A Holiday Plea

It’s that time of year!!! It’s the holiday season!!! Time for family, friends, food, fun, and festivities!!! (Do you like the alliteration I used there?)

Here’s the thing. I love the holidays, AND I also find them to be overstimulating/stressful. I’m guessing there are others that also strongly identify with this sentiment.
Let me explain.

I DO love the holidays. I love that I am able to be with my entire family all at the same time- both my immediate and extended family. I love all of the holiday parties- just yesterday, I had a cookie exchange with a group of friends, and then I went to a work party afterward. I love all of yummy food- I ate puppy chow for the first time in a year yesterday, and it was positively delightful. I love all of the fun decorations- I put fake snow all around my apartment, and I feel like I’m living in a idyllic winter wonderland. I love that I am able to catch up with some of my long-term friends as they come to Des Moines to visit over the holiday season. I love the holiday music- seriously, is there anything better than jamming out to Carol of the Bells?!

I love the holiday season. And yet- it is certainly overstimulating and stressful.

It’s difficult to try and schedule everything that you want and need to do. Two of the fellow Dissident Daughters (Molly and Kristen) do not live in Iowa, and they are coming back to Iowa for Christmas. I want to see them as much as possible while they are home since I do not see them very often. I also want to try and see one of my best friends that is home for the holidays from Switzerland. I have another college friend that currently lives in Colorado that will be visiting Des Moines. And of course, there are the usual life events and gatherings that continue on in the midst of the holidays. Cookie exchanges, newborn babies, birthday celebrations, etc. There is SO MUCH going on. And to try and keep working out, doing laundry, and maintain a household as well? Ohhhhhhhh buddy.

I start to feel stressed because I want to be able to see everyone and do everything. And it’s…it’s so hard. You have to take into account other people’s schedules, context, unique needs, etc. And the fact is- there is just TOO much going on this time of year to be able to do it ALL. And you will NOT have enough time with the people you do see. You won’t have enough time because there is NEVER enough time with the people we love, and this is especially true when you are trying to cram so many things into a short time period.

What do we do with that? Here’s the balance that I’m trying to maintain. I WANT to affirm and validate these feelings of stress- both in myself and others. These feelings of stress are coming from a place of valuing our time with other people and feeling stress when it is not enough. Additionally, these feelings are also coming from a desire to BE valued by other people. Affirming other people’s worth- as well as our own- is one of the most important needs we have as human beings.

And yet. I also want to remind everyone that these problems- these stressors- they are incredible gifts. It is a precious gift to have so many people to love and cherish in your life. I am reminded of that EVERY day when I talk to people in their grief. This is particularly hard time of year for people who have had their loved ones die; they don’t feel like celebrating, their traditions are broken, and the people they most want to be at their celebration- they are not here. I have talked with some people that are so lonely at this time of year that they have asked me to accompany them to their holiday traditions because they do not have anyone else. I have had people beg me to hold my parents as tight as I can because there will be a day when I cannot.

It is difficult to see and do everything we want during the holidays. It is difficult to communicate our needs and schedules with others. I definitely feel the weight of that stress. My plea to myself- and everyone else- is to work with that stress. To realize that having this type of stress is one of the best types of stress to have. The stress is going to happen, you aren’t going to be able to do everything perfectly, and there will be tension. Try to do the things that are most important to you AND the things that are most important to the ones that you love. Let go of some of the routine and everyday stuff, and embrace the moments that you are able to spend with friends and family. 

Holiday Spirit

Happy Monday, people! I can’t believe it is already Monday again. It seems like just yesterday was Thanksgiving and this weekend flew by because I had drill all weekend. Anyway, I’m pretty tired and not feeling like my usual analyze-everything, think-way-too-much-about-stuff, philosophizing self. There are several more involved topics I was considering writing about: something to do with the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, how shameful it is that so many people have lost the ability to simply ask another person how they are doing, or some other issue I have been thinking way too much about. However, I’m not feeling it. Honestly, what I’m feeling is that I just want to think about and enjoy simpler things right at this moment. And the simple things that are making me happy right now mostly have to do with the holidays and the proverbial holiday spirit. Here’s what I’ve done in the last 10 or so days that has put me in my personal “holiday spirit”…

10. Put together a foam gingerbread house with two of my sisters. This was supposed to be an activity for the kids but the adults ended up dominating the project because it was so difficult to figure out. My sister Jill ended up using nearly a full bottle of nail glue on the darn thing and we still could barely get it to stay together. Although it was somewhat frustrating, laughing with my sisters over a silly project made up for both the frustration and wasted bottle of nail glue.

