I Don't Need Easy

"I don't need easy. I just need possible."

I have a shirt that says that on the back: a tank given to me by my friend Stacy, who left us last year.

She didn't get easy, and then the possible train stopped running for her. Cancer is a mofo. (You can see me wearing that tank in this photo, along with my training partner, Adriana, as we offered support for Stacy from miles away.)

I still believe in that shirt and I still believe in Stacy, even if she's not walking the Earth anymore. I know that sounds a bit weird, but as long as we remember her, she never really leaves us, right? Like Marilynne Robinson wrote in Housekeeping, "To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow ... For to wish for a hand on one's hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again."

So, I don't need easy. I don't even really want easy. Where's the challenge in easy?

I'd rather take a fast run at a brick wall and end up dazed and bloody than sit on the mind-numbing couch of life with its suffocating lack of effort. Not interested. For me, self-respect comes from actually doing something.

• Hard is okay.

• Difficult is optimal.

• "Nobody's ever done it before" is just a tease.

Give me a run at possible. Heck, give me a run at impossible, too. I'll pinch that lemon until it turns into an orange. Stranger things have happened in this world.

I don't need easy. How about you?