Katherine Tarbox

I think anyone who participates in endurance sports is trying to prove something, whether or not they admit it.  It’s not natural to go out and run for hours, and sometimes it’s just not enjoyable until you finish. I know that proving something was somewhat within me until I came down from Everest, and then I lost my sense to prove. I think people know I can work out for hours on end, and I will not quit in any race no matter the circumstances.

I signed up for the New York Marathon last year before I really committed to climbing a mountain. After I came home with a knee injury from Nepal, I had no interest in running it. I felt like I didn’t have to prove anything, and I figured why put my body through more hell after it had been there for weeks.  So I deferred my entry, and I am now a confirmed runner for this year.

I took some time off from training in November and then some unplanned time off after I had an injury in December.  I started running again in January but quite honestly didn’t feel motivated.  I struggle with this almost every day.  I always know that running is the answer and that I will feel better after running and won’t regret it, yet somehow I’ll keep the Real Housewives running instead.

It’s taken me weeks to feel some enthusiasm for this race, and I shouldn’t feel this way about the New York Marathon. And what finally did it for me was thinking back to two years ago when I signed up for the Chicago Marathon.  I put blind faith into training for a race that led me down all sorts of paths in my life. I will forever be able to say that 10-10-10 was a day that changed my life because afterward I believed anything was possible for me.

I think I assumed for a while that training for the New York Marathon would be the same as training for Chicago.  I know what happens, and how could my life change as much as it has in the last two years? Two years ago I had no assumptions, and today I should still have no assumptions.  I know that marathon training finds me at my best, and I think the unknown is finally what has me excited about this race–maybe as excited as I was for Everest.

I’ll probably lose all my 22,000 Twitter followers after I make this confession, but I adore, absolutely adore Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb.” I am not sure who wrote the song (sure, I could do research), but I have to believe they fully understand mountain climbing.  There are a couple of key lines that indicate this to me but especially this one–My faith is shaken.

I remember the first time I saw Mt. Kilimanjaro from the airplane that was flying at a lower altitude to Arusha, Tanzania. I turned to my traveling partner and said, “What the fuck?” How was I to climb the world’s tallest freestanding mountain when I hadn’t even climbed one.
As we arrived at the entrance gates of the Machame route that hardly felt like the base of a mountain but rather being dropped in the middle of the rain forest, I had no idea how we were getting to the top.
My summit night I learned one of the most important lessons of my life–accomplishing something just requires faith. It was dark, cold, and the middle of the night. I was so out of breath and so out of it that I thought I was going to collapse. I remember halfway through that eight-hour climb, “Don’t doubt this, because doubt will only lead to not getting to the top.”
For four more hours, I repeated in my head, “I can fucking do this” and then reached the summit early in the morning. Faith is what got me to the top of that mountain. A belief in myself. I look at pictures of Kili and think about how it’s possible to get to the top even when you don’t know the path–if you have faith.
To say that my faith was shaken in 2011 is an understatement. I spent much of last year being unhappy, frustrated, and confused. I had a close friend nearly die, I faced way too much rejection that I couldn’t understand and, at times, I felt hopeless.
I woke up one morning last June, and that was it–my life was not going to be lived that way. On an early morning flight from Washington, D.C., I promised myself that I would find faith again in myself, which somehow I was beginning to lose. What I do know about unhappiness is that it’s never good to stay in one spot, because that’s what led to it. It doesn’t just work itself out magically.
I went into action.  I sat down and made a list of the things I wanted in my life. I signed up for Everest. I wanted to be proud of my work.  I wanted a healthy relationship. I firmly believe that writing down your goals makes you more accountable for them. I didn’t hesitate.
Yesterday, I had my photo taken for Time magazine. I was talking with the makeup artist in my kitchen. I asked her how she had the courage to be a full-time freelance artist, not ever knowing what her monthly income would be. Her answer: “It comes down to faith.”
Once again, she reminded me that if you believe, it will be.  I keep a fortune on my MacBook Air that reads “Where there is will, there is way.”  Running a marathon, writing a book, or even climbing on Everest doesn’t take great intelligence or athletic prowess; it just takes belief.  I promise you.

