Crawling out from under my rock...

Joy here...Bless me, father, for I have sinned. It's been 3 months since my last confession.  Um, wait a second, that's not quite right.  Take two:  Bless me, readers, for I have sinned. Its been 3 months since I last blogged.  Hmmm...not sure that's right either, but sometimes 6 years of Catholic school leaves deep imprints.

What I mean to say, is that I've finally crawled out from underneath the rock where I was hiding.

I wish that I had some really great excuses for my online absence.  I mean, wish I could sit here and say:  Man, I am so freakin' fit; I've been training so damn hard that I just didn't have time to sit down and blog.  Hell, why would I sit?  I've been too busy being an athlete.

Finally some green on the trees and my bike racked up
on the car and ready for the first outdoor ride of the season!

Well, sadly, that's not the case.  I could talk about how since January I've spent on average 18 days per month at home (and never all in a row, uninterrupted); I could talk about how I had a wee health scare that kept me off the bike for a while (biopsy, but YAY nothing to worry about); I could talk about our upcoming move to Malaysia and the million and one things I have to do to pretend to get ready for that; I could talk about growing my business and the demands of being a sole proprietor entrepreneur; I could probably talk about how I waffled between running and cycling, committing to neither and letting everything fall apart; and I could totally blame the weather since spring decided not to show up in Ottawa this year, and we were still getting snow in mid-April and frost in mid-May; but, really, do you want to read about all that?  My guess is a big, fat, NO.

Blue sky and steep hill...yep, I just have to keep running
up and down this and I'll get some fitness back!

So I won't explain to you how I grappled with my desires to be a cyclist, but the busy reality of my life that made that impossible, but that it took me a long time to accept that I had fallen off the cyclist wagon, so I was neither a cyclist nor a runner, just some girl who wanted to be a cyclist, but who really only went for a jog a couple of times a week.

Now that I'm out from underneath that rock, I've had to break up with my cycling coach ("it's not you, it's me..."), and recommit to running.  And, you know what?  I'm totally happy.

I'm happy to reconnect with running, to have those moments out there under the blue sky when I feel the ground beneath my feet and get to turn inwards in my head and meditate while I run.  I'm happy to feel like I can just throw a pair of shoes in my suitcase whenever I'm travelling (which I still seem to do too much of), and not be a failure for being off the bike.  And more than all that, I'm happy to gain a sense of much-needed perspective:  Sport will always be there for me and with me, in the long haul, for the rest of my life.  So whether I'm super fit right now or not (not as it happens), what is more important is that I don't lose perspective.

Life is busy.  Life is crazy.  Life is exciting.  And so if I don't end up being a super fit bike racer or a super fast runner, does that mean I'm a failure?  Hell no! 

The jokers at the bike shop where Coach Woods works
put this up.  I'm just worried that Coach Woods is
gonna be the one to break up with me one of these days!

Over the past nearly 3 months, I've slowly learned to allow myself the liberty of responding to what life throws at me rather than moaning and groaning that life isn't unfolding according to my ultimate plan.  I guess John Lennon knew what he's was talking about when he wrote:  "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

So what can I promise now...well, I can promise that I'll log on more regularly to blog about things that are going on in my head; I will write about my running, and if I get out there on my bike, I'll probably write about that; in 3 weeks I'll be relocating to Kuala Lumpur, so there'll probably be a whole lot about my new Southeast Asian life, where I will be reunited with Nomi, my friend, co-runner, and former co-blogger; and I can (almost) promise that I won't crawl back under that rock.

Life isn't a nice, neat narrative with a beginning-middle-end like a well-crafted story.  It's messy, full of unpredictable ups and downs, and in blogging, I may just capture some of that messiness, so long as I don't try too hard to narrativize my life and give myself some kinda happy ending!

Over and out,
Joy