I’ve spent a lot of my life saying no. No to experiences, no to fun, no to late nights, no to self control, no to new people. I’ve worked really hard in the past few years to not say no. i started in my classroom where i was in control of most things so saying yes was still safe. after getting divorced i began to say yes to waaaay too many things but saying no to myself, to my true self. i was still living in the “no”. over the past 5 years i’ve made more and more baby steps towards saying yes to my true self. training for imlp was the ultimate yes to my true self – no i’m not “truly an ironman” but i am striving to be a fearless (truly, fear less, not completely without fear) woman. i spend less time thinking about what might happen if i DO something, rather i spend more time trying to figure out how to make MORE happen. saying yes to new things is still scary – but time and time again that yes feeds me. knowing who i want to be and who i am in this present moment helps me distill which things i should say yes to.
i am grateful for the yes in my life.
lizzie fortin 
I wouldn’t use the clarifying adjective “truly” because it’s inaccurate. You ate, trained, slept, meditated, MELTed, and sacrificed for MONTHS training for IMLP. A better adjective would be “official,” only because you didn’t finish the actual race on actual race day, one day out of 200 days of preparation. The best thing, the jaw-dropping thing, in my opinion, is you did not get mentally derailed when you had to evacuate your hotel, when the water tasted like smoke and debris, when you flew down the side of a mountain, and when your race came to an unpredicted traumatic halt due to an inattentive racer. You achieved, and months later still exhibit, an inner calm, which was really your ultimate goal rather than “only” stringing 140.2 miles together. In Judy’s Book, you, Lizzie Fortin, are an IronMan.
“You’ve always had the power, my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.”–Glinda the Good
Jane here. Judy, Beautifully said and I agree with you 100% Lizzie Fortin, you are an IronMan in my book too. I also love the YES! How do we know what to say NO to and what to say YES to? Perhaps what should guide us is beauty in the world, in each other, and in ourselves.