For Love of The Personal Hero (Love of The Self.)

Something in my room is vibrating. I can here that all too familiar distinguishable sound; it’s the phone I left on vibrate, and it’s actually ringing before 10 o’clock in the morning. I rub my eyes, glance at the stereo, acknowledge that it is in fact, incredibly close to 10 a.m., and I jump out of bed to answer my angry, now seemingly annoyed, vibrating device.

[Conversation]

“Ummm, Hello?”

Hi! Did I wake you?

[Immediately I register that it's my sister, and I can go from being a grump to only mildly grumpy and pretty much ok that the phone's ringing woke me despite needing the rest. I love getting phone calls from my sister.]

“No. I was resting. Well, yes, I was up late working, but it doesn’t matter I need to get up. What’s up? How are you?”

Out shopping for jars, good. What are you working on? Why so tired?

“3-D design work, writing, thinking and not sleeping, honestly did too much at the gym and I’m suffering for it. Why do you need jars? Are you experimenting?”

[This is where she tells me I am a hero with all I do when it comes to school, despite my own personal limitations. I in turn tell her to be quite because I always wish and want to be able to do more, and feel badly when I cannot. There is also lamenting about not finding the correct jars necessary for pickling foods. We continue catching up with each other about our weeks, we do this with each other every weekend, find comfort in it and in its simplicity.]

“I hit the 2 mile mark with my running this week at the gym. I feel like there’s no going back.”

That’s awesome! I’m thinking about registering for an Ironman in California next year…

[Silence. Then my verbal explosion.]

“Where! When! Oh my god that rocks! You rock! You’re going to kick but, I hope you do decide to do it, I think this is an amazing idea!” (my exclamations go on for what seem like minutes.)

[More exclamation from me, cheering, screaming, congratulations, etc. I mention flying out to be her cheering squad.]

I’m tossing around the idea of having it be a fundraiser, of competing to support the non-profit organization we helped before.

[We continue our conversation, pass along thoughts and love, and say our goodbyes.]

I’ve had the day to think about this conversation with my sister, and actually there have been several like it over the years where I’ve thought about what it means to be someones “Personal Hero” ; to be a source of inspiration, of healing, of tireless and relentless support for someone else. I often wonder how other people see those close to them in their own life. Are they people they would definitely count on if they needed to? Are the people others surround themselves with selfless, supportive, objective, and trustworthy? Are they willing to throw it all down, to sacrifice and test boundaries, to recognize that the place in which we all exist is bigger than just you or I as separates?

My sister is someone I feel lives and breathes all of these qualities; questions the tentativeness of our place here, places others often times above and in front of herself, and is willing to sacrifice her physical being in order to promote the ideas and beliefs that support her at her core.

In some way, I feel that this idea is important; I feel that having real life heroes, real life Personal Heroes, encourages others to live and see beyond their own sphere. To grow in ways they never believed they could; to gain, to hurt, to live, to understand themselves on a level so often left unexplored and ignored. I think a Personal Hero translates to “hope,” (abstracted) and this idea, at least for me, is important. I know how hard finding that sense is [hope]; having hope that things will change, can change, that people believe there can be more than what we simply see around us, in us, between each other. I feel that Personal Heroes help amplify the potential buried in us, the potential to be -more-.

This year my sister completed her first Half Ironman to help support and raise funds and awareness for a non-profit organization dedicated to researching and educating people about Fibromyalgia. This is an illness I have. It’s limited me and my ability to do many of the physical things I’ve often wanted to, it’s painful and confusing, and sometimes humiliating. Having an illness no one can physically see, often limits how much of the world I let -see- me for real.

Knowing that this person exists; that there is an individual who is willing to sacrifice their physical self, in order to open doors of communication about an idea and cause that they are so passionate about, spills volumes of emotion inside of me. I often have to explain this idea to others; do you know anyone who would tear their body apart for you out of love? Because this is what a Half Ironman does. It’s countless and dedicated hours of physical training, of running, biking, and swimming. It’s diet, rest and health. It’s mind over body when your physical systems decide 3 miles from the finish line, at mile 67, it can’t go any further, doesn’t have any more energy to burn, and simply shuts down.

So I sit here, I and I think of my life and what and where I would be without my sister, without this idea of a Personal Hero. I see myself from a very limited perspective, a narrowed scope. I know others have this same view or limited view of who and how they are; it’s a part of the human nature, it’s how we act and interact. My sister has helped me to be able to see a part of myself I always thought somewhat limited, diminished, and nonexistent; the potential part in me to be physically more despite my limitations. She is more to me than just family; she is an intangible idea, an embodiment of hope. I have moments in my life, in my daily life, where I push myself past any rational or physical limitation because I know that parallel to my own being, there is someone doing the same thing while thinking of me, for me, out of love of me.

I know that even if hope as an idea, wavers, that the one of love does not. And for this reason I can say I love the idea of Personal Heroes, of what they mean for me, of who they are to me, and of how they’ve helped change my life and my perspectives of my life for the better.

[This is for my sister; who can sacrifice her body out of love and for passion. Who inspires me to do the same, and for the miles I will run between now and the first triathlon I compete in, in the spring of 2009, which I in turn will dedicate to my sister, for love and for hope.]

- Melinda