9. Watched my niece and nephew paint Christmas ornaments. They got paint all over the place but to see my niece so proud of her nearly all black ornament was well worth it.

8. Picked out our very first live Christmas tree for the house at a tree farm! Sister Kristen had to pick it out with me since Larry was at the Bruins game but nonetheless, it will be our first live Christmas tree together.

7. Took a sleigh/carriage ride through Boston with my sister Kristen. We blew $40 on a 15 minute adventure but just like seeing my niece filled with pride because of her work on an ornament she painted all black, snuggling up to my baby sister for even 15 minutes was well worth the $40.

6. Watched “Blink” in Faneuil Hall with my sister Kristen. If you’ve never seen this and live in or near Boston, I would recommend going. It’s totally free and the huge Christmas tree and lights are so beautiful!

5. Received Daphne’s homemade Christmas stocking from my mother-in-law. It’ll be the pup’s first Christmas with us!

4. Donated gift cards for a Winter Wishes fundraiser next Saturday hosted at my girlfriend’s school for children with learning differences.

3. Went to a Christmas Cookie exchange with a bunch of girls from my gym. Never underestimate the soothing power of feminine bonding and food combined.

2. Gave Hanukkah candles to my best friend to use for this week. I’m blessed to have a best friend who shares herself, her family, and her cultural traditions with me.

1.  And the absolute numero uno thing that made me smile and beam with holiday cheer was coming home to a house lit up with Christmas lights after a draining day at drill on Saturday. I told Larry I wanted Christmas lights at Home Depot and really only instructed him to buy a tree that would light up outside. I figured he would buy the tree and we would put it up during the week or next weekend together. Much to my surprise though, he had not only put up the tree outside but also put up extra lights, 3 adorable outdoor light-up stockings, and a light-up snow man on our front door. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that seeing the lights on the house for the first time was the highlight of my week or not, but since I’m not feeling like my usual philosophizing self, I won’t think much more about it. Instead I am going to go look at our lights outside one more time, shut them off, smile, and go to bed. Cheers to the simple things in life that make us smile and cheers to the “holiday spirit” whatever that may mean to you.

Thoughts of Thanksgiving

Collectively, the Dissident Daughters decided we would like to continue our tradition we started last Thanksgiving season-each Dissident Daughter would like to acknowledge and celebrate one "serious" and one "not so serious" element/experience within the past we for which we are grateful. Our thoughtful selves to the core, Anne and I were discussing last week if we knew what we things we were going to post we were grateful for. Of course, we both (and I daresay I can speak for the other dissident daughters and include them in this thought) are always the most grateful for the relationships we are blessed to be a part of. Trite can be true-nevertheless, in an effort to avoid trite, at the outset I would like to express that the Dissident Daughters are extremely grateful for the relationships we are fortunate to be a part of. That said, I feel we can highlight particular aspects of these relationships we have been especially or newly grateful for during the past year. I believe we started in birth order last year, so this year we'll move up one and begin with jill-our self-proclaimed resident asshole we are all grateful for.

Jill:

Jill here. Not really feeling a huge outpouring of gratitude right now if you want me to be frank. It's just one of those days where I feel exhausted and irritable for no major reason in particular and for lots of small reasons that just piled up slowly. Sometimes the whole concept of gratitude can be annoying to me because we have just created another abomination with the 30 days of Thanksgiving where you see one of two basic typologies the shape: The I have the perfect husband, kids, parents, job, life group; or the glass half full group where they take a negative (for example a messy house) and turn it into a positive  (I have hobbies or kids or whatever). So as you can see, my cynicism is at an all time high today.

And sometimes, it can be hard for me to even be thankful because I feel like there is a lot wrong much of the time. I gravitate toward the negative, and if you know me, I am sure you will agree. I think this is not because I'm an asshole but because I realize that is where I need to focus my efforts...all the things I need to fix rather than focus my energy on the things that are going well. Everyone has stuff to be thankful for. And I think my resistance stems from the fact that we have perverted the idea of thankfulness into another "you should do this" operation. And whenever we feel like we should do something I question the authenticity.  I also think that sometimes my most authentic gratitude comes from an experience that was uncomfortable or painful at the time and that doesn't make a very good sound bite, plus it requires perspective and reflection so it is hard to do.

So what am I authentically thankful for? I'm truly thankful for each and every chance and risk I have taken. Not all of them have worked out. Perhaps even the great majority of them I consider full blown fuck ups. But, I'm not afraid of the unknown or change. And that has paradoxically brought much security to my life.