As I have written about here, I give Kiva gift certificates for Christmas.  This year I gave over 50 to friends to make micro-finance loans.  I logged in last week and found that only four have used them. I was so upset that my friends, no matter how busy their lives are, couldn’t take two minutes to help starving people in Cambodia start a business.

For the past five years, I’ve been interviewing students who have applied to the college I graduated from. I find it entertaining, I find it humbling, I find it thought provoking.  I also find it frustrating that these students who have essentially found near cures for cancer, can’t gain admission to my college. But so is the case for the Ivy League.

Last week I interviewed a boy who described himself as a bastard child. His father has been married for 52 years to a woman who is not his mother.  He hardly knows him.  His mother has just been diagnosed with a terminal disease.  At some point during his college career, he will become an orphan.

I asked how he was dealing with all of this, and he said he is figuring out that happiness is about giving. And then this wise boy paraphrased my favorite Dalai Lama quote, “I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience, I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace.”

And then this boy said he’s learned to give to his mother in her time of need and how she’s not able to give back to him, but it will come from someone else another day.  And that the more positive help that you can put into the world, the more it will circle back. He’s serving at food banks, helping his neighbors, volunteering at Boys & Girls Clubs, and tutoring children to read.

I often think we live in a society in which we are too concerned about what we will get back from what we are giving.  “Is it worth it for me? What will I get?”  Sometimes, I feel this is Hammurabi’s Code of giving.  If you give to my charity, I have to give to your charity, etc.   Am I frustrated that I gave over 50 Kiva loans for Christmas and only four people actually used them? Yes.  I bought paintings for people in Paris, and a few couldn’t even send a thank-you. But a gift should never be given with the expectation of something in return.  If you do have expectations, don’t give it, because you’re really not giving a gift.

I can’t wait to see where this boy is going, because if at 17 he’s learned that you shouldn’t be on some tally system about what you give out, he will go far.

I’m days away from turning 30. I used to think to myself, “When I grow up, I’ll …” and I never really figured out when it would be official that I was grown up.  It’s kind of like who gets to decide who has the power to classify a runner? There is no running God who bestows that title on you. Bart Yasso doesn’t show up at mile 4 and say, “Congratulations, you’ve just become a runner.”  And no one tells you when you’re grown up.

I have a list of things I want to do when I’m grown up, which includes owning a home in Jackson Hole, Wyo., giving a substantial donation to an organization that inspires me, producing a documentary, and so on.

I don’t know what it was about this past weekend that I suddenly started to feel old. I noticed it first on Saturday morning when I went to the grocery store and ran into three friends. We spent time catching up in the produce aisle or in the freezer section.  These were the people I’d get tipsy with at a preppy dive bar in Georgetown, and now I’m arranging yoga class with.  I watched in sheer amazement as one of my best friends made Chex Mix and wondered how this had happened.

I’ve moved into a house that demands I learn how to be domestic, from changing the smoke detector batteries to addressing leaky pipes in the basement to unclogging drains.  I host dinner parties now instead of going out to bars at wee hours. My neighbor asked me if I live at my home with my parents, and admittedly that doesn’t make me feel grown up.

I consoled a friend over breaking off her engagement and offered that she could stay at my house.  I begged another to seek help for her eating disorder that has sunk her into such a deep depression that she can’t get out of bed until the afternoon.  And then I learned that someone I know died on Saturday night from a heart attack at 32. His death was more related to the fact that he probably never grew up, but that doesn’t matter now. I felt old because life seems messy.

I’ve wanted to grow up for a while.  It’d be nice not to be carded on dates.  It’d be nice for people to not assume that I don’t know how to pay taxes. Mostly, I want to feel grown up because that’s the time when I would start to tackle that list–you know, the list we make for later.  On my run on Sunday, I realized that the title of grown up isn’t the requirement for starting that list.  It should be started now.

