The Dirt Field

I have been a bit of a mess lately. Cross season ended up being a bust, so I called it quits early to start winter training. My inability to get the mental aspects of racing under control, combined with the outside influence of other things in my life, made continuing to race an unhappy, stressful prospect. After a few talks with the coach, we pulled the plug on the season entirely and I’m taking a rest month. Resting makes me nervous – I feel like I need to work out to stay in shape and keep the training progressing, but I also know that soon enough the rest will be over and it will be time to start being disciplined again. Finding a level of riding that keeps me feeling good and familiar with the bike while staying stress-free is a balancing act. I also wonder if it wouldn’t be better for me to be racing or training hard right now; maybe it would give me a better center while everything else feels like a spiraling disaster. But I trust my coach and I know that forcing my body to ride when I feel constantly tired and flat is counterproductive.  So I rest and focus on next season.

Part of me wants to talk about the other things that are going on that feel dark and depressing and unhappy, but what’s the point? Maybe it’s not the things that are going on around me, maybe it is just me and the way I think and process things. I want to change that, but it feels like a catch-22: it would be easier to change my thinking if bad things weren’t happening, but it wouldn’t feel like bad things were happening if I could change the way I think about them.

I know I have a good life. I have a great family and wonderful friends, I have two sweet dogs and a good job, I have a hobby that I enjoy and have been successful at so far, I have somebody I love who has been willing to stick it out through the hard times, and I have my health and a roof over my head. Being so unhappy constantly feels ungrateful and pointless and frustrating, but I can’t seem to shake the dark clouds. It hasn’t helped that I have been having a very rough month. It feels like the bad just keeps coming and I’m at the point now where even the little bad things feel crushing, especially when the very foundation of things I relied on before seems to have crumbled.

I want things to change, but I don’t know where to start. I want certain parts of my life to just improve already, dammit, but in being the way I am now, I’m standing in the way of that improvement. Moving forward would be a good plan if I knew what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be, but I haven’t the slightest idea of either. I only know what isn’t working.

I should end this on a positive note.

A-sharp.