LiveWildly

"I don't think she's doing it right, but I think she's going to make it."

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The Barkley Marathons

I would like talk about The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young. If you haven’t seen it, STOP, and in the words of my friend “watch The Barkley Marathons on Netflix and stop your bitching.” If you insist on not watching it or are putting it on a to do list and continuing to read this, then I will give you a quick, not-too spoiling summary:

The documentary follows from start to finish The Barkley Marathon of 2012. It introduces viewers to the anomalous Lazarus Lake and the history of the race. It tracks participant’s progress throughout the gritty race. The film does a good job to not glorify or simplify any aspect of it. It shows participant’s real disappointment in not reaching their goals, brutal injuries, and complete exhaustion, as well as strength in numbers, the act of raising one up to accomplish what the majority couldn’t, and what persistence and self will can equate to. The Barkley Marathons will motivate and inspire you. You will feel driven to step out of your comfort zone and fail hard. The documentary is full of light spirits, dedication, community, and aspirations. From start to finish the film has an underlying voice from The Universe, and is a reflection of life. And this last bit is what I would like to discuss.

Right before the start of the race Lazarus says, “If your going to face a real challenge, it has to be a real challenge. You can’t accomplish anything without the possibility of failure. Pretty much everybody you see go out there, you really want them to succeed. You know that most of them won’t. And there is kind of, maybe a dark humor to all the things that go on. Some of the failures are spectacular and really funny. But you like to see people have the opportunity to really find out that something about themselves,” and for me it was as if The Universe spoke straight through Mr. Lakes lips. Maybe this is something I knew all along, but suddenly and certainly I saw it open up. Of course, how funny life must be for those that can see the big picture. Individuals feel things so directly and personally, get skewed on the details and deterred by failures. As human beings we forget how much we’re capable of and stop challenging ourselves. Life is the opportunity we’ve been given to learn about ourselves. What is life without a challenge, failures, and lessons? We won’t all accomplish everything, but if we don’t try we aren’t living, and we aren’t learning.  A person must maintain the big picture in order to see the accomplishments in their failures, but the small focus to dare to keep pushing themselves despite the dark humor of life. 

This film was exactly what I needed as a swift kick in the ass. It reminded me that life is ours, we choose the heights that we will go to during our time here, and that the world is ours for the taking. If I want to accomplish great things then I need to accept that I won’t accomplish all of them, and that’s just the way life is. But if I don’t at least try, then I won’t accomplish any of them. It’s scary and it’s frustrating, but a person has never been worse off for trying. 

*The image in this post was borrowed from barkleymovie.com and is not mine.

[lookwildly]

SoundBot Shower Speaker

*This is not a sponsored review. I independently purchased this and chose to share my thoughts on the product.

For Valentine’s this year I decided to get Kyle a small bluetooth speaker to use in the shower because he loves to sing! I was so surprised that he didn’t already have one at least out in his apartment. It’s turned into such a great purchase for the both of us. We use it not only in the shower but around the house, when we’re watching movies on our laptop, and at the beach too. It gets a good volume, is pretty easy to use, let’s you answer phone calls, and is water resistant. The only critiques I have of it are as follow:

-The lights indicate a long waiting time before you can connect, I find that I can connect almost immediately after turning it on though.

-The off button was tricky at first, you have to hold it down, wait for the beep, and then keep waiting

-And the volume button has to really be held down otherwise you end up skipping songs left and right

All of these critiques are only attributed to it being small and compact though, which is a great feature, and it’s so lightweight. The suction cup works perfect, and has kept it right there on the wall. The design is sleek and works with any decor because it comes in lots of colors. I would even recommend using it outside of the shower as well, as a discreet speaker in an office, bedroom, living room, it works well everywhere. 

I got it for $10.89 with my amazon prime account, which is an unbeatable price, but I think regularly they sell at a little less than $20. Here’s a picture and a couple of links for purchase.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IGUUYTI?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00

http://www.soundbot.com/products/soundbot-sb510s

[lookwildly]

Let’s Run!

I’ve always been an on and off hobby runner, but I’ve never been able to keep it up. I either end up losing focus, or I get injured, or winter comes...Whatever the reason, I don’t keep it up. I love running though, I love it so much. I feel so inspired these days by the ultra runners, trail runners, even just regular runners. I’ve come to the realization that running is essentially free, and if I want to do it, I just need to get up and do it! 

