Things That Rule

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Last week I participated in a race called The Jailbreak.

Actually, it was more of an adventure. I just wasn't content to try a regular old 5K, I had to go for the one that included obstacles. Things like crawling through a drainage pipe, climbing a wet and muddy A-frame with a soaking wet rope, carrying concrete weights while weaving through barrels, and crawling through a mud pit to get to the finish line.

Climbing the cargo net was possibly the single scariest thing I've ever done in my life - especially when I had to go over the top - but I made it, shaky hands and all.

 

After an extremely long, thorough shower, I discovered some spectacular cuts and bruises under all that mud that I consider to be proof of my bravery. I also discovered one heck of a sunburn, thanks to running in Texas in the afternoon with no sunblock.

All in all, I'm pretty proud of myself.

A couple of months ago I couldn't even get behind the wheel of a car I was so scared, and now I'm an official Jailbreak Escapee.

You'd better believe I'm doing it again next year.

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What's your Happy?

Don't think you have one? Look harder. Something will make you smile today. 

We want to know! 

Share it with the world on your blog and then link up below, tweet it out (hashtag #DOHMonday #WithTheBand) or share it on Facebook. Whatever you want to do, do it. Just find a bit of happy in this Monday! 

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There's a great satisfaction in a job well-done. 

It's even sweeter when that job is a personal passion. 

I volunteer here at The Band Back Together Project not for the glory or a fat paycheck. I give of myself without compensation for two big reasons:

1) I believe that sharing my stories gives my life a purpose. Through sharing I am helping myself to heal as well as possibly helping someone else.

2) I passionately believe that we are changing the world. With each resource page, story shared, or comment we are showing the world that these topics matter and they shouldn't be kept in the dark. We are kicking stigma's booty on a daily basis. 

To wake up this weekend and see that Band Back Together had been nominated for a Bloggie Award** was the ultimate in "pats on the back."

Not for me, but for all of us. 

All who share their stories or offer comments of support. We're busting stigma and the world is taking notice.

And that's one heck of a Dose of Happy!

**Band Back Together is nominated in the

BEST GROUP OR COMMUNITY WEBLOG category. 

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What's your Happy?

Don't think you have one? Look harder. Something will make you smile today. 

We want to know! 

Share it with the world on your blog and then link up below, tweet it out (hashtag #DOHMonday #WithTheBand) or share it on Facebook. Whatever you want to do, do it. Just find a bit of happy in this Monday! 

You wouldn't know it to look at me now, but I used to be a runner.

Not a very good one, mind you.

Back in 2007 I was living in Wisconsin and training for the Danskin Women's Triathlon. Yes, despite my fear of putting my face into the water, and fears of falling over on a bike, I found myself training for the damn thing.

And liking it.

Okay, so maybe I was more comfortable on the bikes we used for spinning class. And maybe I could only swim a half mile on my back wearing goggles and a nose clip. You'd be right.

But the point is that I was trying - and succeeding - in my own way.

The one thing I didn't need accommodation for was the running. Initially it was the part I hated most about training. Quickly, running became my favorite thing. The treadmill bored me to death so I ran on the bumpy, uneven indoor track where the cold air made my lungs burn pleasantly.

I started by running half a mile, congratulating myself afterward. Little by little, I worked my way up to three miles, then four. Before I knew it, I was running four miles most days in addition to swimming and spinning. I couldn't believe I was actually running, but I was.

I was never a very fast runner - my best time for a 5K hovered around 30 minutes - but I loved it. Even when the routes took me out to the lighthouse where my hair whipped my cheeks like crazy, or to the Shamrock Shuffle in Madison where there was still snow on the streets, I loved every minute.

I miss that now.

Living in Chicago, I spent all my time walking to and from places so I gradually stopped running. I missed running, but there just never seemed to be any time. Also, part of me thought that if I was going to be outside moving around, I should go do something productive, like walk to the store and drag back a 35-pound tub of cat litter.

(Unless the cat litter in question was on sale, then I borrowed a friend's car because I'm a cat lady and we can never resist buying seven or eight tubs when they're cheap.)

This year, I decided to stop missing running. I'm doing the Couch to 5K running plan, and so far it's kicking my chubby butt. The treadmill is incredibly dull and my cardiovascular stamina is very low, but I keep after it because I want to feel the way I did back then.

Confident.

Powerful.

Strong.

I'm going to run a 5K this year.

I'm going to make it across the finish line and I'm going to raise my arms above my head and say with what air is left in my lungs that I did it. For myself and for Misty, gone far too soon, who inspired me to take back that feeling.

Thanks, Misty.

February is all about The Happy.

We here at Band Back Together know that winter and the holidays can feel overwhelming, The Depression starts rearing its ugly head.

We're saying goodbye to depression and hello to Project Happy.

So, The Band, what makes you happy?

What brings a smile to your face? Is it a memory? The thought of the future? The brilliance of a sunset? We want to know!

Last summer, Mr. E went outside and I caught a whiff of the air on the porch. It smelled like rain, which means that six drops probably hit someone's windshield and the weatherman as calling it the storm of the century. My olfactory memories kicked into high gear and the next thing I knew I was awash in the relatively distant past and thinking about camp.

SUMMER CAMP!

For four or five years when I was a wee'un, I went to Camp El Tesoro. Those were some of the best times of my life.

When I was very wee, I was allowed to be out of the house for several hours a day via Camp Fire's day camp program. It was fun, I earned beads and patches that I then sewed on my little red vest. When I reached fourth or fifth grade, I was able to go to El Tesoro, the overnight camp for two sessions a year.

If it hadn't been for summer band camp, I would have happily continued until 11th grade, at which time I would have become a Counselor in Training and taken all kinds of shit from campers. I might have gone to school in North Texas and been a counselor until I graduated.

Thinking back, I wish I had.

You see, I don't have bad memories from summer camp.

Everything I remember fondly: drinking gallons of Kool-Aid, singing camp songs as the sun went down, the cicadas outside, being certain I had poison oak (they were mosquito bites).

I remember all the buildings; the Health House where I laid down with migraines, the main lodge where we all ate and sang and had our talent show, the screened cabins where I started my camp career, the larger cabin that was the venue for my middle school Rocky Horror Picture Show medley. The Horizon Lodge where I spent my last summer before I entered high school. The building we used for arts and crafts, the stables, the camp store, everything.

And judging from recent photos of the camp, not much has changed.

I did things at camp I would never be able, allowed to do at home. Horseback riding, canoeing, and learning to take and develop my own photographs. As blurry as those black and whites were, I was so proud of them. I made beaded bracelets that looked like daisy chains, learned riddles, and tried to learn to swim.

Unsuccessfully.

Memories just keep coming.

Getting letters from Big D, shopping at the camp store, wearing my Campfire vest with its beads and badges at the closing ceremony, telling the younger kids that someone had drowned in the deep end of the pool by the lodge because it was a story we all heard as younger campers.

I remember having a crush on one of the counselors when I was in 8th grade, becoming a vegetarian for part of the summer after talking to one of the counselors, keeping some of the other kids from teasing my special-needs friends, swearing I saw ghosts. The smell of the ear drops they used to keep us from getting swimmer's ear - we all had to stand in line to get them after we got out of the pool.

And on the rare occasions when Texas allowed it to rain, it smelled just like it did outside this summer. That smell, humidity and earth and the very slight coolness that accompanies it, sends me back to the trails between our cabin and the main lodge every time.

Sometimes I dream about camp.

Not as a kid going to camp - more like driving to the front gates just to get out and walk around and remember. I wonder if they allow tours for alumni, or if they would allow an old lady like me to be a counselor.

Then I remember that time's gone.

This was the bridge that separated the real world from our world at camp.

To many, it just looks like a bridge joining the parking lot to the main camp but, even now, it looks like a bridge to another world to me.

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They say the only thing certain in life is change.

I prefer to think of life's changes as new beginnings. This way, the fear of the unknown is replaced with the excitement of possibility. 

This past week has been full of change, both personal and professional. Today marks change here, a new beginning. 

I will now be happily, and proudly, bringing you the Dose of Happy each Monday. And today? Marks The Band's two year anniversary. 

So as BB2G embarks on yet another year of busting down stigmas, I'll be here, making sure we remember the good. 

And that? Makes me HAPPY!

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What's your Happy?

Don't think you have one? Look harder. Something will make you smile today. 

We want to know! 

Share it with the world on your blog and then link up below, tweet it out (hashtag #DOHMonday #WithTheBand) or share it on Facebook. Whatever you want to do, do it. Just find a bit of happy in this Monday!