On a less serious note, I am thankful that my entire family was able to take a trip to St. John this year for Molly's wedding. The memories from that trip will no doubt last a lifetime for all of us. It is where key phrases such as, "If I ain't drinking, I ain't driving," and "I was born to drive in this town," were spawned.  Even more importantly it was a good reminder that the human family is one of the most complex institutions...but a necessary one and one that can truly keep surprising you along the way. Happy Thanksgiving Day all. I hope it was filled with authentic experiences, people and ideas.

Molly:
Hello! Molly here. I am the last one of the sisters to put my paragraphs together for this blog so I guess I’ll start with what is supposed to be my “not so serious” or perhaps even “funny” thing for which I am thankful. Most currently, as in like right at this very moment, and actually over the year in general as well, I am and have been thankful for dun dun dun….my First World Problems. I’m currently stressing over the simple fact that I am the last one to get my paragraphs together. All the other sisters had theirs ready to go yesterday on the day we were originally supposed to publish the blog, but here I am still cramming mine together. However, the reason I am late in writing my paragraphs is because I was too busy playing with my nephew and niece who were visiting from Iowa to make time to sit down and write. I was going to write yesterday morning but we snuggled in bed instead and then we played catch outside before making a trip to LegoLand. I was going to write after we got home from LegoLand but we watched the movie “Inside Out” instead. I was going to write after dinner but then I played a game with my nephew and my niece wanted to “read” me a story and finally my nephew asked me to put him to bed. Could I have made time to write? Absolutely- if I passed up some of those activities or made myself stay up later. Did I end up somewhat stressing myself out because now I am writing at the last minute? Absolutely. But is this a First World Problem? Abso-freaking-lutely. And I am thankful for and would rather deal with my First World Problems any day over some of the real, harsh, sometimes life-threatening struggles other people deal with on a daily basis. As my best friend Naomi constantly reminds me, I am not a freezing, starving refugee in a boat.

Speaking of First World Problems, one other thing that was stressing me out was how in the hell I was going to narrow down everything I was thankful for over the past year enough to write just a couple paragraphs. For that itself I am thankful! What a privilege to have so much I am thankful for that it is difficult to choose just one thing to write about!! I have been thinking about this for awhile now. Should I write about being thankful for my husband, who I often fear doesn’t know just how grateful I am for everything he does because he is not generally a recipient of one of my thank you cards? Should I write about how thankful I am to have a new puppy and a growing family? Should I write about being thankful for everything related to our wedding last May? Should I write about how thankful I am for my coworkers, friends, and family? I almost settled on the last option but then decided it was too cliché. Generally speaking, everyone has coworkers, friends, and family so I am not thankful for the simple fact that I have coworkers, friends, and family. Rather, I am thankful for the fact that I not only have coworkers, friends, and family but that they consistently show me and give me gifts of love. So yeah, I guess I’ll settle on that and say it again: I am thankful for having coworkers, friends, and family that over the past year especially, have given me the gift of love. From looking into our wedding crowd of 75!! friends and family who traveled to a remote island to support us and be there to celebrate our special day to smaller acts of love such as partaking in weekly family dinners with my in-laws, getting a phone call from my mother just to “see how I was feeling,” my daily texts and snap chats from my sisters just because they care and are interested in my life, my husband walking me to my car pretty much every time I leave the house, my father sending me articles he cut out from the newspaper just because he thought I would be interested in reading them, my best friend Naomi driving over an hour just to have dinner with my family who was visiting from Iowa, my friends from CrossFit who text when they think I have missed too many classes, and my coworkers supporting me as a friend not just a colleague. The list could go on and on but the point is, I am thankful to be loved. My sister Kristen and I were just talking this weekend about how some people utilize Tinder nowadays just to get some attention or even to just look for friendship. I am passing no judgment on looking for friendship online, but it did make me think about how many lonely people there are out in the world just walking among us every single day. I am thankful not just because I am not lonely but because I am loved and am given small gifts of love almost every single day.

Anne:

“Serious” – As Amy noted above, I am always so thankful for my relationships. However, I do not want to simply say that I’m thankful for my relationships. My concern is that if I say that phrase repeatedly that it will start to lose its nuance and meaning; it will become cliché. If I am thankful for my relationships, I want to know why and I want to feel it.

This past year, I am thankful that I am better able to communicate my needs and expectations in my relationships because it has helped my relationships flourish even more. This sounds so simple, doesn’t it? That you have to communicate what you want/need in your relationships? Of course you do! However, if you pause to think about it, we have SO MANY implicit expectations in our relationships; we automatically assume the other person knows where we are. And this tendency is only natural as we exist in our own minds, and it is easy to forget that what is in our heads is not readily apparent to others.

