A Year of Running + Gardening

Whew. I’m tired. I can’t help it, but I think it all the time. This summer I attempted to simultaneously garden and train for a marathon. On top of that, my cousin got married on Orange Beach Alabama on the gulf, so I spent a week there with my family, I had a business trip to Vegas the following week, and then a week after that I left for 11 days in Europe with my mom and sister. While I was there, we found out that John got a social media internship in Boston. I got back in early August and moved swiftly from 50 hour weeks into 60 hour weeks. John and I briefly said goodbye at the end of the month when I left for a 20 mile run and he got in his car for Boston.

In late September, my boss then delivered her baby a week early and 60 hour weeks turned into 70 hour weeks. A week later my uncle passed away in a harvesting accident in the arms of my mom and dad. I’ll let that soak in for a moment. They were there. I found out at work at 8:30 on a Wednesday night. When you find out that somebody you love has died, there’s no place worse to learn that news than at work. It’s crushing, it’s no place for tears, and it’s approximately a thousand miles away from the seclusion of a bed and pillows and blankets and kleenex. To learn that news and then to decide whether or not you’re going to run a marathon is beyond comprehension. I worked two more days. I ran the marathon on Sunday. I got done running, went home immediately, and was in the car on the way back to Iowa for the funeral within two hours. I stayed for one day and arrived back in Minnesota at midnight. The next day was Tuesday and I was back to work at 8 am. Since then, I’ve been working 60-65 hour work weeks. And sure, it’s advertising, this is what you do.

In the end, I finished the marathon and I left my garden to die. I’m fairly certain this is what burning out feels like. Mostly it feels like nothing. Each day you just make do with the circumstances you’ve created and the circumstances which have been created for you. Often it feels like incredible frustration, helplessness, and loneliness because nobody actually knows what all of that feels like. It feels like you’re becoming diluted and poison at the same time. But today…today I leave for a long weekend in Boston and I get to see John for the first time in 54 days.