10 years seriously 10 years?

10 years ago tomorrow was my very last Cross Country race ever in High School. Where did the last 10 years go? Life has completely and utterly flown by. I still remember that day like it was yesterday. It is the ONLY race that I threw up before because of nerves. It is also pretty much the only race that I felt like crying afterwards. I remember the whole bus ride home trying not to cry because of the bittersweetness of the moment. That day really was the beginning of the end of my senior year. It is when all of the "last times" really started. But honestly that day was so much fun, I couldnt of asked for a better last day. I loved all 6 years that I ran xcountry but senior year was definitely one of the best years. From being Captain, to winning Quabbin, to the last race at Franklin Park to Districts.
Nothing defined my high school (and part of middle school) career like running xcountry did. It was who I was back then. My life completely evolved around running. There is not a thing about those 6 years of my life that I regret at all. Most of that is because of who I became because I had great role models and found a place where I truly felt like I blonged. Early on in middle school that wasnt always true but when I started running xcountry I found that place that every kid looks for. I just hope someday that I give that same feeling of belonging to a student who really needs that too. It not only gave me somewhere to belong but it also gave me a lot of self confidence that I didnt have before. It gave me an identity and long lasting relationships. Relationships that continue strong to this day, and that mean the world to me. There really are so many things I learned during those years that I dont even know how to put them into words. One of the biggest things I learned was it doesnt matter what anyone else thinks as long as you are true to yourself. I had some amazing coaches both in xcountry and in track, who were and continue to be important in my life. They showed me what it means to be a good teacher and friend. Whats funny is back then I really took the life I had during those years for granted. I remember being in high school and complaining about how unpopular I was. What I didnt realize then was that I may not have had the most friends, and while I didnt get along with all my classmates, I had true friendships and respect from most of my classmates. I also had respect from my teachers. Looking back now I had absolutely no reason to complain then or to feel bad for myself for my "lack of friends". Running xcountry gave me so many opportunities that I wouldnt of had otherwise, the funny thing is I didnt want to join at first (believe it or not) My mom was the one who made me sign up for it in 7th grade because my older sister was in it and she thought it would be good for me. I dont think she thought I would end up loving it and being as obsessed with it as I became :). The opportunities it gave me were runnign at a Division 2 school (Assumption) and actually having college coaches interested in me coming to run on their teams which I didnt think was possible ever, runninng at Framingham State as well. All the friends I have made over the years both on my own teams and on other teams. going to running camp, Being accepted into a leadership program at Framingham State, All the people I have met at road races since then, and hopefully in the future running a marathon to raise money for Epilepsy. My doctors also believe running xcountry and track in hs is one of the only reasons my seizures didnt become prevalent earlier in my life. Running is what kept them away. All of those fun times (I have so many memories they would make this blog way too long to read in one sitting, which is why I am making a scrapbook) and all of the opportunities I got, all of my friendships, are what made those 6 years some of the best in my life. They are also why I think I become so sentimental over those years. I will never look back on xcountry with a negative thought.
Over the last few months while I have been on this soul searching trip there have been numerous occasions when I wished I was back at that age and running xcountry because the times were simpler and happier then. But now looking back I realized that as much as I have searched to find that person again, in many ways I am the same person. I still love many of the same things, I still care about people the way I did back then. I love to help people and even though I havent been consistent with it I still love to run. Since school started this year I have pretty much gone into a bit of a depression this year. I have tried my hardest to hide this from people including myself as I was in denial for a long time. I have had rough periods before but this was definitely bordering on a severe depression. So severe that when I was aware of it I was starting to worry myself but at the same time I couldnt have cared less about what was going on at the same time. Other than work I didnt want to do anything, I stopped taking care of myself for the most part, and I started to isolate myself from my family and even from some very good friends. I do not know what caused this for sure, I have some ideas but I am not ready to share them at this time. I also dont know what exactly began to bring me out of this depression. The good news is I am on my way out of this depression. I am no longer wishing I was someone else or somewhere else. I am back to looking at each day as a gift and am back to enjoying the things I used to do. I am really looking forward to the next year and the next 10 years after that. I am now ready to take life on and to stop being ashamed of who I had become. I am realizing that I have nothing to be ashamed of. Even though on occasion I still feel ashamed but no where near what I would feel before I came out of my depression. A lot of friends really helped me out over the last couple months without even realizing it. I promise to be out and about more and to be there for you like you have been there for me. Ok well I have pretty much spent my entire afternoon writing this, and I did want to get more done on my scrapbook as I have pretty much done nothing for it since school started. I know this was really long and if you are reading the end of this thanks for taking the time out of your day to care about what I write and am going through to read the entire thing. I really am a lucky young (even though my students keep telling me I am old) woman.

