It appears that I am on the other side of the pendulum, the down side. I know it is just for this moment, and it is most likely the brunt of over-socializing and running around for a few weeks that my being is finally saying “enough”, and I was prepared for this in theory. I wrote down in all caps ALONE TIME on my personal calendar so that I would know I had to honor the empty space and not fill it.
It happens. There are things to do and people to see. There are adventures to be had and places to explore. There is only so much time to fit it all in, and some times the balance tilts and I find myself at the end of my rope after having said “yes” a few too many times.
I do not regret saying “yes” lately. There were really special and personal things to celebrate between Mike and I and my birthday. We had pre-planned a weekend in Pennsylvania to run Tough Mudder and stay to walk Longwood Gardens. Some friends joined us and I was able to get some emotional and physical closure on my old life. Knowing Mike wants to see that part of me is something I didn’t think meant much until it was happening. To know somebody genuinelywants to know all parts of me is special. He isn’t interested in just the best or the right now – he’s interested in it all. And having lived in Pennsylvania for 12 years, run a huge farm for 8, trained horses for the bulk of my life and ridden even more of it, he was missing on some rather large and fundamental parts of me. So I showed him.
Then we had planned to visit Harper’s Ferry over Memorial Day weekend, arriving and departing via bike. 60 miles there, stay the night and play the second day, stay again and return the 60 miles on Monday. It was amazing, and I am so grateful my body gracefully and easily switched from running to biking and I was able to experience something really different. Mike saw Harper’s Ferry for the first time and again, we got to know a little more about each other and spend time we usually miss during our hectic weeks. It didn’t feel like “too much”, but 120 miles on the bike, even though it’s no impact, requires energy.
My training has continued, and I have enlisted myself in a program to ready me for my A race in Tahoe in September. I mention my training and programming because it takes its toll. It’s an absolute centerpiece in my life and a tremendous source of energy and joy for me (just ask and I won’t shut up and it’ll be painfully obvious very quickly), but it’s used energy and time logged on the clock. Add in my career and the amount of effort it takes to prospect persistently and consistently every day, talk to people and drive to meetings, and it’s not a shock that by Friday 2 weeks into my “yes” mode, I am done.
There is also an undertone of sadness that I will not expose here because of people involved, that I cannot help but know is part of my downswing right now. Knowing people are suffering around me and knowing that I can’t do a fucking thing about it drains. It’s not that I think about it all of the time, but it’s there and I’m aware enough that I know I’d have to be a block of concrete to think it wouldn’t affect me and my sense of being. If I could give what I have to someone else – the sense of freedom and ease to know we all have choices today, I would. We all would. If we could love someone well, there wouldn’t be a self-help section in the book store or streaming videos of those dying from lack of connection.
But we can’t. We can only take care of ourselves, ultimately. We can only save ourselves and spare our own journey. And that’s only if we want to. God blessed us with the ability to decide for ourselves what we want to do with our life and how. God blessed us with the ability to choose left or right, straight or backward. He gifted us with sense and feelings and opportunities to keep doing the same, or to try something different because the same doesn’t work anymore.
Unfortunately, many of us don’t stop using whatever it is that we’re using to deflate the reality of life on life’s terms until it’s too late. “We all stop using eventually. It’s whether we’re alive or dead when we do.”
Today, I choose to be alive. And despite the downswing, I know that this too, shall pass.