OhmagawdOhmagawd…

I went home yesterday in a funk.  After spending over four hours attempting to apply custom fonts to a website I had failed.  As I biked home I was trying my best to pump myself up.  “Failure,” I kept saying to myself, “is just the path to success.”  After all no one gets everything right the first time, you just have to keep learning and trying.  (And if you are one of those people who do get it right once, well poo on you.)

Upon arriving home all time converts to the dog and his orange squeaky.  He stood behind the glass door, joy in his face and tail whirling around like a propeller.  I let him out to do his pre-squeaky potty break and went to get the lead and doggy bags.  As per usual he had mercilessly attacked the mail, because in doggy mind the mail is out to kill us all.  (So are recycle trucks, garbage trucks, and anyone who walks by the house – but that is another blog post.)  As I stacked together the items I noticed a red plastic bag with a vague depiction of little running people peeking out from behind it.  At first I thought it was a running catalog and I could thereby spend a few hours spending imaginary money until I realized…

…it said congratulations on the front cover.  Actually, it said CONGRATULATIONS!

And I knew what it was.

I had seen it before, but it had a different persons name on it.  I remember the extreme jealousy.  I remember getting similar magazine that said “commiserations aka COMMISERATIONS!” and a wind jacket which I refer to as “The Red Jacket of Rejection.”

It was my acceptance place into the London Marathon.

Holy crap.

I started jumping up and down screaming, “OhmagawdOhmagawdOhmagawd!”  which prompted the dog to run up and start barking uncontrollably at me (and probably thinking “ThrowtheballThrowtheballThrowtheball!”).  I have, to date, never removed the cover of a plastic wrapper so quickly, nor checked the acceptance form so throughly  to make sure that it was mine.

Mine all freak-tastic-awesome mine.

And then, as I bounded out to the garden with an equally happy dog, it hit me.  After 3 years and one successful marathon I had willingly signed up for a second.

Willingly.

Signed.

Up.

For.

ANOTHER.

Marathon.

WILLINGLY.

But this is the one I wanted most.  The one that would be, for me, the hardest to get into.  (Although I have hope for that place in Boston when I’m 105.  By then I may actually have a qualifying time.)  So, I’m going to do it.  Not because I have to, because I want to.

Sometimes it is nice to sign up for something that is stupid hard simply for the desire to complete it.