Consequently, I am thankful that I learned how to better articulate my needs in my relationships. Here’s an example: I coordinated a community-wide movie event for my job. We were watching the movie UP at Fleur Cinema as an “safe” way to initiate a conversation about grief. I really wanted this event to be a success. In the past, I would have briefly mentioned the event to friends/family, and then I would have waited and hoped that they would say something about coming.  I would have been afraid to impose on them, and so I would hope that they just realize that they needed to come. However, for this particular event, I talked to my family members/friends and I personally invited them. I let them know that the event was very important to me, and I would really love it if they were able to make it. As a result, I had a LOT of my friends and family show up to the event! I had so many people show up that my coworkers even mentioned that I was very fortunate to be supported by so many people. I WAS very fortunate to have their support, and I strongly believe that it was my communication about the importance of the event TO ME that led them to coming to the event.

“Fun” - The “fun” thing that I am thankful for this past year is TGR. (TGR is where I take my aerial and pole classes.) I want to write a more detailed blog post about TGR in the future, but for now, I just want to say that I am SO thankful for TGR.  It’s incredibly fun, I’ve grown stronger both outside and inside because of the classes there, I am able to balance an intense professional career because of the release the classes offer, and I’ve met so many amazing and inspiring people there. I am incredibly thankful that I was led to TGR this past year!

Kristen:
I am thankful for life. To be able to breathe the fresh air and the ever amazing smells of the trees, leaves, grass and freshly poured rain. I am thankful for love and the capacity to think of this four letter word beyond the superficial image of a man and woman standing at an altar. I am thankful for playfulness. For the ability to be 22 years old still be one of the oldest participants of dodgeball at the trampoline park. I am thankful for intimacy. I am thankful for comforting hugs, smiles and touches. I am thankful for the ability to overthink and self-reflect. “What is the meaning of life, better yet, what is the meaning of my life?” I am thankful for the mountains. For the infinite life, peace, beauty and wanderlust they bring to me. I am thankful for music. For the notes I play in sorrow, joy, contentment and anger. I am thankful for suffering. For the days that I come home and question the work that I am doing right now and the qualities that allow me to strive and struggle within its realm. I am thankful for failure and success. Thankful for each one of the small humans that I call my students that make me feel both of those on a daily basis. I am thankful for intellect, debate and discussion. Thankful for long car rides that are filled with the thoughts and opinions of new and old friends. I am thankful for my privilege and being able to recognize my privilege. Thankful for a warm bed, nice clothes, a full belly, and the countless opportunities I have stumbled upon and will continue to stumble upon because of my race, class and background. I am thankful for strong women. For women who run, think and question. I am thankful for Amy Sue Alesch. I am thankful for Jill Ann Finken. I am thankful for Molly Kay Alesch. I am thankful for Anne Rose Alesch. I am thankful for me.

Amy Sue:

I am grateful for the space and time that I've had this year to know myself. I have begun to love and trust myself again-I knew these things had been missing in the past few years and I was not sure how to get to them again. During the past year, I have lived in my own space and have deliberately taken more time for me to be with myself so I have had the spiritual, mental, and physical space to begin to trust, love and know myself again. I have nurtured parts of myself that had been damaged or that I'd let stagnate and wither. Life, like our energies, ebbs and flows and I feel grateful that right now I feel more love and acceptance of myself and my way of being than I have in recent personal history. I feel I have gotten back parts of myself that I like and had been lost...so I am grateful for the pleasant and not so pleasant steps along the way that allowed me the precious time and space to be grateful for my SELF once again.

Have you ever laughed so hard you had tears coming from your eyes and you felt like you might puke? I just had one of those moments the other day...my mom and Anne and I were discussing some ridiculous perception one of us had and exaggerating the story to hilarious levels. I could barely breathe, I was laughing so hard. And in that moment, it occurred to me that I was grateful that I still laugh like that. It feels so good to physically laugh and the mental and spiritual joy is like a massage for the soul. I found myself thankful for that moment in time and also for being blessed with people in my life with whom I find myself laughing like a maniac with. When my sisters and I get together, it never fails that there will be at least one of those moments. I am also blessed with friends and a soul equal parts seriousness and joy and have experienced these moments in my every day life. I don't think I can adequately put into words all of the thoughts and feelings I had when I realized how grateful I was for these moments...free, love, joy, cathartic, connecting...these are some of the things that come to mind when I try to analyze a completely spontaneous and beautiful moment. Regardless of the paucity with which words can describe pure joy, I am grateful I still experience these moments and have loves in my life with which to laugh until I cry.


