Guts and glory

The air was thick. With humidity. With noise.

I was tired. I wanted to sleep. But all I could do was toss, turn as the booms of nearby fireworks filled the air. Frustrated, I quietly trotted downstairs.

I opened the door to the entertainment cabinet and put a DVD in the PS3. The sound of familiar friends was sure to put me to sleep.

Once upon a time, I lived and died (so to speak) according to the edicts of "Sex and the City." I was Carrie. Obviously. A lover of shoes and wrong men, a girl who wanted it all but had yet to find it. I routinely quoted the show the way Mark recites "The Big Lebowski," and I found myself relating nearly every situation to the series.

On this night, I had a chicken on the roof next door. Sorry, a rooster.

But rather than fall asleep to the first part of season six, I once again found myself sucked in. I watched episode after episode until my eyes could no longer stay open, the fireworks finally muffled by fatigue. The last words I remember hearing were:

"Now is the time for guts and guile."

The quote belongs to Elizabeth Taylor, and it motivated a grieving Charlotte to attend the birthday party for Brady. Not that it matters. I'm not here to write about the birthday party.

Rather, the quote reminded me of a comment Marcia left in my Firecracker 4-miler recap. I had bemoaned a too quick start, a mental battle and poor finish but she said that while those may be true, at least I had the guts to go for it.

I had never really thought of it that way. I am so quick to point out what I did wrong, to think about what I could do better and never think about the tenacity it takes to at least try to get it. We all do.

But sometimes you have to have guts. To lay it out on the line. Because you'll never know what's possible if you don't.