The Process

Joy here...Last Saturday night we had Coach Woods and some of his other athletes--including three focusing on making it to the Olympics in Rio in 2016--over for dinner; on Wednesday I attended our weekly practice at the university gym with the others; on Friday, I joined The Man with some of his grad students at the university pub for a few drinks; and on Saturday, we went to our weekly track practice at the dome...filled with kids and Coach Woods's other athletes (them elite, me notsomuch).

It's been invigorating to hang out with these young people--these twenty somethings--filled with ambition, drive, enthusiasm, earnestness, and potential.  The world is their oyster, and you can't help but get the feeling that they're going somewhere in life.

And it seems like just yesterday I was there.

In fact, sometimes, I think I am still there.  I still think the world is my oyster and I'm full of potential.

But then I realize, that I'm my adult self.  No longer am I some bright, young thing...precocious and mature beyond her years.  Now I'm just a woman in the world going about the business of adulthood.

But I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up!  I don't know that I've actualized all that potential I demonstrated when I was their age.  I look in the mirror and slowly, but surely, the woman who looks back at me is getting older and older.  Sometimes, in the right light, I see my mom looking out at me.  And it scares me.

I lined up on the track Saturday morning with my iPhone in hand to time my 800m efforts around and around the dome, and I thought of that.  I'm not training with Olympic goals, and unlike those eager grad students, my PhD and postdoctoral days are behind me.  Heck, they want to grow up and be professors, and I can quite literally say "been there, done that."

So why do I do it?  Why do I train with a cycling coach and a running coach if I don't have big goals like some of the others?  Why do I publish and think and work on building a post-academic career if I'm no longer holding out hope of one day being a professor?  What's the end game for someone like me?

Aren't we all asking questions like that?

And aren't they the wrong questions?

running around and around the track

As I tick off one 800m set in 3:40 and Coach Woods tells me to slow it down, and I tick off the next one at 3:58 and get ready for my third, aiming closer to 3:50, it's the process I focus on.  I start up on that third set, and I try to get the rhythm right so that my pacing will be better.  In-out-in-out-in-out...I try to get my breathing right so that it is in tune with my legs.  "Keep driving the knees forward," I hear Coach Woods say in my head, and I adjust my stride.  I keep my arms bent at 90º and move them in tune with my breathing and my legs, letting my whole body tick together, and I finish that third set in 3:52, almost perfect.  For my fourth and final 800m set, I hold myself back for the first loop, 400m.  I keep myself steady so that for my final 400m I can just run...keeping my form right, but not worrying about whether my pace is on or not.  I just run for the fun of it; I run to feel like a kid again; I run because I feel good; I run because I like to feel fast; and I finish that last set in 3:44.  But it's not about that number.  It's not about what I'm going to with the data from these sets.  It's not about anything really but me.

I feel good, and as I start my final three 200m sets, I knock them off in less than 45seconds, feeling alive.

it's the journey, not the destination that counts

And I when I look at that woman in the mirror whose skin is losing the elasticity of youth, and who can't wear the same kind of make-up that she used to, and who needs to take a little more care in what she wears and how her hair is cut, I know that she's not about potential.  She's not about being on the edge of what life is just about to give her.  She's in it.  She's right there in it.  It's the process that matters.

I think I finally understand the cheezy saying:  "It's the journey, not the destination that counts."  Because I've belatedly realized that I've achieved all the destinations I thought to achieve, and now I'm just rolling with the journey...no end games in sight.

And along the way, I hope for there to be triumphs--little goals and little achievements, big goals and big achievements--that pop up and dot my path along the way, sign posts and turning points, but never end points.  I'm done with finish lines.

Unless they're provisional, just a temporary finish until the next one comes along.

Over and out (provisionally),
Joy