Dear Diary

So, I've always been an athletic person. I played basketball all throughout school (although my husband to this day still doesn't buy it!), ran track and was also a cheerleader (THAT one he believes, but only because I annoy him by still singing the cheers on a regular basis and 'claim' to still know the dance to our highschool's fight song). By saying I was athletic, that definitely does not mean I was a GOOD athlete. I just liked being active. I still like being active, we belong to a gym that I LOVE and I've recently taken up running. Not really sure where this post is going, so stay with me please.....recently during these runs, I've found myself doing a lot of soul searching and I have come to a few conclusions. First off, I love running. I was always a short distance runner growing up, but now I love pushing myself to see how far I can go. When my lungs start to burn, I obviously start to think about Rylan. Maybe this is my way of getting closer to her? By having my lungs hurt and burn, I can relate to CF sufferers on some SMALL level? I don't know. But it definitely makes me think. I think about all of the people in this world that are affected by CF. I wonder if Rylan feels any pain? Do her lungs feel good? Do they hurt? My mind seriously just takes off. I wonder if she'll ever be able to run long distances. I wonder if there will be a cure by the time she's my age. Then I think about my age. 33. Median life expectancy for CF? 37. Have I lived a full enough life? Will I have by the time I am 37? Hell no. And, yes, I know that that age is 'just a number'. But there is no way that anyone could not let THAT number bother them when it comes to their kids. Then the tears come. The ugly ones. (Thank goodness I like running by myself, because no one would want to be a couple miles into a run and have to start consoling the crazy woman next to them). So, onto the second thing I have found out about myself. I like to cry. I've always been an emotional person, (honestly, my husband would probably tell you I'm borderline Bi-Polar at times), but I've never really been a person that cries a lot. Lately, I have really allowed myself to BE sad sometimes and to REALLY cry it out. And the best thing about a good cry? The feeling directly afterwards. You just feel so 'aaahhhhhhh'. I know that probably doesn't make sense, but that's the best way I can describe it. You feel so light, like that big ugly weight has been lifted and you can finally see clearly again. That good cry always gets me back into the right mindset. Life may not be fair, but it sure is good. And some even further soul searching has led me to a pretty major conclusion. I have been running FROM a lot of people for a long time. This post is getting heavy, I know, but for me today is more of a 'Dear Diary' kind of day. I feel like I have a lot of strained friendships these days. There are a lot of college friends that I don't talk to at all (other than the usual Facebook stuff) that I thought I would always be close with. There are a lot of childhood friends that I barely talk to anymore, that again, I thought I would always be close with. I know as you get older these things tend to happen. Your friendships become more about quality and not quantity. But what happens when ALL of these people that I'm thinking about were QUALITY friends? And there were a LOT of them? What then? And I know that it's been ME that has pulled away. I am the one that allowed the friendship to fade? Yes, it takes 'two to tango', but during these runs when I think back, I know. It's me. I'm the runner. What bothers me is I can't figure out why. I can't really pinpoint the exact moment in my life where this started to happen. Maybe it started around the time my dad passed away and it's some sort of 'coping mechanism'? Or maybe I've been too self absorbed and haven't thought a lot outside my little box. I don't know. But I do know that since Rylan's diagnosis it's gotten worse. I really have become 'disconnected'. I do, most definitely, have some very close, very dear friends that I talk to on a regular basis. But there are many others that I don't. And I hate it. I remember a fellow CF mom telling me that it took her about 2 years after diagnosis to 'get out of her funk'. Maybe it was Rylan's second birthday that did it, or maybe it's these runs. All I know is I'm ready to be out of this funk and back to simply being ME. The me with some really kick ass friends.