most people don't want advice

I don’t want to jinx it, but damn running has actually been going pretty well lately. I’ve put together a few 75 mile weeks, followed by a cut back week, and back to hopefully 75 this week. It has not been completely worry free, as I now feel nerves readily and am on high alert for niggles and pains. I am in the process of learning what consistent running can feel like. I’ve got to get through the aches of the growing process in order to heal stronger and able to handle more miles. After all, you’ve gotta run more miles to run more miles right?

My weekly schedule changes but it is nothing sexy. We do easy runs most days with 1 or 1.5 workouts a week and a longer run (over 100 minutes). I do mobility drills in front of the TV watching Modern Family each night plus some strength training and core work. My PT is now giving me drills to progress rather than just dry needling to get my tendons to fire. Being consistent is making me feel ready and excited to dream about the coming race season.

Yesterday Boulder got a sizable snow storm causing most businesses downtown to close for the day including Skratch Labs Cafe. It allowed Aaron and I to get some computer work done when the internet and power were working. By the afternoon I was bored and so the closed business provided me the opportunity to get some cleaning done while talking with my mom. She and I have been getting along really great lately and building our relationship, stacking the bricks in our bond. My uncle passed away on Wednesday, which is a hard thing to deal with. I am halfway across the country, so making it out to a funeral was on my mind (they have decided to keep it to immediate close family) and I asked my mom if she was going. I didn’t know it at the time, but that question led to a deeper discussion about being included in family activities and feeling forgotten. We talked about feeling left out, and how lonely it can be when we see photos online of people getting together, and feeling like they purposely didn’t include us. Immediately I tried to “fix” my mom’s problem and suggested she reach out to those people, because maybe they just forgot about her and would include her if she expressed interest. I said this because until my sister invited my mom to Savannah, I had no idea she would be interested in coming with us. It didn’t occur to me to invite her, I was not purposely excluding her. Well, turns out my mom did not want my advice and I had no business offering it. She just wanted to talk about it and needed someone to listen to her.

Damn. She right.

I like to think I am a good listener. I manage a cafe where the main game is hospitality. I solve problems people don’t know they have, yet make their life so much easier or better. You think you want a caramel macchiato? No you want a caramel latte and I am going to get you to that order making you think it was your genius idea. You desperately need a weekend off when everyone else asked before you? Ok I can cover but you will guarantee to be here on my 10 day vacation I was worried about staffing. I honestly believe I am good at listening even though I know I talk a lot. I also think I’ve learned when people want help to solve their issue or they just want to vent. My job is listening to people vent and making them feel heard. I never try to solve their problems, because I don’t need to take them on and make them my burdens. I still need to work on this when it comes to my family, because I love them and want them to be happier. To me it was obvious that people forget and Hanlon’s Razor tells me that one cannot assume malice when it can actually be explained by ignorance. Not that people are dumb, but they just didn’t think about it. That could be true, but rationality is infuriating when you feel hurt. I don’t want my friend to come at me with rational responses because it then makes me feel stupid or needy or like my feelings are silly and I need to grow up. I definitely made my mom feel that way. Because she is my mom, she corrected me pretty quick, I backtracked pretty quick, and the conversation turned to other topics after she felt the release telling me what made her sad. I love you mom, hope you don’t care I shared that, because we all feel that way and I’ve had this conversation with more people than I can count.

People want to feel included and loved. Social media makes us feel like we are forgotten or left out. Most people don’t want advice, they simply want to be heard.

I think I can continue to work on listening.