Comment: A Goal Post (Hyuk. Sorry.)

I realize I'm milking the whole half-marathon thing, but a person doesn't always have things to crow about. And I'm a-crowin'.

One of the challenges of being the Primary Caregiver Monkey in a relationship (Ayun Halliday's term; fabulous, of course) is there's always a lot to do but not much recognition at a good job done.

So many PCM moms and dads do a lot of thankless but important things that are vital for their offspring's health and happiness. They often do much for their partner as well.

But the thing about parenting is, there's no grade. You don't get paid, you don't get promoted, you don't earn any gold stars or medals. (Did I mention I got a medal at the half-marathon? I really like it.)

And something that really makes a person happy, according to much of what I've read, including Kristin Maschka's book, This is Not How I Thought It Would Be, is achieving a goal. Maschka's definition of ambition is the ability to master a skill and be recognized for it. We all have ambition. It's part of who we are as a species. We all want to be recognized for achieving something that challenged us.

Parenting does not hold that recognition. (At least, not for many years.) ( And that's if you're lucky.)

So deciding to do something challenging, but with a clear goal and strategy with which to achieve it, has been really quite delightful.

If you had told me last year that I'd run a half-marathon this year, I would have scoffed.

Truly, a great scoffing would have ensued.

But I did it. And I'm happy about it.

Because it's something I didn't know how to do; I worked at it, and got recognized for it.

And that's just nice.

I'll write about something else tomorrow. I promise.