I blew the marathon. I got too excited, started out too fast and lost all my steam. At mile 19, I was a sniveling, whining heap who called her boyfriend as she cried on the side of the road. I’m paraphrasing here, but I was essentially saying, “This is really hard. Come get me.”

My super-secret goal was 4:38, 30 minutes off last year’s time. My coach said I could make sub 4:50. And we all KNEW I could finish in under 5.

I finished at 5:02:08. [Expletive deleted.]

The point of this blog post is not to share my marathon story… it’s to share what happens when one spends too much time alone. Since graduate school I’ve spent most of my working life in an isolated work environment. I’ve worked out of a home office for the better part of the last 6 years. When one works with others, one interacts. People come by and say hello. One attends meetings. One sits with people at lunch. One washes hands next to someone else in an office bathroom. One’s thoughts are frequently disrupted with friendly greetings, trivial gossip and business updates. And one has less time to obsess.

Since the marathon, I’ve been obsessing about those damn 2 minutes. WHAT IF? WHY DIDN’T I? WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT AN IDIOT! I’ve been coulda-woulda-shoulda-ing for days. I do this with so many topics, and I think it’s a direct result of sitting here in this living room day after day, lost in my own thoughts and not finding ways to break out of my own head.

Is there a solution? Beats me. I’ve tried walking around the block, keeping the TV on in the background, calling friends. Stepping out for a cup of coffee used to help when I lived across the street from one, but now I’m about 2 miles from a strip. I think the solution (other than simply finding a job working with others) is to recognize the obsessive thought patterns and put an end to them before they take on a life of their own. I have to remind myself that I’m really one of the luckiest human beings who has ever lived, and if my biggest problem is that I missed my marathon goal by 2 minutes and 8 seconds, life ain’t so bad.

Yep, life ain’t so bad.