Confidence on the way up

Today was a good day. I completed my first 5k since May 2011. It felt absolutely amazing!!!! I really was slow as mollasses and it was my slowest 5k ever, but thats ok. I dont expect to get back to my 6 minute pace that I was at in HS again, I would just like to get down to my 8 or 9 minute pace. I dont expect that to happen right now, as I need to continue working on my endurance first. The best part of today was just really enjoying the run while it was happening. Another good thing happened when I got home from the race. I walked into my bedroom and saw my running trophies from HS/college. With my confidence down this summer and lately, there have been numerous times where I have looked at them and felt dissapointed in the person I have turned into and felt like I was letting soo many people down (this has gotten better as I have stopped worrying so much about others but it still happens on occasion.)To be honest there have been a couple times where I even doubted if I deserved them. That was on my worst days. Today I was able to walk into my room see those trophies and just feel proud of them and of myself. I am also gaining more confidence which is allowing my positive attitude that I had in hs, to come back. I am beginning to enjoy my life again and not worry about the little things. I am looking forward to continuing to run and maybe by this time next year I will be ready to run my first half marathon???? I am finally beginning to feel like I have reachable goals again, and that is what will keep me moving forward that and the wonderful support I have and continue to receive from my friends and family.



My soul has known all along that running is what I needed to move forward but my mind is what caused me to be stuck with all of my doubts and negative thoughts.



I know its going to take a while to competely leave this "dark period" behind me, but I am ready to leave it behind me instead of letting it define me and change me.

Race in 3 days

Hi Everyone, Dont worry I am alive lol. Sorry it has been so long since I last posted on here. The school year has been very hectic. I have lost track of my goal to take better care of myself this year. My running (consistenly I have been running some) has been set aside not consciously but as a side effect of me not taking better care of myself. Earlier today I was thinking should I really run the 5k this weekend. But I have decided to run it. I may not be able to run the whole thing straight through, but I know I can at least run 5 minutes walk 1 for the 3.1 miles. I need to do this for myself. I need to give myself a present and that present is going to be not giving up on myself. On twitter I follow a group called real runners which just has lots of quotes and one that popped up tonight was "Sometimes I just need to believe in me". Right now that quote couldnt be more true. I was starting to believe in me over the summer but I slipped back a little I think. So tomorrow I am going for a run, and spending the night taking care of myself. I normally volunteer on Thursdays but am going to take this THursday off as I need to be selfish for one night. This weeks goal : Run that 5K on Saturday am.It is in Shrewsbury and I have one this course once before (if they didnt change the route) and I remember most of it is actually pretty doable theres just a big hill near the end when youre already tired. But I know I can do it. I will blog again after the race to let you know how it felt.

balance

So when I came on to the site to start my new post, I realized I havent posted since August 14th. I definitely didnt mean to take that long off, there just has been a lot going on. Both good things and rough things. Great end of the summer time with my family. Both sisters dealing with health issues. Mom getting into a car accident and on a seperate occasion ending up in the ER due to vertigo. What a month August has been. It also caused me to have some self doubts about myself and my running. It is slowly getting better. I mean I went for a workout this morning and really wanted to go for a run this afternoon too, but had too much stuff to do around the apartment and for work tomorrow. I dont know what caused me to doubt myself so much. I really wish I knew. I also lost my momentum on my weight loss journey, I did keep going down but only by .6 or 1. I am slowly getting back on track and am realizing that even though I want to make other people proud (I really do want to make them proud) The only person who really matters when it comes to making someone proud is myself. That is the thing that I need to keep reminding myself of. I also saw this quote today " When you stop expecting people to be Perfect, you can like them for who they are" -Donald Miller. When I saw that quote it kind of hit me in the gut, because I immediately thought of how I could change just a couple words and it could be "When you stop expecting yourself to be perfect, you can like yourself for who you are." I am still working on not expecting myself to be perfect. For some reason I have started expecting myself to be perfect every moment of the day. That expectation of perfection just isnt working. It is making myself even more stressed and makes myself even more discouraged in everything I do. This will be a challenge to me this year. The other thing that is a challenge to me this year is taking care of myself. I have always always put others before myself. It is just part of my personality, that I take care of other people. I love taking care of others. Somehow in the last few years I have lost the ability/knowledge of how to balance taking care of others with taking care of myself. To be honest, I have a very hard time even figuring out how to balance the two. But knowing the challenges I have coming my way this year I am going to have to figure out how to balnce the two. This next month I am really going to focus on myself and this 5k race. When I was doing xcountry I loved the feeling I got after completing a 5k race. I was one of the few girls in my grade to do xcountry (even in college the team was only 7 girls) so it helped to make me special. It also made me proud of myself. When I dont want to go for a run because I am tired I am going to focus on that.

