iMessage, Frank had told me that he felt very grim after seeing it. I can see why, there were some very unpleasant things portrayed. But even the shots of landfills and meat factories didn’t upset me the way that they might normally. I just kept seeing images of chaos and our sometimes precious attempts to impose order on it. It made me feel very serene, like nothing that is happening is somehow surprising or out of turn. Not that we should take that as a reason to be uncaring or cold or seek change where it is needed. But that familiar panic that ordinarily wells up inside of me when I think about all that there is to think about didn’t show up. And it can stay gone, for all I care.

I think this moment is really what did it for me:

Who knows the story of his life and his tattoos? But it seems safe to assume that some chaos, good or bad, led him to mark his body, his method of asserting control where he could. But none of that is relevant here, as he nuzzles his infant daughter. She softly touches his face as the world suddenly becomes very small, a population of 7 billion reduced to 2 in a moment that is repeated over and over again everywhere.

The absence of Big Exciting Things to do this weekend meant that my world got to be wonderfully small for a few days. On Saturday, we went to Trax Farm to re-up on our decorative gourds (motherfuckers). The baby tried to tell us that he was too old for that stuff and after I pieced together the shards of my shattered heart upon hearing of this omen of adolescence, I pushed him into the car with the promise of, “FAMILY TOGETHERNESS AND FUN TIMES GODDAMMIT!” But after we drove past all of the pretty foliage and once we got there and that unmistakeable potpourri of kettle corn and animal poo hit him, he warmed right up.

Adopting Captain Morgan poses on pumpkins and whatnot.

Earlier in the week, he came up to me and said, “Want to do something together this weekend?” And then I died. He does a ton of stuff with seemingly everyone else in his life, while he and I seem to have a strictly business relationship sometimes. Of course, we have moments of enjoying each other’s company, but I realized that very rarely do he and I ever do anything just the two of us. I was trying to think of something to do and we kept shooting down each other’s suggestions. I thought about trying to find a cooking class, since he often wants to help me cook which is hard to do in our tiny kitchen, but I couldn’t seem to find any that were for kids and parents. Finally, I said, “Do you want to cook something together?” He liked that idea and it seemed like the least stress-inducing option. We wouldn’t have to go anywhere or spend any money, and he had an eye on a recipe for mini deep dish pizzas.

So, yesterday I set everything out for us and let him do mostly everything, only helping when he asked me to. “This is so much fun!” he said. And it really was. Plus, those little pizzas were so good. He also helped me to make some applesauce from the bushel of apples that we brought home, which was especially exciting since he got to use the cool apple peeler.

Today, the world is its usual size and its attempts to bring order to everything seem so silly. I can’t wait to get back to my cozy little microcosm.

The husband and I are at an age where we’re attending weddings fairly regularly. We had three this year and have at least one on deck next year. I can’t say that I’m too irritated about it. I really like weddings. In general, everyone is high off of the love fumes of the event and has a great time.

Of course, such blessed events are always so much more special when the marrying couple is dear to your heart. On Saturday, one of the husband’s bandmates, Preslav, married his long-time girlfriend Erin, and we were on hand to witness the union.

An interesting fact about the husband’s band is that all three members have been with their significant others for 12 years and all three initially got together with said significant others within six months of each other in 2000. The husband and I got married in 2006. Adam and Emily got married in 2009. We were thrilled when Preslav and Erin announced last year that they were finally going to make it official in 2012.

Pittsburgh Track Authority: the luckiest guys alive since 2000.

While the husband and I have known Preslav and Adam since Jesus was a boy, the better halves hadn’t had much opportunity to get to know each other until Pittsburgh Track Authority really started to take shape. Then Emily, Erin, and I had a chance to interact more often. We had the common bond of being in long (LONG) term relationships from a fairly young age and supporting in every possible way our respective dudes through their musical odysseys. Getting to know all of them better made me realize that this little group of people was pretty special. Musically, I think they’re on the edge of something big. Personally, it’s always so cool to realize that you’ve stumbled upon some folks who get you in ways that you didn’t even know you needed to be understood.

