"Won't take me long," I confidently announced three months ago, to update this blog.
They were believable promises, even to myself they were, I swear.
I mean, what I have to tell you, it will reach you, it will resonate with someone, I know! Lesson-worthy, gilded amazing stories woven into the fabric of ordinary days.
It's finding time to get it all out in words, in succession.
It will be my intense joy to share it all, truly, any part of it, with you.
The more time goes, the more details fade of what an impact Jack and Jesus and GRACE have given me every day since August 12, 2014.
in chapters, to get reacquainted and not bore you through one never ending narrative.
This post will be titled, "Chapter 1: Re-introduction."
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Thank you for visiting! My name is Suzanne Sharpe. I'm 48, I identify myself as an ultrarunner and mom, but I am much more than that these days.
Oh, you have noticed the new last name.
Yes. On February 7, 2015 I married Jack Sharpe.
Surprised? Me too! I last left you early March 2014, complaining of the pitifully sad pool of men inclined to take me to dinner, and now I have a sweet husband.
It did really sort of happen in a divine intervention type of way, especially since Jack and I met on a Saturday morning Wild Bill trail run in the South Chagrin Reservation, a spot I rarely run, and nearly canceled on attending that morning in April (you remember, at that time I was also bemoaning my lack of motivation for running). Good thing I didn't cancel.
I will spare you most of the gushy, disgusting details of what happened on that 3 hour run. The important points to note were simply that I noticed Jack from the first moment, from him standing by his car right before we started, and my hoping he was somehow a new addition to our group. Indeed, he was! Brooke brought her friend along, a male, which of course did not sit well with Bill, since he likes to approve the LADIES he runs with, and has no use really for the men.
Anyway, per usual, the ladies (plus Jack and my friend Bob) were placed to take a group photo, so that Wild Bill would have a frozen memory and proof of the love he has gathered through the years, and we went on our way through the trails.
Of course I noticed Jack was good looking. Of course I noticed how he would lag back with the slower runners and then sprint like a rabbit to the front of the pack, ahead of Bill who'd yell that we weren't racing and what WAS he DOING trying to take the lead?! Of course I noticed I was nervous when Jack felt compelled to balance-beam a fallen tree over a shale bed fairly far below, so nervous I had to trot on off and not watch, wondering why I would care anyway. And of course I noticed how Jack kindly held up tree limbs from snapping back at us, and how he held out his hand at the top of a particularly steep climb up rocks.
As I recall, there were a few single ladies running in Bill's group that day, including me. And yes, Jack was quizzed on his marital status, his opinion of women, and why he divorced, pushed farther by me asking if he was currently in a relationship, and assuring him that if he was gay it was okay (when I so wanted him to be a single straight man). Turned out that Jack was running the same race I was the following weekend, O24.
I had every intention from that moment to get to know Jack, as if it was ever in my control at all.
Ironically, I did tell my daughters about this obscure man who ran with us, someone I had not ever met and couldn't believe I had never met.
In fact, if I had a diary, he would have been thoroughly interpreted, positively on Monday, evolving to quite negatively by Friday, never dependent on actual true information, but by some intuitive sketch I drew of this man. This man JACK SHARPE who did NOT accept my friend request on Facebook. This man who was telling me THROUGH HIS SILENCE that he was not interested.
Obviously, this man had not recovered yet from what must have been a harsh divorce... or perhaps been burned so badly by women he was done... or just figured single life was the way to go for the rest of his better-off-lonely life. He, too, probably wanted to move to Alaska and live in a log cabin, alone. He was protecting his heart. He was probably still in some very dysfunctional relationship he knew he needed to end but couldn't find the way TO end. He wanted a physical relationship, and certainly I wasn't the one for only that. He had become re-virginized. He was gay.
Or maybe his life didn't revolve around social media and accepting friend requests. He didn't even notice the email prompt that Suzanne Pokorny had sent him a friend request. He hadn't been on Facebook at all that week.
So, after enduring a bit of harshness and haranguing from me about the whole Facebook misinterpretation, one week after our first meeting, we stepped off (unknowingly) for our first date, running a trail loop over and over for 100k (62 miles).
It was a pretty solid first date.
Life CHANGED for me that day and night. Jack met my daughters that day (they ran 12 miles with us), I met his brother Randy that day. We talked about most everything. He saw the real me, the sweaty me, the tough me, the in-pain me, the dramatic me. And thank you, God, he loved the real me.
And here we are, many chapters later, the Sharpes.
Please stay with me as I fill in those chapters in-between March 2014 and today. Won't take me long, now that I have finally, tentatively, begun again.
