This time on the run, it wasn’t about me. Or this time at the beach either.
“Isn’t Tebow coming?”
My running buddy asked me Saturday morning.
No. I hadn’t planned on taking the dog.
I was stressed and running with him pulls on my arm, which pulls on my shoulder, which starts to throb.
I don’t want anyone pulling on me for one hour — my running time. Especially an 80 pound, excited Labrador Retriever.
“No. I’m not going to bring him this morning. I just want to run in peace.”
Kim frown a bit and drawled, “But he alwaaayyys comes. He’s just part of us.”
Ugh.
Tebow looking for Kim the other day.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my dog. I really do. But sometimes, he is like another child clamoring for me with more responsibilities. Sometimes I want to run just with my girlfriend and my 25-year-old newly married self.
Me 25 years ago. Before kids. Before gray hair and bad knees.
My friend was right of course. The poor dog stood at the door dying to join us.
“I’ll take him,” Kim volunteered.
There they go.
Notice who’s not looking back.
He’s so darn happy to be moving forward outside, no way he’s going to look back.
Notice who’s still not looking back.
We started to run and I enjoyed not having a stegosaurus tugging on my arm.
I felt a smidgen mommyzilla. Like when I had toddlers and was so relieved when someone offered to take them from my arms and give me a break.
Talking with friends yesterday, one very busy, working outside the home single woman mentioned she was headed to the beach with her children. She wanted nothing more to plop herself on a chair in the sand with her coffee in the morning moving only to follow the sun till five that afternoon.
But her children are not play-in-the-sand all day children. The girls want to shop the outlets and the boys want adventure. She reluctantly decided that this time at the beach it wasn’t about her. This time it was about her children. And she’s already planned a weekend trip by herself with nothing but a book, lawn chair and bathing suit.
Yes, sometimes we’ve got to leash up the dog when we’d rather go it alone. Because we love the dog, the dog needs exercise and we brought the darn creature into our home in the first place.
And a having a good friend helps.
Always.
(I made her take this goofy shot to post with our run on RunKeeper.)
Are there days when you just can’t take the kids with you to the store? Or times when you want to run off to the beach by yourself?
