Yes I Can

I’m going to be uncharacteristically serious here. I’m not sure where the lack of stupid jokes is coming from. I assure you, it won’t last.

I’ve been thinking a lot these days as I pound the pavement, attempting to motivate my body to run a little further each time. I’ve been thinking about the things that I can and can’t do and how it affects the way that I see myself.

I think that sometimes I see myself as a person who is incapable of doing certain things and, as a result, I end up subconsciously sabotaging myself. Or giving up before I accomplish what I had set out to do. For the longest time, I saw myself as a person who couldn’t drive stick. It was all wrapped up in my identity. Just as much as I was a person who sings, a person with curly hair, a person who cries during sappy movies. Sometimes our capabilities become the labels that we give ourselves. Driving a standard was something that I wasn’t very good at for quite some time. A very long time. The longest time. I tried to learn more than once, but each attempt ended in failure. So, I started to operate under the assumption that I was, eventually, going to start back at square one. Even when I bought a truck with a manual transmission. Long after I was able to drive my truck places without stalling out at every red light, I still drove with the assumption that the other shoe was about to drop. And I don’t mean my left foot on the clutch.

Although, Kristian did have to point out that I was riding that clutch pretty hard.

(Keep your dirty jokes to yourself, please).

It wasn’t until one day, when driving Kristian’s car somewhere, that I realized that my left foot was tapping around, looking for that third pedal. And then it hit me.

I can drive a standard.

Also, my left foot apparently has a mind of its own. Let’s just be glad that it likes the clutch and not world domination.

I feel like I am doing the same thing with my attempts to run farther and lose more weight. I’ve never been able to get below 150 pounds and I’ve never managed to get myself running more than three miles or so. So, I think that I’ve just been assuming that this will always be the case.

After years of being bean pole skinny, my identity was all tied up in being thin. And then, I gained about 30 pounds in college. And it took some time for me to come to grips with the fact that I was no longer bean pole skinny. In actuality, I was now fairly chubby. Some fashion mistakes were made. Many of them involving muffin tops. I tried on all the wrong clothes and all the wrong sizes. Because the girl looking back at me from the mirror bore absolutely no resemblance to my physical presence. And then, slowly but surely, my self-identity changed. I was a big girl. And just sortof assumed that this would always be the case.

I have, little by little, managed to lose some weight. I was a size 12 when I graduated from college. I’m currently about a size 8. Which is not a horrible size to be, although at 155 pounds I’m classified as overweight.

I think that my problem is that, in the past, whenever I resolved to lose weight or to run longer distances, I started with the idea that this was something I needed to steel myself for. To strain for. To push myself to do. And there was always that little voice in the back of my head saying that this wasn’t something that I was going to be able to accomplish. I’m not a runner. I’m chubby. That’s who I am.

In actuality, I think that the right attitude is probably to just assume from the start that I’m going to lose weight and that I’m going to run a half marathon and that is all there is to it. I read something the other day that, when you freak out about sticking to your diet plan, you’re actually more likely to cheat. We want what we can’t have. Obsessing over your ability to make healthy choices just reminds you of all the things that you’re not supposed to be eating.

I think that I have been successful at a great many things in my life because I often operate under the assumption of, “I can do that.” Sew a quilt from scratch? Of course I can do that. Make a delicious cupcake recipe from the internet? I’ll whip that up in an hour. Learn to speak fluent Nepali? Why not. Call it swagger, call it cockiness, call it over-confidence… but I start with the decision that I’m going to do this. I can always adjust my game plan later.

So while I’m running along my usual jogging route, realizing that I’m running faster and with less effort than when I started (also, watching the dog run into things), I’m also going all Stuart Smalley on myself and telling myself that I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and, gosh darnit, I’m going to weigh 140 pounds and run a half marathon. There’s no need to psych myself up for it. There’s no need to push myself to do it. It’s just the way it is.