Everyone:
We are also grateful for you, our dear readers. Your feedback and readership is very dear to us. It takes time and energy to read our posts and those are two of our most treasured gifts we have to give to others. Thank you for your support, readership, love and engagement. Writing this blog is one of the things all of the Dissident Daughters is grateful for. Love.

Tis the season

It's that time of year. I don't mean Thanksgiving or Christmas. I mean a different kind of season: Football season.  It's the time of year when one of my most hated phrases gets tossed around like candy at a parade: Football widow. I know this is supposed to be funny, at least I think it is. But you and I know it also is couched in a little bit of truth or in some cases a lot of truth. And because I'm and because I'm an asshole, I of course, can't really see the humor.

Having made the decision not to marry a man crazy obsessed with men running around and tackling each other, I first encountered this term in Afghanistan. There was a guy there who was not ashamed of admitting that during football season his family knew where to find him if they wanted to see him: watching the games. I have seen it thrown around on Facebook recently and instead of inspiring laughs, for me, it inspires disgust because of what it stands for. From what I have gathered, the term us used by wives when their husbands or significant others absent themselves for five months out of the year to watch football.  So I dont have a problem with enjoying a good game. I don't have a problem with having a favorite team or being a fan. I think these games exist for our enjoyment. However, when you get down to it they simply do not matter. Nothing changes in our respective lives if our team wins or loses. The world doesn't transform into a better place if the Pack gets the W. Yet, we have groups of men who spend so much time obsessing about these games that we have developed a tongue in cheek term for the phenomenon: Football widow. 

I could not be married to a man who absented himself from my life for five months out of the year for a game. I could not be married to a man whose mood would be dictated by whether his team performed well.  Again, it's not because I'm a raging bitch who doesn't want her husband to have hobbies, but because the logical part of me just doesn't understand why it matters. And this may hurt a few readers' sensitivities but it really doesn't matter. I think our country's obsession with football is somewhat pathological. The time, money and resources invested into a game that is supposed to be fun is astronomical. What if we put those resources into our families? What if we put those resources into bettering the planet? What if we fact checked the outlandish claims of politicians to the same rabid level we devote to football stats and our fantasy football teams? Wouldn't we all be better for it?

I get it. We all need hobbies. And unless you're an Alesch you probably can't analyze and over analyze to the maddening extent that we do. But if you are a wife who is using the term football widow then I encourage you to take a stand. You shouldn't have to put up with handling the majority of the child care, house cleaning, dinner prep, etc. just so your man can watch football. Enabling this behavior is just a damaging for what you are teaching your daughters about how their lives should look. I know for a fact I don't want my daughter becoming a football widow when she is married. I would rather she be single for the entire year instead of for just five months because a man's decision to devote his time and energy into football instead of his marriage is disrespectful and stems from an out of balance power dynamic that permits a man to turn his wife into a football widow. I don't want that for anyone and definitely not for my daughter. I don't model that behavior for her and thankfully neither does my husband. Hopefully, my son also won't be an entitled white male because of the role model he has. It is a two-sided coin. We have to teach our daughters to be strong but we also have to teach our sons to be real men. And in my opinion, a real man doesn't act like a child and throw a tantrum when his team doesn't win. A real man doesn't choose football over his family. And the converse is true as well. A real woman doesn't accept being a football widow as her lot in life. A real woman demands more and understands that deep down a man's refusal to change or listen to those valid concerns stems from sexism and mysogony, neither of which should be condoned, accepted or even passively aggressively  joked about on Facebook. #sorrynotsorry for not being able to see the humor in this phenomenon.

Bumbling and Beating the Drum to Boston

I qualified for the 2017 Boston Marathon! I am so happy and proud and excited about this accomplishment and I have been wanting it since I ran my first marathon (2000). I want to tell the story of how I bumbled my way to Boston and why I am beating my own drum about my accomplishment...because, as any good Alesch sister knows, no major (or minor) event can go unparsed (#aleschproblems #aleschblessings). Reflecting on my training period for and running the 2015 IMT Marathon, a few things pop out at me...as they say, life is a marathon, not a sprint, and I felt like this particular marathon, for me, epitomized and illuminated many things I have worked on, struggled with and learned to laugh at to this point in my life and I'd like to share those joys with you.

