Time for a bit of honesty I suppose. I am absolutely terrible at two things-I have no sense of time and No sense of direction. You'd think that given nature's odds there would have to be at least ONE time that I exit the elevator at work and turn the right direction. Nope. Every single day I get to either the lobby or my floor, turn the wrong way, then double back. Every time. Then there's time...I don't know how most people count their days or months or years...I used to know what day/month/year it was based around school...that's how I counted time. When I started working I started waking up every morning with absolutely NO idea what day it was. Sunday? Friday? Thursday? Saturday? I was perpetually in total panic mode in the morning. Being the problem solver I am, I figured out a solution: facebook. No one has ever asked me about it, but every day I post a status with not just a quote but a "Happy _____"insert day of the week. Not because I'm thrilled it's Monday (WHO IS?!) but because it's how I keep track of time.
Second way I keep track of time: sports. It's weird, but I know what month it is based on what sports are playing. I was just thinking about the rest of this year-like May is French Open, June is Wimbledon, end of June/July is Tour de France, April is when baseball starts (and ends in October/Nov), August this year is the OLYMPICS!!! (no really, it's that exciting) and NBA championship is thrown in there somewhere. When the next tour de france rolls around I'm like "wow, has it really been a whole year? I guess it has!" and that's how I know it's been a year. You have your ways, I have mine.
I decided to take my own advice this week and write down a jumble of thoughts and send it to my dad. Here's the thing: I scored the jackpot in the lottery of dads. He gives hands down, the best advice. He's objective about it, he can point out reality from emotions and he's got so much common sense it's crazy. He also gets approached from Everyone I know for advice. So needless to say, it helps that I'm his daughter and I get to go to the top of his list for attention and help. This week was a big one for me. It's like everything that I was thinking/worrying/stressing about came to this GIANT climax where I couldn't see backwards or forwards and I had freaked myself out. On my way to a yankees game I sat on the subway and typed out this email to my dad, spilling everything and not really sure if I was making sense. When I got home from the yankees game he called me (TEARS of JOY are not enough to explain how happy I was to hear from him), he was on his way home from the success of one of his many incredible extracurriculars and said it would be easier to call than respond to my email. He gave me TONS of advice. I have been struggling with balancing my life-work, social, church calling, etc and my desires to excel at all of them. He told me the key is to "Work smart, not hard." Make efficient use of my time at work, get things done twice as fast. He also talked about being that person that gets things done, becoming invaluable in the office and working in a way that people feel they can't survive without me. It doesn't mean work has to take over my life, I just work smart. He also talked about how to get things done, and that may have been one of my favorite conversations with him. He talked about his strengths and told me some of my own. If you don't have someone that can tell you what your strengths are and help you out when you've experienced mild amnesia, you Need one of those!!! Find one. And then be that person for them. Then my dad talked to me about my social life and it turns out that not only is he an expert on careers and business, but on love and relationships as well (he credits a Lot to my amazing and inspiring mom, she's basically the key to everything.) All in all, best talk. And I'm back on track and sure of where I'm going and what I'm doing and it feels GOOD.
As I woke up this morning, I thought about a quote my dad talked about yesterday, after finishing the half marathon with my mom (seriously, could my parents be cuter?!) and he was telling me about his talk that he's giving in church. He said when Greg Lemond won the Tour de France for the third time they asked him if it was easier after having won two previous times. He said "it never gets easier, you just go faster." What a brilliant metaphor for life. A lot of people think the Tour is boring...people spinning wheels through the countryside for 3 hours a day, how dull. But my Favorite part about cycling is to see the rider's faces. They say Lance Armstrong was able to win the Tour so many times because he Enjoys suffering, the more he suffers the happier he gets. You watch these riders race to the finish line, crash and mount their bikes covered in blood and road rash, riding with broken bones and total dehydration, and you can literally see the pain etched on their faces. The riders that win the stage, that win the Tour, are the ones with the Mental capacity to shove the pain aside, and keep riding. Keep going. Because it never gets easier, you just go faster.
Happy Sunday! :)
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