What a difference a day on the bike with teammates and does for my outlook. We had our annual Sequim Race clinic this weekend and I was not sure I should even go for several reasons.
1. I just haven't taken time away from my family in a over a year.
2. Em had a soccer game with her new Rx goggles and I was excited to see her play.
3. I wasn't sure I could even keep up with anyone and
4. I just felt very disconnected from the team since I have been MIA for, forever.
I decided to make the time for me and ask for a carpool. My friend Cov graciously offered; this was the motivation I needed to pack the night before, wake up early on a Saturday and get my old morning race routine a rejuvenated try. The previous weekend I intended on going to the team rides but couldn't pull myself out of bed until just a wee bit too late and missed both rides by about 15min each morning. I road solo to May Valley on Saturday and Solo around the North end Sunday. It was good for confidence that I had some kind of fitness but also 2 long rides and my back was fine. Fine! that was new and such a welcome change from three years of suffering every time I road my bike.
So Saturday I woke up early and got ready like it was a race. There was a comfort in the familiar routine and I was excited to be with friends again. I was pretty apprehensive of how the actually riding would go but just happy to be going.
Had a great drive over with friends and then we prepared to "race". Just being in a pack was nerve racking at first but I settled in and then just tried to hold on. Then it got easier and on the downhill corner I felt some of my confidence come back. I managed to hold on to the main pack for a lap + a little; not crash while running over a full water bottle and nearly missing a second! Sheesh!
I got caught by a chase group and didn't let go of a wheel that I know well and trust until the last conrner. We finished the second lap and I did a simulated sprint (the only on I have ever won) It wasn't a real race and doesn't really count but it did for me in the sense that I felt competitive again and that feeling that only comes with racing that I haven't had for years. I felt more like me again.
Saturday was the hardest single effort I have done in several years and I felt it afterward for sure the gut pain etc. But the best part is I still had no back pain, hallelujah!
Had lunch then hurried home. Reid and I went to dinner with our very good friends to Snappy Dragon. We had a blast, I have missed S & J so much over the last year. I felt like part of my world was returning to normal, happiness in the everyday things could be found agian.
Today, I spent the day pulling weeds and scraping gutters in the warmth and sunshine and I couldn't have been more content. Life does go on and days do return to pleasant and calm. Time does heal and racing my bike is going to happen again.
Today is a good day and I am looking forward to many tomorrows.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Reflection
I have been reflecting on the past year a lot lately. The holidays always brings out more emotions probably because each year I pull out the ornaments and pictures from the past and it congers up all the associated memories. This year was especially hard. Everything seemed to bring back memories of our life as an intact family. The loss of our family as a whole weighs heavily on my heart and then the loss of Kevin being part of it even when we were apart is numbing. There have been many positive things happening in my life this year. Reid and I were married and we started our life as a family. This is a good thing and I can’t imagine how difficult this past year would have been without his support and love. My health is vastly improved, the struggles with my back and then the whole mess with the surgeries is a thing of the past. I actually am feeling strong and mostly pain free, but then again I am now in my forties so aches and pains are bound to be expected sometimes.
I have been going through all of the pictures and videos from when Meg was born up until present days. This has been fun to see my babies as infants and remember all the little moments, it has also been very hard to see images of Kevin, hear his voice and see the life we shared. Going through old letters and emails I found a series of the most difficult time in our life as a couple. Rereading them brought such sorrow to my heart. The things that get lost when you are hurting, communication is not always heard as intended and I look at what we wrote to each other now and realize we were both struggling to get the other to really hear that we still loved one another. Our own pain and frustration, insecurities and stubbornness seemed to blind us both. I am not sure that we could have ever reconciled our marriage there were some very deep wounds and some patterns of unhealthy interactions that may not have ever been resolved. Yet, I know in my heart that I never stopped loving Kevin I just could not let that love rise to the surface in the storm of conflict we found ourselves. I don’t think we ever put closure on our relationship; there was still a struggle for the truth around unresolved issues. Continued patterns of behavior that I felt compelled to help change. Parts of Kevin as a father I could not just turn away from and we struggled with this continually. The girls both wrote letters with the grief counselor as if they were written by their daddy, what they would have wanted him to say to help bring closure to the unresolved issues. Reading them made me so sad. I wish he could have told the girls these things himself and received the gift of love from admitting his own flaws. I can only hope that he would have been able to do this in life at some point. He simply was denied the opportunity. I wish I could have been at a point to forgive him for his shortcomings this is what stood in my way to healing for four years. I had already grieved the loss of our marriage and our home when he died, the grief I have felt for the loss of Kevin has been immense to compound that with the loss of our life in the same home as a family would have been so devastating that I am not sure that I would have the strength to cope with it all at once. I think of Kevin still daily, he is never far from my thoughts he never was.
I have been going through all of the pictures and videos from when Meg was born up until present days. This has been fun to see my babies as infants and remember all the little moments, it has also been very hard to see images of Kevin, hear his voice and see the life we shared. Going through old letters and emails I found a series of the most difficult time in our life as a couple. Rereading them brought such sorrow to my heart. The things that get lost when you are hurting, communication is not always heard as intended and I look at what we wrote to each other now and realize we were both struggling to get the other to really hear that we still loved one another. Our own pain and frustration, insecurities and stubbornness seemed to blind us both. I am not sure that we could have ever reconciled our marriage there were some very deep wounds and some patterns of unhealthy interactions that may not have ever been resolved. Yet, I know in my heart that I never stopped loving Kevin I just could not let that love rise to the surface in the storm of conflict we found ourselves. I don’t think we ever put closure on our relationship; there was still a struggle for the truth around unresolved issues. Continued patterns of behavior that I felt compelled to help change. Parts of Kevin as a father I could not just turn away from and we struggled with this continually. The girls both wrote letters with the grief counselor as if they were written by their daddy, what they would have wanted him to say to help bring closure to the unresolved issues. Reading them made me so sad. I wish he could have told the girls these things himself and received the gift of love from admitting his own flaws. I can only hope that he would have been able to do this in life at some point. He simply was denied the opportunity. I wish I could have been at a point to forgive him for his shortcomings this is what stood in my way to healing for four years. I had already grieved the loss of our marriage and our home when he died, the grief I have felt for the loss of Kevin has been immense to compound that with the loss of our life in the same home as a family would have been so devastating that I am not sure that I would have the strength to cope with it all at once. I think of Kevin still daily, he is never far from my thoughts he never was.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
idle hands...
work is very slow today, I am caught up on all the pressing matters and no one seems to need to collect flow data. So, I did my other jobs; caught up on kid calendars, paid for soccer team backpacks sent out odds and ends emails pretty much anything I can do while in my lab I have done. So now what? I realize that I like to be busy I like to have several fires to stoke at any given time. I should just sit back and read a book for a while or something but I don't even have a book to read because I am usually way too busy for such things. I could go on Facebook and be"social" but that is always more fun when I am procrastinating on one task working on another and need a little distraction. Beside I already did that while I was sending out reminders for budget numbers today. I could read blogs... done, now I can write my own entry, almost done. Then what? Hmm I guess I should take a break and go to the gym that will give me something to do.
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