Not only did I qualify for Boston, I qualified in all women's age groups, not just my own. I ran my personal best marathon time. I am telling you these things because I am proud-it is not in my nature to be vocal about my accomplishments and it's something I have had to deliberately practice-celebrating myself. I'm also mentioning these things because this was the least I've stuck to my marathon training schedule...but it was the most I've listened to my body and lived my life while marathon training. I started training "late" because of RAGBRAI...so I think I missed what should have been the first week or two of my training. Throughout the next three months, there were two full weeks that I didn't run at all, except to get the long training runs in, and I even missed one of those. I missed those weeks because I was living and enjoying my life-going on vacation, exploring and resting. My last long run I pushed back two days because I could feel my body was tight and I would likely sustain an injury if I ran on the scheduled day. Amy Sue from any other marathon (this was my seventh) would never have done any of those things...and yet this is the best one I've run. I know it was because I listened to my body and was happy. My body felt strong, not abused. I felt happy because I cared more about experiencing my life than sticking to a training schedule and I know those two things made my body strong and light and excited the day of October 18, 2015.

Another first for me was that I asked two of my sisters, Anne and Jill, to be there for me the day of my run. In the past, I've had friends or significant others accompany me...and to be honest, I was nervous about asking them. I was worried about the imposition (early start time, traffic, blowing an entire Sunday morning to see glimpses of me four times) and if I'm honest, I was probably worried neither of them would want or be able to come. They both came and were there for me the entire run. Jill brought my nephew Trevor and niece Brooklyn and I cannot tell you how happy it made me and how much energy it gave me every time I saw them (especially when I saw them all hoola-hooping in Water Works park). I felt so thankful and blessed that my sisters would do that for me and all I had to do was ask. It might seem so obvious but it was such a stark realization for me-these ladies are here for me and happy for m no matter what and I still get tears thinking about how much this means to me.

This leads me to the bumbling portion of my blog title...Anne got there early to take my extra clothes and gear from me before the start. It was really cold that morning but was going to warm up during the 3-4 hours of running. I had shorts on under Under Armour running tights and a long sleeve Under Armour shirt on under an Under Armour jacket (yes, I like Under Armour). I asked Anne if I needed the jacket and tights and she first looked at me like I was crazy and then kindly said that she got hot on the way over and I probably didn't need the jacket. I (foolishly) chose to leave the tights on and as soon as we got outside of the Marriott lobby, I knew I had to take the tights off (because those babies would be a bitch to take off during the marathon). So, while the national anthem was playing, I'm sitting on the cement taking off my shoes and tights and putting my shoes back on as I heard the national anthem finish. I ran over to try to get into the marathon start, barreled into a spot where people were pulling the barricades open to let people in and got in just in time to notice that I was at the 3:15 pacer spot...just as the starting gun went off. I told myself it didn't matter because those people could just pass me and at least I made it in right in the nick of time (I would have put myself at the 3:50 pacer spot).

But I ran with those people. I ran with them and the 3:20 people for at least half of the marathon. I noticed the voice in my head telling me I was going too hard too soon, that I should slow down. And then I noticed the more confident voice telling me I felt strong, I was doing this and it felt good and that's what we were going to go with this time because, "I got this". So I ran...and I saw Jill, Anne, Trevor and Brooklyn and I kept feeling good. I'm not going to lie...around Mile 23 my feet started to go numb but by then I knew I had a chance at Boston and I pushed through. I didn't know how well I'd done until later in the week. But I say I bumbled into Boston because I honestly don't know if I would have started out at the pace I did if I wasn't bumbling around with my clothes and shoes and Anne's sage last second clothing advice in the beginning and gotten in the wrong pace time!

And now for the beating the drum part of my title...with this blog, I am celebrating my accomplishment, which is very dear to me. I am celebrating not only the physical accomplishment and the fact that I get to go run the beloved Boston Marathon in April 2017, but I am also celebrating the culmination of so many life lessons and wisdoms that I feel contributed to this proud moment as much as any physical training (listening to my body, living my life to the fullest, asking for what I need/want and feeling vulnerable, laughing at my continued bumbling, listening to the confident voice). The fact that I am celebrating is, in itself, one of those lessons. In past years, I would never have written about this or publicly celebrated it. Growing up in my family, we were just expected to be good at everything we did-accomplishments weren't celebrated, they were expected. Through the work I've done on myself, I've realized what an unhealthy, withholding, damaging way of being that is and I've worked hard to be joyous and celebrate others' accomplishments...I'm better at that, celebrating others. This blog is an attempt to celebrate myself and something that is important to me, that I worked for and that I'm proud of. It is my celebration of not only the physical accomplishment but every life lesson I internalized to this point to make this happen. So here's to bumbling and beating my drum all the way to Boston 2017 and to hoping I do the same there!

