Turtle

Disclaimer Before We Start (apparently you can take the lady out of the law, but you can’t take the law out of the lady): I know there is a difference between turtles and tortoises. Apparently one has flat feet and one has fins, one is easy to spell and the other has a ton of vowels. I am going to use the word turtle in this post, because that is the word that keeps coming up for me. Sometimes I will use the word turtle when tortoise would technically be more correct. Please just go with it. And don’t send me an email correcting me! K… thanks.

I was never going to be a runner. Kindergarten through 12th grade, I dreaded “track days” where we had to run the dreaded mile. I was always the last one in. Always. I just couldn’t do it. I would try as hard as I could, and then just collapse (not literally) and walk. (In college I discovered that I was holding my breath when I was doing any physical activity, including running. So this may have had something to do with it. Turns out that it’s really hard to run when you aren’t breathing. But I digress…)

Fast forward to 2012 when I’m training for my second marathon. Turns out that I am not a short distance runner (and I’m a better runner when I breath!). It takes me a good 3-4 miles to warm up. This is why I hate 5ks (3.1 miles) and the mid-week runs on any training plan. They are all 3 miles or shorter. I only start to hit my groove after 3-5 miles. After that, I am blissed out and just keep trucking.

But… I am slow. For my second marathon, I trained with Team in Training (TNT), an amazing organization that helps you train for endurance events while you raise money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. While I did have people in my life who I had lost to these awful blood cancers, that was not my initial motivation for joining TNT. What drew me to them was a damn TNT flyer in a Starbucks with a woman who looked like she loved her life and LOVED running. I thought to myself, “I want to love life and running too.” And went to the next information session.

It was life changing. And that first season, I met the most amazing people. You really can’t find bad people that want to run that many miles and raise money for cancer research. But, as I said, I was a slow. I was determined (some may say stubborn), but I was slow. As the season went on, a dear friend gifted me with my nickname for the rest of the season: Turtle. At the end of the season, I got a homemade medal that said: Definitely Beat the Hare.

Turtles became a theme of #operationvanlife too. Apparently I can’t go through a big life change without getting a tattoo. For this one, I got what my best friend describes as “animal chakras” on my leg, representing values and aspects of my Higher Power that I want to embody, remember, and connect with. A turtle is at the root of it all, representing patience and slowing down. The brilliant Jessica Helmke took my rambling email describing what I wanted and turned it into this amazing tattoo.

This photo was taken right after Jessica was done, so I’m still puffy and red. Since then, the tattoo has healed beautifully, but turns out it is really hard to take a photo of myself. Turtle represents patience and slowing down; monkey represents community and play; owl represents wisdom and curiosity; lion represents strength and courage; and the hummingbird represents beauty and creation.

There was a moment when I was driving across Utah were I exclaimed (out loud, to myself and the dogs), “Oh my God! I’m a TURTLE!” Because, really, the van was my home and, thus, my shell. The van had everything I needed and was with me at all times. And was pretty dang slow. (Did you know the speed limit in Idaho is 80 mph on the freeway?? I could only get the van to go 75, which is probably a good thing.)

Finally, one of the last hike I did before I succumbed to Covid was a Turtle Rock, somewhere in Wyoming.

Turtle Rock in Medicine Bow National Forest in Wyoming. I think that boulder above my head is the head of the turtle. Maybe.

I am not, what you would call, a patient person. I want everything figured out NOW! Historically, this impatience has mostly been with myself, including unrealistic timetables and expectations I foist upon myself. Why am I not in a relationship yet? Why aren’t we engaged? Why aren’t I married yet? Why don’t I have kids yet? Why am I not a partner at the law firm yet? Why don’t I know what I want to be when I grow up? Why am I not absolutely, amazingly perfect at everything I do? Etc.

I am also, it turns out, impatient with others. This crops up mostly in my romantic endeavors. I fall hard and fast, and expect him to too. I want to know where we are going, how serious we are, does he care about me, does he see a future with me, does he love me, when do I get to see him again, talk to him again, does he want to grow old together, etc.

But that’s not how people work. That’s not how life works. And, it turns out, that’s not how I work. Things take time. When I remember my inner turtle, and slow down, let go of all the expectations on myself and others, and stay present, a sense of ease and calmness washes over me. When I trust that the Universe will provide for me what I need, even if it may not be what I want, I’m able to relax and see people and situations for what they are and not what I want them to be. When I embrace my inner turtle, I am a happier, more joyous, and freer version of me.

I’m in the first week of my new job, and it would have been so easy to slip back into the impatient, demanding version of myself. And it was! Because I did! For about a day.

Then I caught myself. Reached out to my sponsor, my therapist, and went to the climbing gym. Slowed myself down. Then just focused on the next right thing, and stopped looking any further than that.

Sure, there is a lot to do between now and the beginning of the semester. But I have always been at my best when I’ve been slow and steady. So slow and steady I shall be. (And I’ll definitely still beat that hare.)