I realized that I've been waiting my life out for the last couple of years. I was a few miles into a long run, which is about 8 miles these days, when I realized that I've been getting through my runs, workouts, books, vacation, work days, you name it, for the last couple of years. I just want to get through whatever I'm in to get on to the next thing. Things will get back to normal eventually. I just need to keep going through the motions until that moment finally gets here. But will that moment ever actually arrive? I look back at my numerous records and see the disparity of where my life was in 2015 with where it is now. The numbers tell me things were clicking much better back then. Longer, faster runs, more reading, a better sex life. I try to think of what was different then to what I've been living through for the last couple of years. In retrospect, that period around 2015 looks like the perfect balance of the different parts of my life. My kids were old enough that they were more independent but not obnoxious teenagers. My work life presented the perfect balance of challenge and opportunity, with security and promising prospects. I was motivated to work out and had a nice injury free streak that gave me the fitness to really extend my running.
What changed between now and that blissful period where all the pieces were falling into place? Professionally, I had a series of bad luck setbacks. My sense that I would always be able to resolve a situation had been shaken. A bad partner company, some bad communication, a couple of bad decisions. My reputation took a hit. That set me back big time. I had to fight to get back from that. I let it get to that point. I don't know how much of it was in my head and how much was real. Organizational change introduced its own chaos into the situation. Of course this was all going on in the context of the world losing its mind over a respiratory virus. Navigating a new world was an inflection point in life kind of challenge. It's not going away anytime soon. My life really did become just make it to the next day during the worst of it. And when I say the worst I'm talking about the response. What choice was there but to just wait for things to improve? Let's not forget that I was also in a new role with an incomptent manager and the worst employee that I have ever seen. That role was hard enough without trying to build a team while working remotely in a group that was new to my part of the organization. This is the opposite of what I was living professionally in 2015.
My kids have grown up. They are teenagers with opinions and thoughts all their own now. They succeed and fail and I'm just a spectator. They take up more space. My wife twisted her ankle. I noted it in my I Done This record. September 26, 2015. That was the first in a series of physical challenges that fundamentally changed the nature of our relationship. She's never really recovered from that injury. She managed to run the ultra she was training for when she twisted her ankle, but she's hasn't regained the focus and commitment that she had before she twisted her ankle. She has had plenty of other challenges to contend with over the last 5 or 6 years too. Our lives were pretty simple in 2015. They got really complicated over the ensuing years. They were complicated before we had to deal with virus insanity, her parents passing away (and the struggle to figure out what to do in the few months prior to that terrible time), but things have only gotten worse since then.
I was able to embrace the pain and discomfort of being in the middle of a long run rather than just waiting for it to end yesterday so there must be some hope that I'm emerging into a better space. I'm in the middle of one of the biggest challenges of my life, living away from my family, but I feel less encumbered by so much of the complexity that was suffocating me last year. Leaving the organizational stuff behind was part of it, but it's more complicated than that. I don't feel depressed anymore. I'm sure there are multiple factors for that change. I won't delve into them here. I feel more like myself. I want this separation from my family to end (like right now), but I know I can make it to the other side of this period. I have the emotional energy to deal with challenging situations. I was exhausted last week, but I managed to push through that barrier and engage with my work. I moved when I would have been idle last year. My professional challenges are just as big as last year, but they don't feel as unwieldy. I wanted to go into the difference between 6 years ago and now to get myself to acknowledge that I have not failed in some way because I don't work out as much or my life looks different. My life has evolved well beyond my 2015 life. I may have resisted that change, but it's happening. Everyday.
