I haven’t been writing for awhile, because to my mind, there hasn’t been much to write about. I spent the first eighteen years of my life in suburban Illinois, broke off for six, and now here I am, back in that familiar land of childhood. Not much has changed about Wilmette; some shops close where new ones open, but the rhythms are always the same, and probably always will be.

But living at home after a period of independence is a slightly different animal than a pure regression to childhood. I live my life somewhere between the North Shore ‘burbs and downtown Chicago: I sleep on an air mattress in my old bedroom, but I earn my own salary (even if it’s smaller than I’d like). And, damnit, I make plans with my downtown friends to dine at Penny’s Noodles after work, because it keeps me sane. Once my loving roommates find gainful employment too, we’ll join those city-dwelling friends. Till then, I’m finding ways to bridge the gap between my babyhood and my future.

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When you start a lifelong hobby at the tender age of sixteen, it’s virtually guaranteed to see you through a lot: various stages of awkwardness, confusion, frustration, epiphany, and change, for starters. It’s called growing up, and I toured those stages of adolescence and young adulthood quite literally on foot. For the past eight years, I’ve been a runner, each footstep carrying me though life as I know it. As you can imagine, I’ve worn through many pairs of Asics in the process.

As a sophomore in high school, I picked up the jogging habit that was already a constant in my dad’s life. Up until that point, my music knowledge had been gleaned from the same parental sources: I’d listened to a strange combination of Motown and classical symphonies forever, never really extending my own musical tastes past the edges of theirs. And while oldies and opera sufficed as the soundtrack for family car trips, my new running habit allowed for freedom of musical choice. Armed with headphones and a Discman, I added artists to my repertoire, slowly becoming enamored with the songs that propelled me on increasingly lengthy jogs. I discovered Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Bob Dylan a few years into my running career, at eighteen or nineteen, swam to the bottom of their discographies and drowned myself in sound. All the while, I was pounding pavement or snaking through wooded trails, running away from a few heart-ripping breakups and familial dysfunction, and towards new friends, new love, and eventual peace within my home.

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It’s been awhile since I attended a bake sale, but I do have fond memories of the events held in our school cafeteria. Plastic tables—heavy with Duncan Hines confetti cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies—were staffed by students with little experience as cashiers, and mobbed by their sugar-toothed classmates. The spectacle was fun enough, but at the end of it all lay the promise of dessert (something not procured from sketchy vending machines!), and the knowledge that you’d helped Mrs. Garcia’s homeroom support a good cause.

If you’re nostalgic too, I can point you to a thoroughly grown-up alternative to the cafeteria bake sales of old. The lovely Phoebe and Cara of Big Girls, Small Kitchen are raising money for The Valerie Fund by baking some amazing-looking peanut M&M blondies through Mother’s Day. Personally, I can think of no more appropriate way to say “I love you” to my wonderful mother (a food-blog reader herself, she introduced me to Phoebe and Cara’s writing). And on this holiday, I feel especially compelled to support families that haven’t been as lucky as ours; the Valerie Fund provides comprehensive care to kids with cancer and blood disease. It breaks my heart that little ones have to go through that kind of pain—and it’s eerily similar to the cause I supported (with particular energy) back in high school.

My senior year, I found small-town life in Wilmette, Illinois to be suffocating, and high school classes seemed to be nothing more than obstacles standing between me and college. Bored and purposeless, I signed up to run a marathon with Team in Training, which meant I’d also be raising money for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It was a bold and probably dumb move: I’d been running recreationally for two years, but I was young and green and in no shape to run 26.2 miles. But the training and the fundraising would challenge me, ask something of me. It became the thing that gave me purpose in what otherwise would’ve been a self-centered year, spent resting on my laurels and waiting for my next life chapter to begin.

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I have a bit of a magazine obsession, but at least reading “Runner’s World” (as opposed to, erm, “Us Weekly”) offers more than mindless entertainment. Even though I’m just coming back from a long break from the sport, reading its articles has kept my head in the game.

Coincidentally, their March 2010 issue has a fantastic piece on the mental component of running, a subject I’ve had all too much time to consider lately. Kara Goucher, America’s bright new hope for the marathon, has been much busier training, but Bruce Barcott writes about the numerous mind games that often hold the key to her success or failure in a race. I was impressed that a professional athlete would let the public into her psyche, and shocked to learn that some of her weaknesses had plagued me — the consummate amateur — too. (more…)

After a couple of long weeks at work, I was thirsty for a stretch of time when I could sleep in, stare at the walls, and perhaps catch up on some of my favorite free-time activities — but no, who am I kidding, really just sleep in and stare at the walls.

Whoo boy. Well, I got it (did somebody say Snowmageddon?), and what is it they always say about the grass being greener? I, along with most of my coworkers, worked from home on Friday. The office was shuttered today. A snow day was called again for tomorrow. And with another potential blizzard rolling in on Tuesday night, it ain’t looking good for quality work-time on Wednesday either.

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