If you read Christopher Hitchens’s last piece, which was about Dickens, in Vanity Fair, you realize that one should never want to be grown up.  Because the list is based on childhood fantasies, being grown up I think stops one from accomplishing it.  Retirement (which may never come) is put ahead of splurging on great art or going to Machu Picchu.

I realize there’s a reason why no one ever tells you you’re grown up–because no one ever should. I no longer want the title of “grown up” for my 30^th birthday.  I do want the boxes checked, and so my promise to myself for reaching 30 is not to grow up and make the list longer. And I am happy to let my neighbors think I live with my parents.

Tuesday was the first day I hadn’t had stitches on the back of my left calf.  For those who don’t know, I gashed my leg when I was carrying out the garbage.  My caterer threw away broken glass and didn’t tell me.  I told them that thanks to their carelessness I would forever have the memory of their company etched into the back of my calf with 21 stitches.

I wake up every morning thinking I want to run and then sometimes I don’t.  I had a two-and-a-half week excuse for not running because of my leg, but now I don’t.  It’s a constant battle with myself.  I want to be able to say, “I ran four miles today.”  But, oftentimes, I just create this mental hurdle that I fail to get over.  I basically did that this past fall after I got back from Nepal.  I ran but not with the same discipline I had the summer before I went to Nepal.

We all have moments when we just don’t want to do it, and little excuses, like chaffing on the inner thigh or stomach cramps, sneak in.  I’ve lost toenails, skin, my sanity, and then some in order to keep going. But despite the pain, I go forward.  When I have doubts, I think of Allisson Kessler, one of my dear friends, to keep running.

Allison is like me–a ferociously tenacious woman who achieves things on her terms and won’t listen to no’s.  She is also paralyzed from the waist down from a skiing accident that happened when she was at boarding school.  She didn’t want to play accommodated sports, so she turned to coxing the Harvard men’s crew team in college.  She’s now training as a medical student to help paralyzed children.  Watch this video of her in action.  Stunning.

When she didn’t want to listen to arguments about limiting stem cell research, she, along with her father, became a voice in that community advocating for it so that she can someday realize her dream of walking again.

Right before the holidays we went to dinner, and she said to me, “Everyone always asks me a lot of questions about my situation, but they never ask me what I would do if I could feel again in my legs. ” Her answer is to run barefoot through the grass and just feel the grass as it touches the bare skin and in between her toes.

Whenever I don’t want to run, I think of Allison and how she reminds me that it’s a privilege to run.  I think of her not allowing people to tell her no because she’s paralyzed, and I am grateful that I have working legs.

Allison will tell you that she looks up to me, but I will tell you that there are few people in this world that I admire more than those who defy the odds and through their tenacity and strength make us look at things differently.  When I think of her in races, I don’t pity her (though I am sympathetic for her situation), but I think she wouldn’t want me to take this moment for granted or the fact that I can run.  Because believe me, if she could run, I just don’t know the limits of how far she could go.

New York Marathon training starts now.  I am eager to be at that race.

In 2008, I decided the time had come to send out “adult Christmas cards.”  You know the ones you get customized by William Arthur & Co. with the gold embossing that wish everyone happiness during the holiday season.  I made mine up, went to check out, but couldn’t stomach the $500 bill for 100 cards. I thought I could do something better with my money.  These cards would be thrown away.  I think it’s fair to say that my friends all know I wish them well during this holiday season.

Meeting Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize winner for Economics and grandfather of microfinance loans, was one of the greatest moments of all my life. He inspired me to believe that small things can make a difference.  A little effort over a long period of time can change a life, a family, a village, and even a country.  Bangladesh is a different country because of Yunus’s effort to give small loans to women to start businesses.

Today, I sent out my “Christmas Cards”–actually e-cards through Kiva to my friends to make their own microfinance loans.  I feel it’s money better spent than my sending out some stock card with messages of peace on earth. I hope my friends enjoy it it too.