The husband and I arrived at the Mattress Factory about a half hour before everything was supposed to begin bearing a speaker for the DJ and cookies for the reception. We mingled for a bit before finding our seats. The place looked amazing and as the ceremony began I was blown away by how beautiful everything was. Preslav and Erin were gorgeous and their actual ceremony was short enough that I didn’t get a chance to start sobbing inappropriately like I usually do. I watched these two soulmates promise themselves to each other and grinned at how nervously excited they were. Preslav fidgeted with Erin’s hands and Erin let a few tears escape.

The reception was just one of the best I’ve been to. Everything was so relaxed and just felt like a really special party. Preslav and I noted that everyone looked so nice and I commented that it was probably one of the best looking weddings I’ve seen. Our friend Jim was DJing and he’s especially skilled at knowing just what to play. It was so refreshing to be amongst a group of people who weren’t nervous or shy about dancing, but who were just happy to be there celebrating this wonderful event. Dance music nerds have the most fun always.

The cops came by several times to warn us about the noise but I was glad that the music was loud enough to drown out the fact that I was singing along to everything, especially when Jim played one of my favorite songs ever:

I would never claim to be wise about love and relationships. Each one is so different and has its own unique set of challenges that it’s impossible to even glimpse the contents of anyone else’s heart. But I know what it is to be in the presence of the real thing. I can often step away and see it in the husband and I, and I could definitely feel it all around us on Saturday. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that the secret to making love work is to grab that moment and never let go of it, allow it to always be present in plenty and in want, in sickness and health, in good times and bad. If you follow that, you can never go wrong.

Right after Erin and Preslav were presented for the first time as husband and wife, Preslav fumbled for a second and asked Erin which way they were going. Erin replied, “Straight ahead.” We all laughed at the cute blunder. But to me it was the perfect way to take their first married steps.

Straight ahead. And if you get lost, just ask the amazing person walking right beside you.

Congratulations Erin and Preslav, October 13, 2012

This weekend was so great. So, so great. So great that I’m not even that bitter that I don’t have off of work today like seemingly everyone else.

As I mentioned on Friday, we were going to be attending the VIA festival. I was worried that we were going to be too tired to rally for all of the events, but it turned out that we had almost non-stop fun for nearly three days.

I was late to the dance workshop at the Shadow Lounge on Friday because I had to take the bus over after work. Even though I left my office a few minutes early, the bus was late and I wandered in when there was only under an hour left. But I got to see the husband, the baby, and the sister-in-law, who was in town for the festival, work on their footwork.

I joined in for a bit and felt pretty confident about my new dance skills until Manny, one of the guys leading the workshop, came into the center of the floor to demonstrate what footwork looks like when done well and at full speed.

It was, um, humbling.

We hit up Buffalo Blues for (a somewhat disappointing) dinner before heading back out to see a pop-up arcade. This was a raw, storefront space that had been taken over by Babycastles. The baby got a huge kick out of it and it was cool to see people creating their own video games right then and there. The baby lamented that I don’t let him play games like Call of Duty and such. I consider myself very liberal in what I expose him to via media (read: if you’ve written an indignant blog post about parents taking their kid to an R-rated movie, I was probably the object of your outrage), but there are a few things that I’m just not comfortable with, and some of the first-person shooter games creep me out. When he’s still kind of little and sweet, I just can’t take watching him pretend to be a hardcore assassin. But the pop-up arcade was inspiring because he got to see people making fun games that weren’t whatever is most heavily marketed. Got a fun idea for a game? Make it! Don’t wait for someone to sell it to you.