I Wanted to Call This Blog “Self Love,” But Thought Better of It

Hello all! I’m Ali. I am not an Alesch sister—more like an Alesch sister groupie of sorts. They have been kind enough to let me post here on any topic I wish, so settle in for some unsolicited Ali wisdom.

When I was thinking about what I wanted to write, I went to the old adage “Write what you know,” and lately I have been getting to know how important it is to have things about yourself that you wouldn’t give up for anything. Sound a little fluffy and dorky and like a lesson I should have learned during middle school? Maybe, but bear with me.

There are plenty of Pinterest-friendly quotes out there that tell us to “love ourselves.” Look! I will even put one here (I found it in literally two seconds):

(Hey, pssst . . . Do you think this thing wants you to love yourself?)

Here’s me eating like I love myself, moving like I love myself, speaking like I love myself, and acting like I love myself, and after doing all of those things, I actually do love myself more. Not so much because the quote is mystical and deep, but because I love that I am a complete dork who just took a half hour of her life to make those videos for her own weird little entertainment. To quote Amy Poehler, “I don’t care if you like it,” because I do. Very much.

Let me go deeper into this seemingly unimportant thing. People put up funny little videos all the time, and in fact, Buzzfeed has made a business around it. However, those videos are for people to share, and the creators are probably looking for a little validation of their hilarity as well as some ad revenue. What I think is important about my love of being a total goon is that I can sit and heartily laugh at, and with, myself. As an extreme extrovert who likes making people laugh, I think it’s interesting that these are the moments that I want just for me. After making those videos, you can bet that I sat alone at my kitchen table and giggled gleefully for several minutes. This post makes it sound more and more like I have multiple personality disorder, but—perhaps paradoxically—I think some of the happiest and healthiest moments I have ever had were when I was by myself and did something funny, and I just thought “Classic Ali.” Yes, I refer to myself in the third person in my head.

These moments are especially important when I have gone through a particularly tough or stressful time and I am almost clammy with the feeling of not being myself. I will be going along and stewing about something that perhaps will not matter (I do that), and I will have a thought that will make me stop and laugh out loud. It’s in those moments that I will re-center, pull my head up, and think “There’s Ali. If she’s still here, everything is going to be fine.”

I have had stretches of literally days or even weeks when most of what I think about is a problem that I am trying to solve. “What will be my next job?” “Am I doing enough to advance my career and better myself?” “Am I giving enough time to the people in my life?” “Why am I having so much trouble not feeling bad about my last failed relationship?” “What’s next?” However, that one little moment to myself can suck me out of a vortex of worry and anxiety so fast, it’s incredible. Sure, the comedic element helps, but it’s not just that it’s humor, it’s my humor, and it reassures me that I am still the person I value underneath the worry.

Along with this ability to hold on to my personal brand of humor, I really love my ability to care about and for others. I am fortunate to have a lot of people I love in my life, and I hope I make them feel special and cared for every time I’m around them, as they definitely make me feel that way. Perhaps naively, I always thought that the things I value most about myself—my care and my humor—would be the things that would help me find and keep a romantic partner. Who the hell doesn’t like care and humor?? Well, apparently the only two people I’ve dated seriously in my adult life, according to my single status.

Instead of the things I love about me drawing in the people I fell in love with, I was left standing confused when these boys (I am using the term “boys” very explicitly) told me that they wanted someone more like the people they fell in love with in the past (re: emotionally unavailable people who cheated and left them in melodramatic shambles). They also said that I am a good person, but am sometimes “intimidating.” Let me tell you something: when you strive to make someone feel cared for and they say that to you, it hurts. A lot. Also, when you are getting back into dating, and people who have only interacted with you briefly during the whole resume, get-to-know-you talk are also continuously using the term “intimidating,” it starts to make you wonder if you should change. You might wonder if you should be quieter. Talk less. Act less intelligent. Hide your passion. Stop being such an open book. And after wondering that, this is what you should think next: Click here!

If I leave you with one thing today, it is this: don’t just love yourself, KNOW what you love about yourself and cherish those things. Nay, cultivate them. If you feel happy and you know that you’re being your best self and some wienie ass tells you that you are “weird,” or “crazy,” or even “intimidating,” guess what? I love weird people, crazy is a term used to make people feel bad about having ideas and feelings, and even if you are intimidating, it simply means that you’re conveying power and that fool doesn’t want you to have any. So what do you do? Say it with me now: Click here!

We’re all getting older all the time, and any age is too old to spend time worrying about anything but your happiness and the happiness of the people who actually matter to you. So I want you to think about those things that you love so much about yourself that they simultaneously pull you out of a funk and give you the renewed vigor to get out there and do what needs to be done. And please share them here! Shout them from the rooftops (I mean, you don’t have to, but it is encouraged). 