One of those days

So today is one of those days. I am feeling slightly depressed today and dont know why I really dont have anything to be depressed over. I had an interview for a full time teaching position today. I got a haircut yesterday and got my ears pierced today (for the second time, I havent worn earings in years so the holes closed up). I have been losing weight I have been working out, I am not where I want to be with that but I will get there. But I still am not happy today. I dont know why. It feels like I have every reason to be happy and I just dont know why Im not. Not knowing why I'm upset just makes me more upset. Today is just one of those days I really just feel like sitting here and crying. Why on a good week do I feel like crying? Why do I feel bad for not being happy me all the time. I mean I am Carolyn, everyone expects me to be the smiling upbeat one. The one they can go to. But how am I supposed to help people when I feel this way. Why do I feel bad for worrying my mom when I sound tired. I just feel sooo overwhelmed today. I have pretty much done nothing today (other then my interview) because I felt like this all day. I am going to go try and get one thing done. Maybe if I do that I will start feeling a bit better. Whats worse is that now I feel guilty for venting and writing this, when I know so many of my friends are going through a difficult time right now. Somedays I wonder is this cycle ever going to end? When will things improve?

Mission Statement

So the spring semester of my sophomore year at Framingham State I participated in a program called Emerging Leaders. Our big homework assignment was to create a mission statement in any way you like. I created a scrapbook. Any surprise to anyone? I have decided to share with you what my mission statement was in 2005. It was not numbered in my scrapbook but to make it easier to read on here I will number it.
1) I will look at things half full.
2) I will be strong and keep to my values.
3) Always be true to family and friends
4) Never forget where you've been
5) Follow your dreams (this had a picture of the 2003 Boston Marathon with it, my sisters attempt to take a picture of someone I knew running in it while I was cheering, since I was jumping too much to take it. I never got the picture I wanted but got lots of other good ones of people I dont know lol)
6) Do not be afraid of change
7) Welcoe each new day
8) Be the best teacher I can be
9) Never stop learning
10) Have faith in others
11) Never give up hope
12) Imagine the possibilities
13) Stay true to yourself
14) Remember the people who have helped you along the way. Teachers Family Friends Coaches
15) Enjoy Life
16) Quotes to live by:
- The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is the jersey. The old ballplayer cared about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back.
~ Steve Garvey
- Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
~ John F. Kennedy
- The same should be true for other people not just your country
~ Carolyn Moran
- The Miracle is not that I finished but that I had the courage to start"
- The Penguin
Some of this I have stayed true to other parts I have not. But the analysis of this is a topic for another days post.

Focusing on me

This week I dont have any work until Friday which is the last tutoring sesion so even that will be easy. I have decided that this week I will focus solely on myself and not on whether or not I am dissapointing others. I have been reminded by a few friends over the last few weeks that they will love me no matter what and are proud of me already. That is one thing that I think is finally getting through my hard head. Yes I am stubborn and yes things tend to take a while to get through this thick skull of mine. But dont worry I am pretty sure that all of you telling me you love me no matter what is making its way through my brain. For the next week I am going to focus solely on what I need to get done and what I want to do during the week. Right now this is what I want to do this week 1) Workout 2) get my clothes ready for the school year 3) get myself organized 4) Get my haircut 5) Finish my scrapbook before school starts. I am going to spend this week focusing on working out. I am going to plan most days around that. I am currently planning to get my run in the morning (currently it is 2 miles but may end up being longer) then in the afternoon I will either do another 2 mile run or go for a walk. The reason I am starting this now is because I think even during the school year I can fit in 2 workouts. I know I can fit in at least a mile run in the morning then I can do my longer run in the afternoon. I am beginning to find the parts of me that I loved again. Running is bringing back my spirit. I am always looking forward to my runs. Running is really what keeps me emotionally steady. I dont know why I didnt realize that before but I am finally realizing it now. I think that I just had a rebellious period, where running was expected of me and it was almost all that was expected of me, so I didnt want to do it. Running became my identity, and I think it had been my identity for soo long, (From 7th grade on I was the runner and thats what I was known to by everyone I went to HS with) I guess when you are the only girl in your grade who runs it just naturally becomes your identity. Looking back now I am actually quite proud of that :). Running was something I worked extremely hard on and for. It also gave me so many of the relationships that I have today. From relationships I made at Nipmuc, to Assumption to Framingham. Those relationships are something I will never give up and will do anything for those people. For some reason after College I slipped back into the younger mentality of myself, just wanting to be considered popular. And at that moment I didnt consider running popular. Looking back I was just being stupid and going through a bit of a crisis as it was the first time in 9 years that I was not on a xcountry team. Being part of a team helped me feel like I was part of something and for the first time when I joined xcountry I felt like i was part of something. Senior year of college with not having this I had a bit of an identity crisis. I also had trouble when I graduated balancing the working Carolyn and the other Carolyn. I mean come on by May of 2008 I was working two jobs and that following November I was working a combined 60 plus hours a week. Which was not the best idea. I now know that i need to balance everything out. But just because I need to balnce things out doesnt mean that I dont have priorities. My priority needs to be my health not work (its always been work in the past) The way I am going to make my health my priority is running daily and finding many ways to destress. Oh I am going to get my haircut tomorrow or Tuesday so a new picture will be posted once I get it cut, reminiscing over HS xcountry pictures (look at my facebook page to see those) has made me miss the haircut I had senior year of xcountry. It was so easy to handle and was actually really cute. Or at least I thought so.