I could tell that the baby was really happy to be out doing stuff like this with us. He’s intrigued by the fact that we regularly go out to hear music and stay out very late and I hope that his desire to someday do that with us remains intact until he is old enough to do so. In the meantime, he was off to spend the night at my mother-in-law’s house. As we put him in the car, he very sweetly called out to us, “Have fun at VIA!” Ugh, he’s amazing. And the VIA folks need to make that into a commercial.

The musical acts that night were going to be in the old PNC Bank in East Liberty. Zuzuka Ponderosa was great, but we were all pretty unimpressed with SSION. Things reached some kind of weirdness apex when none other than Girl Talk took the stage wearing a Steelers uniform. He played some noise for about 10 minutes tops while some seizure-inducing strobe lights kept up. People in masks handed out and threw Arby’s roast beef sandwiches to the crowd before a confetti blast went out. It was bizarre.

Tiger & Woods got us interested again, though, and Spinn and Rashad took things to a frantic level of fun. I was completely drenched in sweat from dancing so hard. We headed over to the after party to hear Santiago Salazar. We were dancing until 4:30 in the morning. When we finally left, the temperature had dropped at least 20 degrees and it had started to rain. So Pittsburgh. So lovely.

The next night was the highly anticipated performance by Moodymann, who is one of our favorites from Detroit. Nearly all of our friends were out, which made it that much more special.

The hotties from Pittsburgh Track Authority. I’m partial to the one in the middle.

Moodymann played hot and sexy and fun house music and displayed his legendarily bizarre personality, taking the opportunity to talk briefly about the Steelers and hand out cups of Hennessy to the crowd.

He was sitting over near the door when things were wrapping up and I had to go and tell him how much fun I’d had during his set. He appreciated my tshirt, which was from the roller rink in Detroit where he throws a skating party during the festival there. While he chatted with the sister-in-law, I talked to his daughter, who was one of the sweetest girls ever.

One more after party, before we dragged our selves back home at the relatively reasonable hour of 3:30.

Something to add to your list of universal truths? Pizza, even a weird hipster Domino’s pizza, tastes amazing at that hour.

I love that I danced my butt off to musicians from all over the world in old banks and odd little speakeasy-type places and then found myself chomping on nachos at a Steelers game less than 12 hours later.

The sister-in-law and I, wearing a combined total of 57 shirts, 8 pairs of pants, 20 pairs of socks, and three Terrible Towels.

Pittsburgh is just so weird and wonderful.

These past two weekends are causing a bit of deja vu.

Last year, on the last Sunday of September, I ran the Great Race, then the baby had his soccer pictures, then he had a soccer game, then he went to a Pirates game with my dad, and we celebrated the husband’s birthday. This year, on the last Sunday of September, I ran the Great Race, then the baby had his soccer pictures, then he had a soccer game, then he went to a Pirates game with my dad. We celebrated the husband’s birthday a few days earlier.

Last year, on the first Saturday of October, the husband and I were out suuuuuuper super late at one of the VIA events, then got about 30 minutes of sleep before going to the baby’s soccer game at motherfucking 9:00 in the a.m. This year, on the first Saturday of October, the husband and I will be out suuuuuuuper super late at one of the VIA events, then get about 30 minutes of sleep before going to the baby’s soccer game at motherfucking 9:00 in the a.m.

Argh. These two weekends are shaping up to be traditionally equal parts exhilarating and annoying and tiring. However, last year, while lamenting to our partied out friend about our son’s early morning athletics, said friend replied, “I FUCKING LOVE SOCCER!” which was kind of the most perfectly slurred thing to say at that moment. I hope he does it again.

Anyway, if you are in the Pittsburgh area, you should definitely come out to some of the events happening as part of the VIA festival. It’s been going on for the past few days and some supremely cool things will be happening this weekend. We’re taking the baby to the juke + footwork workshop at the Shadow Lounge this evening, then the husband and I will be checking out some music and visuals at the old PNC Bank in East Liberty. Tomorrow night, we’re going to see Moodymann, one of our Detroit faves, which I’m just so, so excited about.