Maybe you’d rather give the gift of a water buffalo to help poor Thai people produce better crops.  You can do that through the Heifer Organization. Or maybe you want to fund a school classroom with art supplies. You can do that through an organization founded by someone who went to my boarding school at Donors Choose.

Today, I made my 25th loan through Kiva.  I usually give to people in Cambodia for sentimental reasons.  Not sure that I’ve done anything to alter the GDP of that country.  But I’ve done a little, and over time, little bits add up.  I hope you give a little too.

This past summer I fell in love with the movie Barney’s Version, which tells the story of an ordinary man’s life with ordinary problems but with an extraordinary heart.  It will move you to tears and make you want to try a little harder, but it will also make you realize that the measure of a good man is determined by the balance of his good and bad. I’ve noticed that as I wind down my twenties, I can finally see the gray of life.

Last week someone I know finally passed away from his battle with a terminal illness.  No surprise, since this disease has some of the highest mortality rates of any cancer. In fact, I am surprised he lived as long as he did since first being diagnosed. I found out later that this man was not quite who I thought he was, but even if I apply Barney’s rule here, he was still an extraordinary man by any set of measurements.

A famous singer friend of his with wrote a song and produced a video as a tribute to him.  Somehow I am in this video, which is why it was sent my way.  I wish I could share the song, because it’s beautiful.  Essentially, it talks about the set of principles that this man lived by, which guided him to incredible heights.  “Follow all the rules you set for yourself, and now they’ve served you well.  Don’t procrastinate, do it now, don’t wait.  Be quick, but don’t rush. Never, never, ever give up.” This man had a written set of rules that he used to guide him and his life.

I learned recently that I am being honored with the distinguished alumni award from my boarding school.  It’s an honor that’s incredibly humbling for me and rare, since I’ll be receiving it before my 25th anniversary (I haven’t even made it to my 15th).  In accepting the award, I happily agreed to go back and speak to the students. I started thinking about what would I tell a teenager about life.

During my runs, this answer has come to me. I think through my twenties I learned what rules I want to live by: live as passionately as I can and to give as selflessly as I can. A line in our school hymn says, “Til we cast our crowns before thee,” and I think about what I would want my story to say at that moment. I would want to say that I had spent time living by those principles. It’s not important to ask how it will be done. The rest will fall into place, but first you need to commit.

My early days with my great love, Diet Coke.

Yesterday, while I was typing at my desk, I started experiencing an uncontrollable shaking in my fingers.  My tips would not point to the right keys even though my mental faculties were trying to direct them. And as my shaking continued for about a minute, all I could think about as I kept on hearing my nails against the keyboard was “What the hell is wrong with me?” Since I’ve been back from Everest, I’ve often felt a numbness and tingling in my fingers.  On another occasion, my fingers were shaking so badly that I couldn’t finish an e-mail on my iPhone and couldn’t send it.

A quick scan on WebMD led to a self-diagnosis of the early onset of MS.  I called my friend whose father is head of a major neurological practice and said I needed to come in and told her my symptoms.  She said she’d get back to me with the name of a specialist in MS and get me in right away.  I then called my older sister, who’s a surgeon, to ask if she remembered any history of MS.  Negative. “I get these tremors, Abby, and my hands will not stop shaking.  Sometimes, I can’t even feel the ends of my fingertips,” I said, very concerned, into the phone.  “You don’t have MS. You have stress, and you drink way too much Diet Coke.  Lay off the Diet Coke,” she snapped back, as if I really were her patient at Northwestern.  If you opened my body right now, you might find veins of Diet Coke rather than blood.

There are few things I love more than the taste of that carbonated  brown beverage, aka Diet Coke. In college, when my roommate did the Coke/Pepsi challenge, I was the only one of 100 candidates to identify all 15 times if it was Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi.  There was never any hesitating, “That’s DC,” I’d respond.

