By no means have I had a shitty life. Despite all the little fights I’d have with my brothers during my teenage years, my family was pretty close . My parents loved us and I learned plenty of things I’m still grateful for: good work ethics, right and wrong, caring about others, cooking, cleaning, how to be a person. Sure there were hardships. I’m the oldest of six boys who ate a ton of food. Having three of my own ravenous little monsters now, I don’t know how my parents afforded to feed us on such little money. I know I complained about stupid things like how my friends had cool shoes and mine were always from Payless. I remember thinking and probably mentioning that I had wished they hadn’t had so many kids. Then we could’ve afforded more things. Thinking about it now, I’m embarrassed that I was so selfish.
As far as my personal life, I never used any drugs or drank or smoke at all. I lived a very vanilla life. I didn’t have any bad influences in that manner. We had family dinners at least once a week on Sundays. Although my mom would frequently tell me that my dad was never happy with how much money we spent on groceries, we never went hungry or anything remotely close to it. My parents allowed us to play team sports. I still don’t know how they managed six kids on five teams with all the games and practices all over. My dad even coached several of the soccer teams and baseball teams some of us were on. Saturdays were spent at the field all day. I look back at it and am glad that I played those sports but don’t feel nearly as compelled to do that for my own kids.
My mom made me (almost literally) get a job when I turned sixteen. I didn’t want one. I wanted to hang out with my friends and stay up all night watching movies or playing video games like our Street Fighter II tournaments. My mom knew a lady that worked at the Walgreens around the corner from our house and put in several good words about me. I finally got around to handing in an application (because the Internet didn’t exist yet) and waited for a phone call. I scheduled the interview during my algebra 2 final at the end of my sophomore year. I didn’t have to take the final as my teacher knew how well I understood the class’s topics. So I walked across the street in my t-shirt and shorts and had my interview. I worked weekends and weekday nights. I don’t remember how many hours a week I worked and don’t remember if California had a rule on that at the time. I do know that I was supposed to be off the clock at 10 pm but frequently stayed later to help. All summer my friends would go to the beach or something else that I wanted to do. I felt a little upset that they were out having fun while I had to work. It didn’t help that it always seemed like the fun stuff happened while I was working (though I know that wasn’t the case; it just seemed that way).
When it came time to go to college, I chose what I felt was the cheapest one I could find. I didn’t want it to be such a hardship on my parents to pay for it. My dad paid for my first year, but then I got a job at a grocery store at the end of that year. I worked nights so it wouldn’t interfere with my scheduling of classes (just never slept, which was a lot easier when I was twenty). It also provided me with an extra dollar an hour and hardly any customers (they just got in the way of work). I worked 40+ hours a week for four years of nights as I finished college with 15+ credit hours each semester. Somehow I also managed to find a girlfriend (not that I was looking) and married her. Due to how much we worked during the week (and my hours at school), our “dates” were spent sleeping together all weekend so we could keep the candle burning during the week. With both our incomes, we easily paid for my final four years of school. I say easily because $3,500 a year wasn’t too difficult.
After a “teacher’s dozen” (as I like to call it), I had had more than enough of this nation’s education system. I frequently came home frustrated and had to run for an hour just to get my mind off the dregs of the day. Sometimes I came home in tears and shared with my wife the next new item that was being required of us (teachers). A dear friend suggested to me, several years earlier, that we should both quit teaching and become firefighters. The reason being that we were physically fit and wouldn’t have to deal with the broken education system any longer. I very much liked the idea. However, that would require me to take classes and change my way of life. And change is hard. I hit a few little snags along the way that made me feel like I was gonna be stuck teaching forever and would just have to come to grips with that. But then I had one horrible year. I made it through the year by writing poems describing the shit we teachers had to deal with and how I felt about it. I would then print them out and hand them out to several teachers on my off-period. I felt that we were all kinda united in our despair and that those poems sort of helped us continue on for another week and feel like each individual wasn’t really alone in how they felt. By the end of the year, I was dropping off poems and little candies to a lot of teachers and I felt like they couldn’t wait for me to stop by and chat for a minute.
The career change started during my last year of teaching. I had one class that required me to be gone two nights a week for five hours each night. That lasted for four months. There were also some weekend classes and other outside of class events that necessitated me being gone. Later that year I was gone for two weeks straight. It was quite the financial challenge (I could only use a couple days off before I wouldn’t be paid for the remainder of the two weeks) and a mental challenge to be away from my family. But upon completing all that, a department had a hiring test a few weeks later. And a couple weeks after that, I started that new job.
As I look at my life, I don’t feel like it’s been so hard. This is especially true when I hear stories of friends and their upbringing. Life is meant to have hardships in it. They make us stronger (as long as we push through them and figure things out and don’t give up). I still don’t have many things in my life that I’d consider terribly difficult. I love my job and love going to work. In four years I haven’t used a single sick day and don’t know that I ever will have to have a mental health day like I so often needed with teaching. And because my life seems to go so seemingly smoothly, I have to create artificial hardships to make me a better and stronger person.
Running 100 miles isn’t easy. I know I’ve done it very successfully over the last ten years and most people tell me (jealously?) that I make it look so easy. But it’s not easy. Even the ones that I’ve completed a handful of times. There are always moments when I question why I do this to myself. Some of the moments last a few miles. Some last a few hours. Why can’t the race just be 30 miles? Or 50? Or 83? Why did I sign up (again) for the longest race. If I did one of the shorter ones, I’d be done right now and comfortably sitting around. Most people would still be really impressed with being able to run that much. However, those distances are never the original goal. And although my goals frequently change from the ‘A’ goal to ‘just finishing,’ I rarely allow myself to not at least accomplish that final goal. Being able to endure to the end is such a mental drain. I know my body is physically capable of it. It’s also my opinion that most people are physically capable of traversing 100 miles, even in their current state of physical (un?)fitness. The overall time doesn’t matter. Enduring matters. Not quitting matters. Pushing yourself to the limits matters and winning the fight against your brain as it continually wants to quit and make your life easier. All these long races I’ve done have strengthened me.
The mental toughness is what I really care about. It refines my brain and my control over it in a way that I haven’t had many opportunities in my life to do. Over the last ten years as I’ve completed many ultra marathons, it is my opinion that they have allowed me to become a better person. Not that I needed saving from any horrible life. But I am certain that I’m a better person now than I was ten years ago. And if you want to know what I’m talking about, sign up for a 100-mile race and promise yourself that no matter what, you won’t quit. Find friends and family to help you. They’ll walk with you. Infect them with your making-yourself-better spirit. It’s worth it. Future you will thank you many times over.
