For the last ten days I have been “waiting” for the stitches to come out. Now I have to ”wait” for my wound to heal some more before I can run. All of this waiting is worse than being a kid again and counting the days until Santa comes. I was never much good at waiting and I am still horrible at it! According to my mother, as a matter of fact, I was impatient even before I was born.
December, 1964. It is a blustery winter day and my mother is 9 months pregnant with her fourth child. At 20 years old she was not much more than a child herself. My father pulls up to the hospital emergency room in his 18 wheeler and drops my mom off with her three year old, two year old and one year old in tow. She waddles in to the waiting room, clutching her pregnant belly; her water had already broken quite some time ago. The nurse looks at her in disbelief and asks,” Are you alone here sweetie?” and she hustles around to find some other nurses to take care of my soon to be brothers and sisters.
They get my mother settled in on a gurney and begin to push her down the hall to the delivery room. (It is at this part of the story that my mom would always look pointedly at me as if she could not believe I had done this!) Before they could make it to the elevators the labor pains hit and all eight pounds of me entered the world, evidently too impatient to even wait for a doctor.
That’s me. I came into the world impatient, ready to rock and roll and I have never looked back. I know the doctor is right and if I don’t wait it out, the wound may reopen and I will be back at square one. Meanwhile, my running partner coach husband continues to clock his miles toward a full marathon in November. With any luck, I will be able to join him at the starting line; meanwhile, I wait.
