the 40 challenge

I’m turning 40.

This is not a huge deal. GenX has been 40 for a while, I’m one of the younger of our generation. Some of us are turning 50 actually. And ouch. Just ouch.

But I mean to mark the date. To do that Over the Hill retrospect crisis thing where I take stock of where I am and demand of myself that I do better. Like now.

Except I’m pretty happy with what I’ve done so far. I met some goals, missed some others, lost some weight, gained it back, learned a lot, forgot some of it. I’ve marched and run and swam and competed and collaborated.

So I’m pretty good.

Marking 40 then has to become a year-long challenge. What will I do in the year I’m forty? And, of course, it’s got to have the number 40 in it. But when you start counting things you’d like to do, 40 turns out to be A LOT. 40 push-ups a day, run 40 miles a week, attend 40 live music events. Painful and expensive.

So 40 is going to be painful and expensive.

With some revisions forthcoming as I think up new challenges, here’s my list for the next 365 days of 40:

• Swim 40 50s – going to do this on my actual birthday, that’s the workout. 40 X 50 meters.
• Read 40 books – ambitious but not impossible, I read 60 last year, but I’m making this caveat: by female authors. Last year’s list was diverse, but this year I want all the wimmens.
• Send 40 Thank You notes – not Jimmy Fallon-like to random shit, but to actual people and organizations who have helped me or are helping me to reach my goals.
• Visit 40 new places – new restaurants, parks, and stores count.
• Visit my Papa 40 times – I used to go see Nana weekly, it’s time to resurrect that habit.
• Donate 40 articles of clothing – might surpass this with one closet, but purging is a good habit
• 40 pages in Hollie’s scrapbook – we’ve fallen so far behind I think we’ve only gotten up to kindergarten, time to catch up
• 40 live events – ball games, theatre, concerts, art shows; do something besides hold down the couch
• 40 submissions – queries, agents, publishers, literary magazines, fiction or non-fiction
• 40 blogs – between Life on Clemson Road, SCWA, and UnapologeticallyX, this should be a no-brainer.
• 40 for fitness – While I want this to be a weight-loss goal, I’m going to put 40 for fitness and push through some different 40-centric programs like run 40 minutes 4 times a week. Run a 10-minute mile 4 times. Run 40 miles worth of races. Swim 40 minutes 4 times a week. Swim at least 1 meet in the 40-year age category. Take 40 runs with friends.

Going to buy a journal today to keep track of all this 40 awesomeness.

All the painful and expensive.

Happy Birthday to me. The view from the top of the hill is hellagood.

Sorry, I can't, it's Football Season.

I get that I sound crazy.

Really. When people suggest we go to the Oyster Festival and I say, “Sure, the Redskins play at 8:30 that night and the Panthers are off.”

Or when people ask about a birthday party and I say, “No, that’s NC State weekend. We’ll be at Clemson.”

I know when I say, “Yeah, we got lucky,” when talking about the win, grouping myself with the team that took the field, as if I were one of them, I sound crazy.

Seeing myself as part of something bigger, Redskins Nation, Clemson World, the Panthers faithful, could be noble. 

Or it could just be fucking crazy.

Who plans their schedule around football? (Friends don’t let friends get married during football season.)

Who tells stories with the time marker whichever game had most recently been played, eschewing days, dates, and years for the milestones of football? (We ran that ½ marathon the first time Pittsburgh played at Death Valley. Grandma’s funeral was in 2015 because Clemson played at Syracuse that year.)

I get that it’s crazy. And if I didn’t get it, the people around me during non-football events would let me know.

Last weekend we went to Hollie’s first USS swim meet. USS is the round-year swimming league governed by the United States Swimming Association. It’s the big leagues for rec swimming in contrast with summer league and YMCA lessons. The meet fell on a Clemson bye week. Score.

Navy played at 3:30 and Hollie’s race was over by 2:30 so we left the meet and went to the bar. Of course we did. It’s football season and that’s what we do.

When outlining the plan for the other swim team moms, I said, “Oh, we’re only here for her race and then we’re leaving to watch the Navy game.” I must have said it 100 times. I felt like I was on repeat. No one had any doubt that’s where we were going as soon as Hollie got out of the water.

So, yeah, I sound crazy.

