Month: October 2012

Someday.  That ever-elusive day that seems to be just beyond tomorrow.  The day when all our dreams come true, hopes are realized, and goals are achieved.   Just thinking about someday makes me smile.

We all have a someday goal.  Someday I’ll do this, some day I’ll stop that.  But all too often someday never comes.  Someday is delayed by today.  I hope you’ll share your someday stories in the comments section below.  Here’s one of mine.

It had been five long years since our family had taken a real vacation.  We had of course gone on short trips or business trips in which we included a day of rest, but no real get-away-from-it-all vacation.  As we began 2010 at work I was told I would be getting a good raise.  We needed it.  I quickly called my friend Arthur with the ArtofCruising.com and booked a cruise to celebrate.  Finally, someday was coming.

Then, without warning the following week I was told that I was losing my job.  How could this be?  Just last week I was getting a raise.  I had three months to figure out what I was to do with the rest of my life.  Having always owned my own business it had been over 30 years since I had faced such a dilemma.  I know I was not alone, I had my family and many were facing the same thing, but I felt alone.

I knew one thing for certain.  I would have to postpone someday.  I cancelled the cruise.  We cashed in the kids college fund and hoarded whatever cash we could put our hands on.  We borrowed money – how I hated that but I was willing to do whatever I had to.

We started DryCleaningConnection.com and got busy.  But building a business and losing a job at the same time made it difficult to make the payments we had comfortably made when I had the predictable income from a job.  We held on as long as we could but in January of 2011 we realized we could no longer afford our home.  We became homeless.

Moving in with family was a blessing however our someday goal was to move out.  My son Grant chose to use this time to reinvent himself.  At 16 he carried a few extra pounds and thought running would provide the needed change to loose the weight.  He had heard the stories of how I lost weight (how I wished I had kept it off) by running.  Some 10 years earlier I had run the last of my 6 marathons.

On my birthday in May I decided I would join Grant in running.  I barely made it 3/10ths of a mile.  After a few weeks we were running regularly, only a mile or so, but it was beginning to be fun again.  In July I posed another someday goal.  “Someday, let’s run a race together.”  We thought it would be fun, but which one?  I knew we needed a big enough goal to keep us motivated but not so big that we’d become overwhelmed and quit.

I remembered my first marathon was on Thanksgiving Day in Atlanta.  I had originally planned to run the half-marathon that day but my mother had been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and I had come home to live with her through her last days.  The marathon I was planning to run was in Dallas in early December.  Not knowing if my mother would be living or not, someday would have to wait, or would it?  I switched from the half-marathon to the full marathon in Atlanta.

We wouldn’t be ready to run a full marathon by Thanksgiving, but I thought a good goal would be the half-marathon.  Our someday goal was set:  The Atlanta Half-Marathon on Thanksgiving Day 2011.

Our training went well.  In early October we ran 11 miles.  We would easily be ready for the race on Thanksgiving.  Someday was in our sites.  And then it happened.

I woke up one day in late October and my back was giving me fits.  I needed a day or two off.  Then, Grant got sick and it was the second week in November when he gave it to me.  I never get sick!  How could this happen?

The entire month of November we ran less than 6 miles.  Still, if I could shake this cold before race day I was determined to run.  Alas, it was not to be.  Someday would have to wait.

But one someday goal did come.  We moved out to a house of our own in November.  We thought moving, not running in nearly a month, and the cold of December had kept us from running but the truth is we didn’t have a someday to strive for.  In January, we decided to get back on track.  We knew the Thanksgiving Half-Marathon was our someday goal (again).  Would this be the year?

It was May before we took our running seriously again.  Then I came across the Allstate Life Insurance Atlanta 13.1 Marathon.  Grant and I filled out the forms on line and literally shook with nervous excitement as we pressed “submit”.  We were in!  Another someday was set.

Today is someday.  A year and a half in the making but certainly worth the wait.  But the day we started running was someday.  All the days in the middle when we didn’t feel like running but we did it anyway were someday.  Someday was yesterday and yes, someday is tomorrow.  Earlier this week I posted “Someday is coming” on Facebook.  My friend Ray DuBose replied,  “No, it is here don’t waste it.”  He’s right.

What is your someday?  I’d love to hear about it in the comments section below.  Another someday of mine is this blog.  I’ve long held the URL TodayIsSomeday.com with the intention of launching this site.  But life gets in the way.  Things and times are never just right.  Well, TodayIsSomeday.com is here.

So again I ask, “What’s your someday?”