My Once in a Lifetime

My once in a lifetime Spartathlon dream has come to an abrupt end. Did you hear the whimper?

When I applied for the race, I had no idea my son would be going to school in London in the fall. When he received his acceptance letter, I was overjoyed (okay, equal parts freaked out and overjoyed, but you’ve already heard that story).  He started the preliminaries – sending back forms, looking into housing, finding out what the drinking age was in the UK – while I continued my planning, and bragging, about my future run in Greece.

“I’m going to run in Greece in September,” I said to the three elderly ladies sitting next to me at a café at Disneyland after I noticed one of them had a cap that said ‘Greece’ on it. “From Athens to Sparta.”

They smiled politely, clearly having no idea what I was saying. I mimed the running man motion, then pointed at myself. “In your country. In September.”

One of the women said something to the other two women in a language I couldn’t understand and they all looked at me with amazement (my husband claims it was pity, but he is wrong).

The translating woman said, “You run? In Greece?”

“Yes, from Athens to Sparta,” I said again, still fishing for the proper amount of acknowledgement I had been expecting.

“Ah, very nice. Greece,” the woman said, and the other two nodded. “We are going to Las Vegas.”

Okay, so they had no idea what I was talking about, and I’m now suspecting weren’t even from Greece, but my enthusiasm wasn’t dampened.

I was running Spartathlon!

And then Grant told me he had to check into school the same day as the race.  THE SAME DAY. For several days I was in denial. We would simply work it out. We could do both. We would drop Grant off in London, go to Greece, and then fly back to London to help him get settled.  It would be easy. I mean, he is seventeen and they do speak ENGLISH in London, so he would be fine, right? It’s not like we would be abandoning him in North Korea.

Tim was kind enough not to tell me that I was insane. I’m pretty sure he knew that I would come to my senses and realize there was no way I could dump my child off in a foreign country just so I could go run, but he let me make the call. He let me figure out that I was way too crazy to run 153 miles across Greece instead of helping my son move away from home for the first time. And he knew I’d have a nervous breakdown somewhere near Corinth and insist that we drive back to Athens and catch the midnight flight back to Heathrow RIGHT NOW so that I can see my baby! Damn.

Anyway, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t beyond disappointed. When I said I think Spartathlon is a once in a lifetime race, I meant it. And those darn once in a lifetime things come up so…rarely.  But it is only a race. My child is moving away from home, moving away from me, for the first time. Sometimes you have to give up things you really want – a flat, scarless stomach; sleeping through the night; any lingering thoughts you might still be cool – when you have kids. But this is my kid’s once in a lifetime – something we will never get to experience together again.

Sometimes being there for someone else’s once in a lifetime ends up being more important than your once in a lifetime.