A news junkie confesses to watching the royal wedding

In the weeks leading up to today's royal wedding, none of the hooplah really seemed to penetrate my consciousness. I scoffed at the excess, disdained the nonstop blather -- until I heard my best friend, Karen, and her daughters talking about their plans to wake up in the middle of the night to watch it live on TV.

Their excited chatter took me back to another royal wedding, 30 years ago, that I got up in the middle of the night to watch -- along with more than 750 million other people -- when I was just an eighth-grader growing up in Fresno.

I remember another night spent watching the news, not such a happy occasion. By this time, Aug. 31, 1997, I was working as a journalist. Like so many others, I watched in horror as "Britain's rose" died in a car crash in a Paris tunnel after being pursued by aggressive paparazzi.

Today's wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton isn't the most significant news happening in the world today. I don't believe that it warrants the coverage that it's getting. But not all news must focus on the negative things happening in the world. There is so much of that as to overwhelm our psyches, sometimes it's ok to just savor a happy moment, especially if it's something that we can share with loved ones in our own lives.

Shared moments in history, happy and tragic, become part of the fabric of our memory. In my lifetime, besides the royal landmarks, other significant news events include the night John Lennon was shot, the night the Berlin Wall came down, and maybe the biggest of all, Sept. 11, 2001.

Talking about the wedding at home, I found that my oldest daughter Alyssa was also interested in watching today's royal nuptials. So we mapped out our plan, recording the news coverage on DVR so we could get up early before school and work and watch the highlights together over coffee (though I happen to be watching the proceedings live at the moment as I can't sleep).

A lot has happened in our world, and in my world, since Princess Diana married Prince Charles in 1981. There are no fairy tales. Not even beautiful princesses get "happily ever after."

But love is real. And the passion I have for watching news unfold and turn into history is something that I am pleased to share with those I love the most at this point in my life - my children. It may not be their passion, but it's a memory we are making that I hope they may look back fondly on 30 years from now.

Starting from now

Shortly after my ex-husband and I split up, I was driving one night, listening to "Little Wonders" by Rob Thomas, and tears began rolling down my cheeks:

"Let it go, let it roll right off your shoulder
Don't you know the hardest part is over?
... All of my regret will wash away somehow
But I cannot forget the way I feel right now
In these small hours."

Never before, as an adult, really, have I let myself feel that pain, any pain. I chose numbness over pain. I blocked pain out, with work or chemicals, running from one thing to the next, one relationship to the next.

That night, I decided to stop the insanity, stop making the same mistakes over and over, expecting a different outcome, a rosy new life without putting in the work of feeling. I would explore the pain, figure out why I kept making the same mistakes and do things differently.

This morning, almost two years later, I was struck by "Someday," another Rob Thomas song, in which he sings about "starting all over again."

Starting all over again is a lie, an illusion. If I'm honest with myself, I can't ever start over, fresh slate, new beginning.

It is impossible, when things get too hard, to "start over." I can change jobs, change schools, end relationships, terminate friendships. I can walk away. But whatever I am walking away from will always be a part of who I am. And until I deal with the baggage in my past, I won't change. The future won't be any better than the past.

I've made some better choices in the past two years. I've learned about myself and I've done some things that I'm really proud of. I have found a strength inside myself that I never knew was there.

I cry a lot more often than I used to, but I laugh more too. I stopped taking medications that were numbing me, turning off my depression and anxiety, but also blocking out joy and happiness.

At times, it is lonely and hard and painful. Sometimes I wake up at night, worried and scared, unable to get back to sleep. I miss having a companion -- not family or children -- with whom to share the pain, and the joy. And still, sometimes, I continue to stumble and make choices that I later regret. The baggage in my past still influences my actions.

Someone asked me recently "If you could do something totally out of character and remain anonymous what would you do?"

I thought a lot about that question, not so much about what I would do if there were no way it could come back on me, but about what looking to live a life without repercussions would mean about me. I can never think that there will be no consequences to my actions.

Realizing that has been key to me. And it hasn't always been part of my mindset, I'm sorry to say. I have made mistakes, made choices in my life that I wouldn't have made if I had known I would have to live with the repercussions for the rest of my life.

No matter what, nothing I do is in a vacuum. Even if no one else ever finds out, I will know in the morning what choices I made, what I did, what mistakes I made, and I have to live with the outcome of that.

Over the years, we pick up so much baggage, good and bad, accomplishments and failures. And we have to deal with all of that, every day of our life. My marriage didn't work out, but without that failure I wouldn't have my beautiful children, who add so much to my life.

The best I can do is start from now, knowing that I am the product of everything I have done so far, every choice, every relationship, every experience. Every accident, every mistake, every intentional act, every success. Learn from all of that and take the next step.

Not starting over. Starting from now.