Except, maybe, to other football people. To other people who know football the way I do. The way it connects me to my dad in Philadelphia while we text frantically about Navy’s punts, passes, and throws. How it connects me to Tami, Court, and Jilly on our group text throughout the Clemson game. How it connects me to Kristen in Virginia while we lament how bad the NFC East really is.

Football doesn’t just make me part of something bigger. It makes me part of a family. A broken, dramatic, sometimes hopeful and sometimes irate family, but a family nonetheless.

There’s the onsite Clemson tailgate family, strangers in a parking lot except for those seven times a year. The Death Valley family cheering to 111 decibels of “do something right for fuck’s sake!” (Commonly heard as “Let’s go, Tigers!”) And the actual blood-relatives family who come to use my Papa’s season tickets every game.

There’s the bigger ACC family and the pride we feel in those conference-promoting commercials. The college fandom family that tunes in for every second of Game Day and cheers or boos Corso’s pick.

There’s the even bigger NFL fandom and the 24-hour, 7-day-a-week NFL Network sport-and-athlete worship machine. The jerseys and the terrible towels and the face painters and the fantasy league players.

So, yeah, it’s something bigger. It’s a tribe.

And it makes me sound crazy, I know, but I want to be part of it. I want to prioritize it. I want it to matter to me and my kid. And it does. She doesn’t always like it, but she gets it.

So for those who don’t, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t come to your Sunday afternoon whatever-suchness you’re planning. I’m sorry I won’t be attending the State Fair or church or a girls’ weekend or a movie night. Try me in February. Right now it’s football season.

Time Well Spent

I have started doing the thing my mom always did that I swore I would never do.

It’s frustrating mostly because I know how annoying it is. But it’s also frustrating because I don’t know...

Today is mom’s birthday and it’s been a really tough year and I feel like we’re closer than we ever have been. Part of that is the adoration my daughter has for her. Hollie just worships her. It’s funny how we see one another differently when we look through...

I remember loving my Nana so much that sometimes I felt like she’d been put on this planet just for me. So I watch Hollie love my mom that way and I feel the shared blessing that love is for all of us.

Saving Daylight

I went out for a run at 3:30 in the afternoon. I usually go at 9:30 in the morning but it was raining so I held off until 3:30.

Not too long ago I had a single time slot for a workout: 5 a.m. If I got up and went I was proud of myself, if I missed it there was no second chance and I’d berate myself all day.

Now, though, my days are much more fluid.

I eschew schedules. Always have.

I have a certain number of things that need to be accomplished and I will put them in logical order and work through them. I will work until they are done. But the same thing every day? No, thank you.

I didn’t used to have this freedom. I had to have my butt in a chair every day by 8:30 a.m. I was stuck in that chair until 5:30 p.m. That was me paying my dues.

But now I have control over my own destiny and I’m a little bit like the new pilot asking in mid-air, “where to?”

Come, Gypsy, tell us how much we'll make

ROI models are a lot like fortune telling. Intuition, experience, and observation are the tools used to predict the future. And yet, like any forecast, an ROI (return on investment) model is subject to change.

Getting my husband to agree to anything is like getting legislation through Congress. So I presented an ROI model to Cuk when I wanted to convince him to support my PhD program.

I estimated how much the degree would cost in student loans ($4000/qtr), then I multiplied that over a conservative estimate of how long it would take (5 years). I then researched how much I could expect to earn after completing the PhD (80% more than 2006’s salary) and multiplied that over how long I would be working afterwards (30 years).

The purpose of an ROI model is to convince people that an idea’s payoff is worth the costs associated. Cuk agreed the investment was sound. I enrolled in Capella University’s curriculum for achievement of a PhD in Organizational Management in the fall of 2006.

Take a Chance

What I have learned about an ROI model since that initial attempt is that a complete model must include peripheral costs associated with potential interruptions. These are risks in the ROI model. These risks adjust figures and change the model, rendering it at best inaccurate and at worst a terrible misrepresentation of reality.

For example, the earnings piece of my PhD ROI model is affected by several factors that, in 2006, were unforeseen: 1) the economy tanked in 2008 and employers adjusted their pay grades downward because the market was flooded with talent and 2) unemployed workers flooded universities pursuing degrees, creating a highly-educated talent pool.

See the Unforeseen

Other interruptions include cultural and personal change. For example, from 2008 until 2011, in resounding chorus, workers sang, “just be glad you have a job!”