Sending all my care and goofy happiness to you,

Ali

Grungy, Gypsy New Orleans

Hey ya’ll! Sorry for the delay in the post. The life and teaching are kind of hectic for me right now and let’s face it, sometimes being an adult is just straight up hard. For those of you that have never taught before or never taught during the month of October, the month of October is one of the hardest months to be a teacher.

 No one can exactly express why it’s so hard because you kind of just have to live it, but basically October is the period month of teaching which means that your students are off the chain and moody, you’re also emotional aaannnnddd the best part is is that Thanksgiving is a long way off from the end of Fall Break to the end of November. Life just sucks during this time period.

But anyway, October is over and November is still difficult because teaching is always difficult, but now there is a light at the end of the tunnel J. So here I am writing to ya’ll. Despite the shittiness of October, I’m actually not going to blog about that. I spend 80+ hours working on school work so when I get a free moment in time to NOT think about school I’m all over that lol.

I was fortunate enough to be able to spend last weekend, Halloween weekend, in the great city of New Orleans or NOLA as many like to call it. I went with a group of teachers that work at my school and a couple of their individual outside friends. We left Friday afternoon and got their around 9:00 p.m. Friday evening. We rented a 3 bedroom house for the weekend which came in clutch on the nights we may have had a little too much to drink and wanted to just plop onto a nice bed.

This was my first time going to New Orleans and honestly, it was fucking amazing. I don’t mean it was amazing because of the booze, good company and care free environment I was in (although those things definitely contributed). It was amazing because it was so free. Free with a little bit of grunge, but a very good grunge. We spent our day walking around the French Quarters where there were so many people outside enjoying the scenery and perks of the city and honestly we spent a total of 20 bucks that day (10 for food and 10 for the infamous Hurricane one must get in NOLA). You could honestly walk around for two days straight between Bourbon and Frenchman Street because there is just sooooo much going on. We saw a random group of men breakdance for free, we saw a man swallow two, I repeat two, swords and we also walked into a strip club called “Barely Legal” in broad daylight which had no strippers in there. Roaming around the city without an organized plan was one of the most fun days I’ve had in a while and it was simply because we were enjoying what we had and where we were in that moment in time.

Oddly enough though, I think my absolute favorite part of the trip was an experience was a new perspective I gained. While two of my guy friends and I were walking to the French Market, which has a bunch of barters and flea shops, we saw a bunch of people our age just hanging out, drinking beer and playing their own music. They looked as if that was a lifestyle they were accustomed to. A part of me was a little jealous of the gypsy lifestyle they appeared to live. No bills, no stressors of work, no expectations to live up to other than those of the land and your own. But then, as we continued to walk toward the French Market, we saw female wearing tattered clothes and a dreaded head of hair, reach into the garbage can and pull out a to go box with a little leftover bit of food. I gained so much respect for her in that moment when she fed her dog first before herself.

She then proceeded to eat what was left of the scraps of food from the to go box. Seeing this woman literally get her meal from the grungy trashcan of New Orleans where all of the rich tourists throw the food they didn’t have any more room in their stomachs for just really made me feel some type of way. I felt depressed, I felt angered, I felt confused and I felt grateful. Grateful that that wasn’t me. I felt confused. Confused with the idea of how that woman got to that point in her life where she was literally living off of people’s leftovers. Angered and depressed because there isn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

Seeing this woman and her dog sparked a whole philosophical conversation between my two guy friends and me. We came up with multiple scenarios and possibilities of why this woman had to dig her meal out of the trash. We wondered if she had any education or family members to support her. We also concluded that after being in that situation it would be very very difficult to get out while there is an entire system sucking you in and dragging you down just to keep you at the very bottom where you’re intended to be. As my friends and I talked about the problems of society we cannot fix and of all the “what ifs” to real life possibilities, it was in that moment that I felt completely and utterly satisfied. I felt satisfied knowing that I was not the only one that gave a shit about other people and the good of mankind, but also satisfied in knowing that other people enjoy critically thinking and over analyzing every situation to the very Tee.

As we continued to walk around the grungy, gypsy city of New Orleans, it hit me that this is what life and in particular your early 20’s are about. Walking around aimlessly, trying to find your way, yet enjoying the confusion and getting lost along the way. Simply enjoying the journey, no matter how big or how little, because on your way to the destination (whether you know the destination or not) you gain a whole lot of perspective and live a whole lot of experiences. You live, simply live; trying to create your own, unique and societally deemed successful life and along the way your life is actually creating YOU.