I’m going to slowly start reintroducing it into my schedule. I’m hoping to not overwhelm or disappoint myself because that never fails to discourage me from continuing the long haul. I think by working in one mile 3x week I’ll be able to easily get myself up and moving, while also building up my confidence in that one mile. Also, on those hard days, it’s really hard to rationally talk yourself out of spending only 10-15 minutes of your day running. And of course, I know 10-15 minutes a day is nowhere near the amount of time that should be spent on fitness, but like I said this is just an introductory period for me. I’ve got a much bigger picture in mind. 

I went ahead and made this little schedule. It doesn’t look like much yet, but in the near future it will have much more detailed work outs and fitness development plans tailored to my ultimate goal. For the moment though, baby steps.

I also found a beautiful running trail that follows the beach, because I hate the repetitiveness of residential running, and the cars too. I made Kyle take a walk with me down the trail so I could map out a mile. My thinking was if I knew where the trail and parking lot were, exactly which direction and how far I’d be running, there would be a few less obstacles I would have to overcome on my first day back at it. It’s all about making things easy and smooth for my future self. 

I invite anyone who is interested to join me! It’s just 1 mile 3x a week. Walk it, jog it, run it, crawl it, whatever it takes to get you out there! I’ll be reporting on my progress, adding in tips, playlists, obstacles and achievements along the way.

[lookwildly]

I took this photo during my free helicopter tour and knew immediately that it was destined for a great quote.

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Some pictures from the helicopter ride around Kauai my boyfriend and his boss let me sit in on. The island is so beautiful, so diverse all around, and full of history. I was so lucky to have this opportunity and am so grateful to my boyfriend.

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Relocating to Kauai

Kyle, my boyfriend of only 5 months, and I are a bit of an untraditional couple in the sense that we may have rushed things. It was a unique situation involving an unexpected relationship and flight dates. We met through Tinder while I was WWOOFing on Big Island, Hawaii, and what I expected to just be a casual date turned into so much more. When it came time for me to leave just 2 short months later, we had to make a decision. We decided I would come back after the holidays and we would live together. So, when mid February came around, after I had finally started to build a life for myself, and Kyle asked if I’d be up for moving to Kauai, I was really torn.  

Of course Kauai is the most beautiful Hawaiian island and I would be a fool to pass up the opportunity, but I also had to think about my responsibilities, my empty bank account, and how much more unsettlement my neurotic mind could take. At the end of the day, after all the mulling over, it was impossible to say no. Yes, the move would be hard for me, but it would be even harder to live without him in my life. 

Well the move certainly was difficult. Kyle and I are so different in the way we process and plan, or do not plan (AHEM Kyle). There were moments I thought I was going to pull my hair out, and moments when I even wondered if we were going to make it through this. In the end though, we did make it with a little compromise, understanding, and a lot of communication, and also sometimes quiet time, mostly by me. 

I realized, though we do compliment each other so well in our differences, we also have a lot to teach each other. Kyle showed me that sometimes it’s okay to have a little faith that the world is on your side. And I hope that I’ve taught him that having an outline means being prepared, and being prepared prevents a lot of unneeded stress. Either way, I’m choosing to look at these differences as a way we enhance each other’s life and nothing less. 

Moving to Kauai presented a lot of unusual situations that probably only two 20 something year olds who have never really had to seriously relocate would create. For example:

We had to eat off of foil on the floor with the 2 forks we had left. Oh and the food, we were pretty much scrounging up the absolute left overs of our kitchen. We had granola breakfasts where we just scooped dry granola out of a bag into our mouths, too many cliff bar snacks, midnight hot wings (a huge mistake by the way), and a concoction of baked chicken noodle soup. It was all as gross as it sounds. But we made it through, even through the 2 nights of sleeping on a child’s size mat that we somehow managed to fit on. 

It was all worth it though because Kauai is as incredible as imagined. I immediately felt at home here and knew we made the right choice. We found a place to live within 24 hours, right next to one of Kyle’s coworkers, and we love the place. We are blown away by the beauty of the island and the kindness we’ve experienced thus far. I particularly love the smallness, and community driven feeling of the island. I think I can speak for both of us when I say, we’re looking forward to what these next few months will bring our way :)

Some pictures captured thus far:

The roosters run the island.

