I was recently having a conversation with a friend about being a little crazy. We agreed life is better lived when you do it on the edge of crazy. I’m sure not everything I do is understood by my family and friends, but I like to keep people on their toes and guessing what my next chapter will be. When I talk about crazy I don’t mean clinical crazy or crazy that requires medicine. I mean the fun, interesting crazy that keeps life worth living. I thought through this crazy way of life and I broke it down into three types of crazy. The first is stupid crazy. This is when you simply do something that is probably stupid and shouldn’t be done, but you do it anyway because you are crazy. The second is wild crazy. This is when you act, what I’m going to call fun, but could come across as embarrassing. And the third and final crazy is psycho crazy, the crazy you kind of regret, but just comes out.
When it comes to stupid crazy I’m sure there are many stories I could tell, but recently I did something clearly illustrating my ability to be stupid crazy, especially when it comes to exercise. What I did was what prompted my friend and I to have the crazy conversation in the first place. I showed up to my first Life Fitness Running Club race since my return. We were running the Mag Mile 10k or 5k. I registered for the 10k. The race was downtown, and we were meeting in front of the Art Institute at 6:00am. I left my house at the crazy hour of 5am. I did have a sip of coffee before I left, but clearly that was not enough. When I left the house, I put on my Crocs, which were sitting directly on top of my running shoes and drove downtown. It wasn’t until I was parked and about to walk to meet my friends that I realized my shoes were still sitting by the door where I left them after I took my Crocs off of them.
I was running late, no pun intended, for the meet up so I ran, in my Crocs to the Art Institute. The few minutes I ran didn’t feel too bad, so I figured I had it in me to run the 10k wearing them. During the time from when I realized I had no shoes until the race started I never considered not racing. I was always just going to run the race in sandals. I never thought about going home or even running just the 5k. The option I gave myself was to start and finish the 10k in my sandals. I easily ignored the people around me laughing at my choice of footwear. A friend of mine, Julie, gave me stockings she was wearing on her arms to help protect the bottoms of my feet from my sandals.
Prior to this run I always made fun of the people running in sandals or barefoot. I never understood why they did that. Well, maybe they forgot their shoes too and were just too stubborn not to race. I said afterwards, because nothing bad happened, I am glad it happened because it makes for a great story. I didn’t fall or hurt my feet in anyway. Had something happened, I would be telling a very different story. The only pain I felt after was the tops of my feet from keeping my toes up to make sure my sandals stayed on. I was fortunate enough to not even get a blister.
I showed off my wild crazy with the girls a few weeks ago when I was driving them to Wisconsin to attend a very special baby shower for a very special friend. My friend Sarah flew in from L.A. for her baby shower. Sarah introduced me at her shower as her first friend. Sarah grew up a few houses away and we have been friends since forever, like family. We are so excited she will be welcoming her first baby boy sometime around Thanksgiving! Sarah followed my blog while I was gone, and I know she kept me close to her heart the entire time I was gone, and we are keeping her close to ours while she starts this next amazing chapter of her life.
But for the wild crazy the entire time we drove I spread cheer while singing loudly in the car for my lovely girls to hear. I am extremely poor at spelling and the way I remember how to spell “sing” versus “sign” is that it is a sin for me to sing. So, I’m sure you can imagine the beautiful noises my girls were experiencing as we drove were nothing close to beautiful. The extra crazy part about the ride was the girls were good the entire ride so either they were just afraid to interrupt my car concert or a little part of them enjoyed my craziness. Although a few days later I may have taken car karaoke too far when we were running to after school activities and Timothy was belting out The Thong Song by singing the word butt repeatedly!
And the last crazy, psycho crazy is certainly the crazy I am not proud of and try to keep inside at all times. Unfortunately, this crazy finds its way out more often than I would like. This is the crazy that comes out on Monday mornings when I’m getting everyone ready for school and in the car by six thirty. The crazy that finds me yelling at Taylyn so loudly I see Timyra and Timothy whispering to each other that they need to be good because mom is going crazy. After a psycho crazy moment, I always know there was no need for me to yell like that, just in the moment my emotions get the best of me.
In the end even with my episodes of psycho crazy and I glad I have these little crazy moments in my life. Living life laughing and having fun makes life worth living. I will continue to work on my psycho moments and try my best to keep those inside and only show my stupid and wild side of my crazy!
Darchelle's Vacation with Uncle Sam 