I can’t overstate how fantastic it is that something like this goes on every year in Pittsburgh. If you have some time to kill, check out some of the events. A lot of them are during the day and are all ages, so bring the kids!

So, you know how I mentioned in my last post that I was nervous about running the Great Race? I totally downplayed just how freaked out I was. Friday night I was getting really worked up and thinking that I should just not go. Especially after we drove from around Frick Park to downtown on the way home from a relative’s house and I thought, “This is really faaarrrr. Shit. It took us awhile to drive this distance. What kind of crazy person runs this?” Saturday I was home by myself most of the day, which was good in the sense that the husband and the kid didn’t have to be subjected to my panic, but bad in the sense that I really got down on myself.

I’m not going to be able to finish. Everyone there is going to be a serious runner since it’s a longer distance. I’m going to collapse on the side of the road in tears by mile 2.

I had only gone the full 10k distance once on a treadmill and I had had to walk and stop quite a few times. I was not at all confident that I would be able to go the full distance on the road and the controlled environment of my gym.

But Sunday morning came around and I found myself lined up with about 5,000 other people in Frick Park. I nervously stretched and danced around to keep warm and reasoned with myself.

If I have to walk a little bit, I’m not going to get upset about it. I will finish this.

The starting gun went off and we slowly funneled our way to the start line. It took me about five minutes to finally get there. As I started running, it seemed like absolutely everyone was flying past me. I kept feeling my legs trying to speed up to catch up with them, but I kept telling myself, “You can’t keep up with them and that’s okay. You need to just keep going at a pace you can maintain.”

I felt like I was going pretty slow, but I had put together an awesome playlist that was the perfect tempo to keep me at a reasonable pace. I was surprised to see the first mile marker since it didn’t seem like we had gone that far. When we got to Carnegie Mellon, the second mile marker appeared and I was not ready to collapse. I knew that the halfway point would be smack in the middle of the Pitt campus and if I could make it that far, I would take a walking break if I really needed to.

Close to the halfway point, it started to rain and I realized that I was feeling pretty good and might actually run the whole way. I was wearing the hat that had come in our race packets, and I was so glad that I did since it kept the rain off of my face. I also used it to prevent myself from looking too far ahead and getting worried about how much farther I had to go. Instead I looked at the feet of the people in front of me and matched their steps to the beats of my music. It was kind of hypnotic.

I missed the 4-mile marker entirely, but looked up when we got close to Duquesne because a band was outside cheering everyone on. There was a guy on the other side of the road shouting and cheering and letting us know that we were at mile 5 and only had a little over 1 mile to go.

Mile 5? Whoa, this is almost over.

I also knew that we were past all of the hills and it would be downhill and then flat the rest of the way. At that point, I realized that I could totally make it the rest of the way running.

So I did. I just kept going.

The rain started coming down harder and I laughed when “Just the Two of Us” by Bill Withers started playing in my earphones.

“I see the crystal raindrops fall and the beauty of it all…”

I guess the proverbial runner’s high was kicking in. I felt great and proud of myself and everyone else that was splashing toward the finish line with me. I couldn’t believe how willing my body was to continue. At the Great Race 5k last year and during practically every run between then and now, I had let my brain tell me how I was too heavy to run so far and that I couldn’t finish without walking some. But here I was, just doing the damn thing.

Point State Park finally came into view and I literally could not believe it when I saw the finish line. I ran through and trotted into the muddy area where everyone was meeting up and wolfing down water and bananas.

My legs felt like they were vibrating and when my mom found me I could tell that my eyes were wide and that I was babbling that I had ran the whole time.

I don’t think I can even begin to explain how excited I was to achieve such a goal, even though I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to. I think I’ll let my soggy grin tell that story.

P.S. The title of this post comes from one of my running playlist mainstays, “Running Up that Hill” by Kate Bush: