Welcome to the Charging Station

I'm not really a winter kind of gal.  Seriously.  You can ask Coach.  (My husband- I call him that because, well, he's a football coach.  It made sense.)

The disdain is really more about never being able to get warm and having to wear shoes all the time than the lack of light, but everyone tells me I should just get a happy light. (Let's agree that the term "cold" is relative.  I'm a southerner; 55 degrees is cold.)

 Mainly the winter contempt is about trying to find somewhere to be alone.

I'm an introvert.  Introverts recharge by spending time alone.  ALONE.   Like no other human heartbeats within shouting distance- that kind of alone.

Alone is expensive.  It might be the most expensive resource there is in a mother's economy.  And when weather dictates that everyone be inside the four walls of the house, alone doesn't happen often.

For the longest time I went to the grocery store so I could be alone.  I relished the list-making and aisle- walking and the throw-back 80's love ballads.

It was this never-ending quest to be alone which precipitated a ban on my local Publix.  Because at Publix, where customer service reigns supreme,  there is always a cheerful employee asking if I've found what I needed, or could they get me some cooking twine, or would I like to sample cider?

And it took everything my southern soul and my manners could muster to keep me from screaming "NO! I DON'T want some cider or cooking twine.  I just want 30 minutes of peace and quiet where no one knows me!"

And I fantasized about having some sort of a episode that would require hospitalization in a silent white room where people brought me trays of food and just let me be.

So thank you very much Publix, but I will be at the Kroger with the angst-ridden teenagers who don't know cilantro from parsley.  Because those kids?  They don't ask you to sample cider.

And I know that's an awful thing to think.  But if you raise children you know.  YOU KNOW.

The grocery store seemed like the perfect escape.  Except...

They sell food there.

A 25-pound weight gain and a dramatic increase in food costs demanded that I find another charging station, and it had to be a place that no one would ask to come along.  Those places are hard to come by.

So, like Forrest Gump, I started running with no real plan for starting or finishing. Some weeks I ran 3 times, others once.

There was a hip injury from who knows what, and the holidays, and the cold.  It was  really more like flirting with running.  Then about month ago I finished a run and looked down at my Nike+ App and saw I had completed 100 miles this winter.

100 miles.  100 miles of recharging.

And on a particularly sunny day in February with a gentle breeze and temperatures in the 60's I decided I would run 1000 miles in a year and spend that time recharging and running back through the decisions and events that have delivered me here.

So, tomorrow after my run we'll get started; I didn't run today.  It was freezing- 42 degrees I believe.   I'm sorry New England, please don't hate me!

See y'all!