Surfing into another year

It's my 44th birthday and I'm on the pier in Pismo, high above the waves crashing below. I'm watching surfers, young and strong, gauge the waves as they roll in, ducking beneath the white foam of those they deem not worthy.

Finally, they see the perfect one. And they deliberately try to get on top of it, try to get on top of something roiling and unstable, no solid ground beneath them, only a moving wall of water being pulled in by the moon's forces.

Am I brave enough to try that? To try to stand on a wave and ride it back in to the sands of the beach?

I would think the roar sold be even louder down there, with the water all around you and under you.

I've never liked slipping beneath the surface of the water, losing control, water going over my head, up my nose, in my mouth. Choking and sputtering to get back to the surface. To breathe air again, instead of feeling like I'm drowning.

But maybe to the surfers, the high they get from riding that wave is worth it.

I am not as young as them, but I AM strong. I have proven that to myself over and over. Yes, I still slip beneath the surface at times, but I'm getting better at holding my breath instead of choking on the unexpected water. And I always come back up.

Scaling back, and reaching out

A year ago, I had some big goals looming ahead of me. I was just a couple of weeks away from a hike up Mount Whitney, I had a half marathon in San Francisco in October, and after those things, I began training for my first full marathon, in Atlanta in March.

I achieved everything I set out to do. I missed the time I was shooting for on my marathon by a few minutes. But considering that I ran the entire 26.2 miles on a sprained ankle, I was OK with that. The past 18 months, I had a lot to prove to myself, about overcoming pain, surviving loss and becoming reacquainted with myself, a new and stronger me.

I've tried to keep it going. I wanted to do another full marathon, uninjured, wanted to blast my goal time. But the injury I suffered in March proved to be harder to overcome than I anticipated. Training just isn't where it needs to be to achieve what I had envisioned. And my heart just isn't in it. All summer, I've struggled with my depression as my physical activity level has dropped off.

But I don't have to keep setting the bar that high. I've spent time I might have spent running cultivating some great friendships. And a new adventure lies ahead, as my youngest daughter embarks on her first season playing youth soccer. It's not the same as climbing the highest peak in the lower 48 states, but it's every bit as important to her as my goals were to me. And I want to savor it with her, before she's too old to be ambivalent about my involvement in her life.

In just the past couple of days, I've sorted all of this out in my mind. I've decided it's OK not to run the full marathon I'm signed up for in November. I can be satisfied with doing the half marathon, maybe even improve my best time for that distance. And backing off on the running will free up time to be involved with my daughter's soccer season, and to keep spending time with my friends, who make me smile and laugh.

I'm scaling back, focusing less on just what I want to achieve, solitary goals that show how strong I am. But in doing so, I'm expanding my circle outside of myself, making more time in my life for others who matter to me. Because it doesn't matter what I do on my own, if I don't have those people around me with whom to share it.

Fighting back against the darkness

Last time I wrote, a little more than a month ago, I wrote about a bad day I was having, in regard to my feelings. Bad day is probably putting it too mildly -- meltdown might be more accurate.

And it wasn't the last time that's happened recently. Which is probably why I haven't written in more than a month.

I struggle with depression. At times, I've taken medication for it. But for the past year and a half, I've been trying -- and mostly succeeding -- at dealing with it without prescription medications.

I think running has -- had -- really helped with that. Exercise helps prevent and improve a number of health problems. Research on anxiety, depression and exercise shows that the psychological and physical benefits of exercise can also help reduce anxiety and improve mood, according to an article on the Mayo Clinic website.

So when I was running regularly, it was easier to manage the depression. I trained last summer with Team in Training, preparing for the Nike Women's Half Marathon last October in San Francisco. After that, I trained on my own for my first full-marathon, the ING Georgia Marathon on March 21 in Atlanta.

In 2009, I ran about 550 miles, a new personal record for me. Training for Georgia, I was on pace to break 1,000 miles this year -- between Jan. 1 and March 21, I had ran just under 300 miles. But since March 21, I've only run 31.4 miles. So the depression? Yeah, it's back. But I'm still fighting it.

The reason I've slowed down, stopped for weeks at a time, is because I injured myself the night before my marathon, fell off a curb and sprained my ankle/foot walking to dinner. I ran my marathon anyway -- and I only missed my goal time by 10 minutes. But now I have to heal.

I thought it would only take a couple of weeks of rest for it to be better. After all, I'd run on a sprain before. But that time I only ran 5 miles on an injured ankle (other leg, not the same one), not 26.2. Almost three months later, after X-rays to make sure I didn't fracture anything, I have been going to physical therapy, trying to rebuild strength in my injured foot. It's harder than I thought it would be. Not the pain of the physical therapy necessarily, but the absence of my healthy antidepressant, my running.

