Who Needs Working Lungs Anyways?

I love giving people presents.

It becomes like an obsession for me - coming up with the perfect idea for a gift, searching for it, acquiring the gift and then (the ultimate event!!) watching the recipient open it. Over the years, I've grown to love giving gifts even more than I love receiving them.

But I definitely wasn't always that way.

When I was little, there was nothing that tortured me more than watching other people open and receive presents. I blame the fact that I was an only child (and an only grandchild on one side) for eight years. You just can't be expected to be a selfless person of virtue when every adult around you has spent eight years doting on you.

When my cousin got a bike for her first communion, I can remember watching her ride around the front yard, feeling like I couldn't breathe. It didn't matter that my own first communion was going to be the following week and I already knew I was getting a bike as well (and it was going to be a hot pink ten speed! Holy 1990 DJ Tanner!) and it didn't matter that the bike my cousin received wasn't anything like any bike I'd ever wanted, it still killed me to see someone else get a present.

I got a little better after my sisters were born, mostly because it's hard to be a totally horribly selfish 10 year-old brat when your parents also have a newborn and a baby going through the terrible twos. But I still wasn't cured. I can remember watching my four-year-old sister opening presents at her birthday party, and panicking when I felt that familiar tightening in my throat and drop in my stomach that signaled abject jealousy. Why didn't I get anything cool like that when I was a baby? I want a new Fisher Price kitchen and bakery!

Tomorrow I am about to experience the adult fitness version of my aversion to watching people open presents.

About a week ago I started feeling sick. A frequent visitor to the Sinus Infection Club of America (I'm not only the president, I'm a member!), I took it in stride and continued to train for my August 30 sprint triathlon. Like an idiot, I went running, did a few long bikes and even took a triathlon swimming clinic in the lake.

Then a few days later I woke up unable to breathe. Two sets of x-rays, a nebulizer treatment, steroid, antibiotic and inhaler prescriptions later, I found myself faced with a diagnosis of bronchitis and stern instructions to not do any athletic activity for two weeks. I got a second opinion. Phrases like "borderline pneumonia," "irreparable lung damage," and "compete over my dead body" were thrown around.

The long and short of it was that I was forbidden from competing in the triathlon. Logically I understand that I can't walk around my apartment without getting out of breath. I can't breathe deeply, and I can't laugh, talk or eat without coughing so hard it sounds like my organs are making a getaway through my trachea. I get it that I could be a danger to myself and others, and that there's a good chance I wouldn't physically be able to finish the race.

But that doesn't change the fact that tomorrow morning, as I go to watch thousands of people compete in one of the largest triathlons in the world, I'll be watching every one of them open a gift that I can't have.

Today, I had to go to the triathlon expo, hand in my time chip, and watch everyone else get body marked and learn about the course. I got to listen to the excited chatter of my wouldabeen fellow athletes, and even saw which swim heat I would have gone out in (8! My lucky number even!). The whole time I had that lump in my throat and stomach-tumbling feeling of watching someone get to do something I couldn't.

I'll be there tomorrow to cheer on one of my best friends who flew across the country to do this triathlon with me and now has to do it alone. I'll watch with the knowledge that I am now officially an over-training-after-school-special-PSA-against-burning-the-candle-at-both-ends-and in-the-middle. I'm so proud of my friend and how amazing she'll do, and I'll be really excited to watch her cross the finish line.

But I can't help feeling a little disappointed. Like I'm being forced to watch thousands of younger siblings open up the biggest present under the tree on Christmas morning. Well aware I'm whining here - please humor me.

The only good thing? I'm now officially in for the 2010 Chicago Triathlon. I hope everyone realizes what this means: you all have another year of watching me fall down, sweat genitalia shapes onto my shirts and wear my gear backwards.

Hope you're all ready for the ride.