I can’t really remember when I started drinking it.  But I was young, maybe three.  The picture above is from my parents’ (my mother to my stepfather) wedding, and I am toasting them with a tall glass of Diet Coke. Most friends I know went through a phase when they drank regular Coke and then switched to Diet Coke when they realized they were packing in a whopping 120 calories per 8 oz. serving.  I didn’t do it for the calories because when I was younger I just thought you peed them out.  I did it for the taste. Just for the taste of it.

In boarding school, I used to go the Market Basket in Concord, N.H., every Saturday to buy two twelve-packs that would barely last me for the week.  Tara, my best friend in high school, often said, “You think you should lay off the Diet Coke.”  I thought no way in hell.  If I hadn’t been so over-caffeinated, I’m not sure I would have stayed awake enough to produce the grades required to get into an Ivy League institution.  I know my first book was completely fueled by Diet Coke.  Someone joked to me that I should have an IV drip of it while writing and, honestly, I didn’t think it’d be a bad idea except I couldn’t taste it.  And, oh, how I love the taste.

I prefer Diet Coke in small glass bottles.  They seem to preserve the carbonation the best for the small amount; plus, I find the glass gives off less of a taste than, say, the aluminum can.  The can is my least favorite for DC storage, because by the end the bubbles are gone, and I feel I can always taste Periodic Table of Elements Al in my drink.  I can take the plastic bottles, but I think they are inferior to glass.  But when dispensed out of a soda gun, this method can also provide me with my Nirvana.

Over the years, I’ve been a girl who’s been lucky enough to receive diamonds, even a limited edition Warhol print, but no gift has ever brought me to more tears than when I received my own soda gun.  My boyfriend at the time had asked me while we were on vacation in the Caribbean, “What’s one luxury you’d want to have when you grow up?”  Without hesitation I replied, ”I’d want my own Diet Coke dispenser.”  A few weeks later for my birthday, I received my own soda gun assembled from parts he had scoured Ebay for.  Through his network, he even got someone to send up the syrup from Atlanta, and I had my very own Diet Coke gun to dispense that liquid joy whenever I wanted.  I was a mess of tears.

I drink a lot of Diet Coke. I drink a lot of caffeine.  My day begins with a tall, nonfat, extrahot latte at Starbucks followed by a 12 oz. bottle of Diet Coke all before noon.  I’ll have another Diet Coke with lunch, usually dispensed from the fountain where I’m eating.  Then around 2 p.m., I head back to Starbucks for a tall, nonfat, no water, with foam, extrahot chai latte (don’t you want to stand behind me in line next time?).  Then I have another 12 oz. bottle around 4 p.m., and I usually have it again with dinner.  I drink water throughout the day too.  I drink a lot, which is why I’m also a peeing machine throughout most of my waking hours.  I probably have at least six servings of DC, if not more each day.

This is probably more Diet Coke than I’ve ever had.  And it’s due to stress and so much that is going on in my life.  It’s my smoking if you will and my comfort blankey. But I’ve noticed as the clock winds down on my twenties, you just can’t do these things anymore without any consequence to your body.  You can’t eat half a roll of cookie dough and not gain weight.  You can’t drink four glasses of Veuve and not feel awful the next day.

I’ve tried to give up Diet Coke before, and I went to club soda for years.  But like a tormented lover that won’t leave me, DC came back.  And that first sip was better than even really great ex-sex.  But I can’t have my hands trembling, and I can’t be on the verge of thinking I’m experiencing the onset of early MS (which, by the way, is marked more by double vision and extreme weakness).  And so the time has come when I need to give up this thing.  There are so many other reasons to quit this drug.  I’ve read studies that indicate your body reacts the same to the Aspartame as it does to sugar.  My old boss tried to convince me that it was eating at my stomach lining.  Of course, there will be times that I could have it once a week.  Moderation is always the key to anything.  But at least for the near future, Diet Coke and I will have to take a long break.  Much like when you first break up with an ex.  And it’s never easy.