Have I told you how lucky I am to have a helicopter pilot-boyfriend who brings his girlfriend to work? I am the world’s luckiest.

[lookwildly]

RISK IT: EVEN ON THE BAD DAYS

I know I’ve been talking about my not so well defined path quite a bit lately. I’ve probably beat the topic dead and promise to change subjects soon, but I wanted to impart just a few more sentiments. I hope that maybe my words might ring true to someone, or speak to another’s soul. 

Similar to this picture, my path is sometimes dark, dense, and lonely. But then the sky shows through and sun shines in and warms my skin and I remember why I chose to live this way, and why I continue to choose it at every fork in the road. True, it’s hard and my writing shows that. There are days that I drive myself insane, I cry, I feel lost and completely alone. But the great days out number the bad ones by miles. I’ve seen and done things that most of the people in my life only ever dream of. I have overcome the most difficult obstacles, climbed to incredible heights, and learned more about myself and my relation to the world than I ever could have dreamed. 

So Little Dreamers what I’m saying is, if you’ve got a case of the wanderer, don’t push it aside, don’t tell it to hush and wait for another day. Do it now, do it because you can. It is not going to be easy, I will tell you that, but following your heart even on a hard day will always repay you tenfolds more than settling for a life you never wanted. 

[lookwildly]

VAST

I try to remind myself that neuroticism solves zero percent of my problems, but yet I find myself in these cycles just running in circles, thinking and thinking. I stay up until 3 am promising that I can solve all of my problems, but instead I solve none and only create more. I think a huge part of my problem is that I have so many options available to me and also that I’m so scared of fucking up.  I wish there was a way to know what every decision leads to. 

Isn’t it kind of scary to think that absolutely anything is possible? A person can be and do whatever it is that they please with their time. It’s freeing and debilitating all at once. With so many choices to make and things to consider how can one possibly make time to actually live. I guess this is where the whole “live in the moment” mantra comes in, but if I don’t have my eye on my future who will? At the end of my life I will be the person that will have to determine my satisfaction with the way I lived. 

Their are too many lives I want to live, feelings I want to feel, places I want to see, knowledge I want to absorb. How will I ever satisfy this craving for such an enormous life? 

(I do not own this picture, I do not know who does, I found it on the internet a long time ago.)

[lookwildly]

“I left the ending ambiguous, because that is the way life is.”

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Pray Tell, What Is Your Plan?

I thought during my time here in Hawaii I was going to come up with some great plan! A plan that would satisfy both me and my family. It would tell them this: Yes this girl is flying free, but she knows where she’s going and she knows how she’s going to get there. So you guys just sit back and enjoy seeing her every other holiday season and random drop in or so. Ah but alas, my efforts turned up no profitable plan. So I am left here once again dreaming and laying claim to another flight, another country, more strangers, but no answer to the ever longing question, “what is your plan?” 

[lookwildly]

And so it starts...and then stops?

I work up at 2 am this morning to catch a shuttle to the airport to start my Hawaiian adventure. I surprisingly still wasn’t nervous or even really excited at all! I was cool, calm, and collected at the airport, where I went through the routine like I did this on the reg. Loaded up on water and breakfast tacos, sat down and enjoyed the quiet because what could go wrong. I’ve flown enough to know that things do go wrong, all the time. I guess I was desperately hoping all would go as planned though, since my trip is very time sensitive. I made it as far as Houston, and then Texas said you shall not pass. So my flight from Houston to LA was cancelled due to a faulty door, I suggested just shoving all the Los Angelenos into the gapping hole to plug it up, but I guess that wouldn’t have been secure enough. Now I’m waiting in Houston for a flight to San Francisco, San Francisco to Kona. I won’t be getting in until 7pm now and since the Hele-on stops running at 5pm I also need to find somewhere to sleep in Kona, which is difficult considering it’s 4am over there. By the time I get there and go to sleep it will have been a full 24 hours of travel, holy shit I didn’t quite prepare for this. Instead of stressing though, I just put on the Lilo and Stitch soundtrack and am dreaming of sunshine and waves!