Yesterday was another bad day. A friend helped talk me through it, telling me I need to do something in the meantime, something to get those endorphins flowing, to get me back out in the sunshine, which also helps mitigate depression naturally.

So this morning, I got out my bike again. I got my bicycle back into riding shape shortly after my injury. But I haven't ridden it as much as I could have been. Because it's not running, which for some masochistic reason is what I really want to be doing.

But it was nice. I pedaled toward the sun to the east, soaking up the warmth, the cool breeze on my skin. I listened to the sounds of the neighborhood -- birds, cars, cows, a peacock, construction workers. Being outside, you connect with the natural world, see, smell and hear the seasons changing.

I realized that by letting myself retreat into myself after my injury, I've missed many of nature's sweet spring fragrances this year -- the orange blossoms, the roses coming into bloom, the smell of dusty roads being hit by raindrops.

I went 5 miles. It wasn't as intense as a 5-mile run, or even as intense as a shorter run that would take the same amount of time it took me to ride that far. But it was exercise. It got my blood pumping. It's another way to help restrengthen my foot.

Later this morning, I had a physical therapy appointment. As frustrated as I've been with my progress, she said there's no reason yet to give up hope that running will again be a regular part of my life. Not even any reason yet to think that I won't be able to run the Two Cities Marathon this fall here in Fresno.

But no matter what happens with my foot, I have options. I have other tools to fight the depression. I am not a convert to cycling, thinking that it will fill that hole in my life where running used to be. But if I have to, I think I can accept it as a compromise.

And I have friends and loved ones who help me get through the darkest days. Let's not discount the power of that against depression.

A bull in the china shop – and I feel shattered

It seems like so much of what I write about these days has to do with feelings. But when you try to suppress your feelings for as long as I had, that tends to be the overwhelming day-to-day experience as you come out of it.

Most of the time, I feel like I’m doing better, feeling stronger. I set goals, I work toward them, I achieve them. I can roll with things. I focus on the positive. I am changing.

But every once in a while, still – STILL – someone can say something unexpected to me, or in a wrong tone, and just that fast, it’s like I’m a fragile china place setting from under which the tablecloth has been yanked. Just that quickly, my emotions turn on me, drowning me.

Sometimes the trigger is a new landmine in the divorced parent tango. Sometimes it's intergenerational conflict on the homefront, age-old clashes about respect, responsibility, trust and boundaries. Sometimes it's normal (?) teenage drama, or grade-school whininess. And sometimes it's just an aching loneliness in a house – a life – full of people.

How do people walk around every day with all of these raw feelings inside? It’s exhausting.

And some days, it just seems to come at you from all sides. Those days are the hardest.

I am the bull in the china shop. I am clumsy and don't know how to act or react. Sometimes I just smash around within these feelings, lost.

Car talk with my youngest daughter

A few weeks ago, my youngest daughter and I were driving home from the zoo. I mentioned that I was going out with someone on Monday night. Over the next five minutes or less, the questions from my 6-year-old were far ranging, and resulted in a downturn in my mood.

"Am I going to have a new daddy?" came first, quickly followed by questions about courtship and getting married to having babies after getting married. From there, she ventured to "Did you and Dad have a honeymoon?" We talked about that. She moved on to "Do you miss Daddy?" Finally, "Mommy, why are you sad?"

I texted a friend of mine: “It’s stunning sometimes how quickly a conversation can go south, even with a 6-year-old.” His response, after hearing what I meant, was: “She is just curious. She gets to ask. YOU have to respond better.”

But even after talking to him, I guess I still don't get how I responded poorly. I didn't get mad at her for asking. I didn't say anything negative about her father, my ex. Am I not ever allowed to express sadness in front of her that my marriage didn't work out?

I didn’t vent to her. I saved that for my adult friend. All she saw was that it made me a little sad.

I don't want her to think she can't ask questions. And I don't want her to think there weren't times that her dad and I were happy together, especially as we prepared for her to enter our life. I asked my friend again, “What did I do wrong?”

His reply: “You responded poorly because you let it upset you.”

I’m not sure I agree with that. But I’m willing to consider it. I do agree with him that there are certainly times when I respond poorly to things that happen in my life.

A few nights later, we were in the car again, this time driving to the library. (Funny how much actual conversation takes place there. Funnier still, how sensitive she can be to my mood when she can’t even see my face from the back seat.)

After hearing an NPR segment about the health benefits of breastfeeding, she was curious about that: What does that mean? Did I do that when she was a baby? Would she with her babies?

Suddenly: “Mommy, are you sad?”

“No, not at all.” And I wasn’t. There was nothing in our current conversation to make me sad. She was just supersensitive from the earlier experience.

Reassured, she went on. “When my babies are old enough for me to go back to work, I want to work at The Fresno Bee like you. When I do that, will you help take care of my babies, like Grandma does?”

“Absolutely, baby. I would love to.”