jennethink: SHHHH ... DON'T TELL MY MOM, SHE THINKS IT'S JUST A FESTIVAL

I can’t play softball.

I have the skill set – I can catch, I can hit and I can yell “heybatta-batta-battta-sa-whing!batta!” with the best of them but I can’t play softball. I can’t play because when I run I start to laugh. I laugh and laugh. As soon as I ca-rack! the ball out into center field and take off like a fox with her tail on fire toward the lump of bag called “first” I start to lose it. I scream. Not in the “someone is trying to kill me” way but in the “I’m getting tickled and I can’t breathe” way. I don’t always laugh when I run. I don’t laugh when I’m on the treadmill – no …that’s not laughter coming from my lips. Not even close. And I don’t laugh when I’m on the track making myself dizzy. But when I play softball, and I have to run the bases, I laugh. And it’s not just for softball. It’s really any game where running is involved. Well, not so much running as chasing. I’m not sure why, and I don’t know when it started exactly but once I reached my adult years, I noticed I couldn’t take off knowing someone was behind me without giggling so hard I nearly fell down. So races are out. Soccer is a no-no. And thank goodness we don’t play Tag as adults. I can’t explain it. I’m tired of trying,. The bottom line – I can’t play softball – or any game where a chase is involved. Because I can’t run without laughing.

This is good for you to know because I want you to have a solid complete picture in your head of me when I tell you this next thing.

I’m leaving tomorrow to go to Pamplona, Spain to do the Run with the Bulls. You know, the run that takes place every day for a week in July during the Festival of San Fermin. If you've seen City Slickers or read Hemmingway you know what I'm talking about. If not, there are some fun little video clips here, here and here you can watch (Mom, do NOT watch these). They will bring you up to speed. It's a lifelong dream of mine. And it is time. In just about a week or so, I'll be running. Running from bulls.

I know! I’m already laughing just thinking about it. I mean if I can’t run the 60 feet between home and first base without nearly peeing my pants with laughter how in the world am I going to stay in front of a couple of tons of toro?

When I teach emotional intelligence, I explain that all decisions, at their very core, are emotional. Clearly this is true, for Running Due to the Bulls (as we like to call it around here) is not a logical choice I’m making. Some would say it is downright D-U-M-Bizzle. But that’s okay. Because those people will never be able to say when they were 39 (and exactly one year from the day of their first chemo treatment) they stood on a tight Spanish street dressed all in white with a rolled up paper in their clammy hand thrusting in the air and calling out for the release of snorting, snot-flinging, burly hunks of beef on 4 very fast legs. Those people won’t be able to tell the story over and over again. They won’t be able to say, That was me! every July when footage blinks onto CNN and ESPN.

But I will.

Watch for me. The second week of July switch on your TV. Scan the mass of scrambling humans in white. And when the camera zooms in on one particular person running like the wind with her head thrown back and tears squeezing from her eyes laughing louder than she’s ever laughed you’ll know I made it.