I'm having a little bit of a pity party over here. My foot is in an orthotic shoe from the Morton's neuroma surgery I had two weeks ago and things aren't healing in the lightening fast speed that I'd hoped for. I just put my mother in an assisted living home and am wrestling with the guilt from that. I can't wake up and join my friends for a morning run like I used to. And it's one million degrees outside so I am home for hours during the day with a newly empty-nesterhood situation.
Poor me, right? Sheesh.
This sort of funk doesn't happen to me often. For the past 15 years I've banked on athletic endorphins to top off my happiness. When one asks the question: why do you tri? I can answer without a doubt that a daily swim, bike and run is an exhilarating treat for me. The adrenalin of the next race and the joy of checking off another Ironman are what my training friends and I refer to as the "finish line junkie" in all of us.
So when some of that disappears and my event calendar fizzles out, I need a boost. Tri friends in cyber space: what are your tips? Share with me your wisdom. Show me some love.
Coaching others is one key to my life that sustains that my joy. I love watching others compete and accomplish what they previously thought they could not do. I get so much excitement helping them design a path for their success. And I know I have been there when their personal struggles have happened to them.
Today it's my turn. I know I'm going to be okay -- this too shall pass. And perhaps this sadness is just a way to empathetically remind myself that life is messy. It's rarely the path you really planned for yourself. The twists and turns along the way and our choices of how we react to these U-turns can make or break us. I choose to make it today.
See ya soon, running shoes.
