The journey didn’t start with the list. It started with a hangover. It was the day after my 22nd birthday and the primary gifts I received for that one were a cookie cake, a few failures, and a dash of embarrassment. We’ve all been there.

This time it was different. Everything aligned in just the wrong way, all the wrong things happened, and I didn’t like the way it rubbed me. The journey started with a declaration of desperation: no more drinking for a month–no—a year. And I’ll find other ways to have fun. It’s as simple as that.

After a month of no longer working at the bar, my house was cleaned, my yard was trimmed, I had been journaling the heck out of how I felt about the whole ordeal and I was sleeping outside in the hammock during my son’s naps. I was unemployed, waiting for the fall semester to begin, and I was bored. Boy was I bored. I was ready for something more. Anything more. I didn’t even know where to start.

So I started at the gym. A lot. I was going nearly every day when one day I ran into a couple of my old bar regulars, Mike and Mark. Mark had lost tons of weight, I didn’t even recognize him. He said he was training for a marathon, and I was impressed. I had started running when my son was born, and always thought the “eventual” goal would be to run a marathon.

I went home that night and didn’t like the idea that another person that I know was going to achieve a goal of mine before I was. I then did some research, picked a race, charged it to a credit card (hey, I said I wasn’t working) and although I didn’t write it down yet, I started training to
1. Run a marathon.