Get Serious

I've been wondering if it's time to get serious about my fitness and reading. Yes, this is something I've been saying for years, but pushing things into the future is less and less of an option for me. I have a birthday coming up next week. That's always a good time to reset some visions. So what does getting serious look like?

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Really prepare for a marathon. I've registered for the WDW Marathon in January. I was significantly undertrained for the same marathon this year. I'm not so worried about my time. The DIsney race isn't about time. I just want to do all the training runs and get the distance. I've tried adopting the run easier approach in my runs this week. I'd like to build up some aerobic capacity and be ready for the 15+ mile training runs that are part of the plan I've followed for my first 3 marathons. Longer runs take time. I will need to get up early, which will require going to bed on Friday night. If I'm going to run a marathon, I might as well go in all the way, right? Cross training (mostly rowing) and a better commitment to lower body and core strength would be part of this as well.

Finally read books I've been saying I'm going to read. My commitment to my Bookshelf Zero project is wavering, but there are plenty of books that I'm still looking to read. My wife left her copy of War and Peace here. I would be happy to give up all my volume goals to finally read that. There are plenty of other worthy selections. I haven't used my time alone to read much (my pace is pretty consistent with how much I read when I'm not living alone). Is it time to stop messing around with random books to read something really significant?

Safe Zone

I was all set to write a post about my crisis of confidence (like this is some kind of novel insight into my state of mind). Of course I've written a post with just that title. July 18,2014. Guess I've been dealing with some issues for longer than I realized. My 2014 crisis was rooted in my uncertainty in a new role (that sounds familiar) and a frustration with my commitment to fitness (where have I heard that before?). I speculated on the lack of ego fuel in 2014. No more classes, no more LSAT prep, no more lab experiments.These self selected rite of passages provided a sustained beat of achievements that I relied on for valuation and assurance that I was worthy. Look what I did! I did this too! Here's another one! 

I haven't found a replacement for those challenges. I could change a few details to match my current situation and that post would basically be what I planned on writing tonight. I'm almost 46 (yes, I have not updated my age in my little bio box for several years) and I'm still trying to move beyond the coping mechanisms that I developed when I was a teenager. Not that this is in any way an unusual state. I would guess the vast majority of people keep repeating the same pattern for their entire life. There is a strong pattern of doing very little to put myself at risk in all of my various ego boosting efforts. I'm not one to choose a course of action that would jeopardize my self-image. It's easy for me to look back on how certain girls treated me when I was a teenager and recognize that I was being invited to make a move. Making a move was way too big of a risk in that particular moment. Rejection was way too risky. The risks of failure greatly exceeded potential benefits from taking some chances. 

Rejection is always way too risky. Failure must be avoided at all costs. I repeat the pattern of taking on efforts with enough challenge that I can derive a sense of doing something worthy but with very little downside (as defined by my complicated mental scoreboard). I can take a pretty good measure of what is hard enough to take some work but is still well within my abilities (have to stay in that safe zone). The consequences of (highly unlikely) failure must also be fully assessed. Nothing really bad can happen if things don't turn out as expected. 

I'm struggling to describe the thought process (well, feeling process is more accurate) in the abstract. Let's look at various career choices I made in the five years or so after grad school. It is very clear that the path to positions on influence flowed through the formulation track. If I had been serious about getting into a more influential position I would have switched over as soon as possible. I would have worked harder to endear myself to my superiors and demonstrate that I shared their concerns and would protect their interests. I would have played the game. That's not what I did. I wasn't honest with myself and told myself I wanted more responsibility while doing all that I could to avoid it while trying to convince myself that I was doing what I could to get there. My ego wanted me to be important, but I didn't really want to be important. I wanted to be competent and respected, but I didn't want to give up what I liked or sacrifice my life for a company (well, other managers really but let's just say the company). I wanted what was safe, higher paying role, while failing to acknowledge that I really just wanted to make a contribution and learn something new and interesting. 

Marathon #3

I achieved my primary goal at the 2022 Walt Disney World Marathon. I
finished. Yes I had fun and enjoyed the experience. I really hated
life during my other marathons. I made the decision around mile 15 or
so to just walk hard, try to run when it made sense, and avoid
emptying my tanks all the way. I think it was the right decision. I
have my medal and I will be able to start running again after giving
myself time to recover (especially the chafing on my thighs, brutal).

The last time I ran a marathon I wrote a whole post about what I
needed to improve the next time I attempted the distance. Fielding was
a big topic in that post. I definitely noticed a pick up in energy
after I ate something. If I had only been better trained to actually
take advantage of that insight. I knew that I wasn't physically ready
to take on the distance in a way that would be consistent with how I
like to think of myself as a runner. I frequently forget (or choose to
ignore) that running identity is based on running accomplishments that
are years in the past. My 10K PR, my sub two hour half marathon, my
first sub 5 hour marathon. Those are four or five years in the past.
I'm not that runner anymore. I looked at the times of the YouTuber who
passed me on the course, the guy who hosts the podcast I listen to
(that I found when looking for podcasts about runDisney), and the
people who were in course pictures with me. The version of me who ran
the RIchmond Marathon in 2017 would have beat all of them. I still
think I'm that guy. I'm not.

Yes, I'm older, but the 2022 marathoner didn't put in the miles needed
to be competitive with the 2017 version of myself. I was probably in
the best shape of my life when I did my first marathon. I ran the half
in 2:06 at the marathon. I will acknowledge that I went out way too
fast, but I was only 3 minutes slower than the Patrick Henry Half I
ran in 2015. I probably could have put down a 1:45 half if that was
the target distance. My first half was in 2013. That was 9 years ago
(well, more like 8.5 but let's not get too picky). What I could do
doesn't have anything to do with what I can do now. I can't just coast
on athletic achievements from the distant past. I have to be someone
who runs like this, not someone who ran like that.

So how do I go about reclaiming my former prowess? Realizing my run
1000 miles resolution is a good step in that direction. A big part of
running is volume. I will get on my 5, 5, and 10 plan next week. Those
numbers are just guidelines. That's the minimum I need to hit on my
primary runs to get to 20 miles a week, which will get me to 1000
miles. The volume is just a part of it though. At the end of the
marathon I ran for short spurts. I focused on my form. There was a
difference. I've been so much slower this year. I just can't get down
to the times that I used to run. I have no doubt that my mechanics are
playing a role. Better knee drive, more open stride, better push off
or something could all be a factor in my pace. I will pay better
attention to my form as I ease back into my regular running routine.

This form thing isn't just idle speculation. I did some intervals on a
treadmill where I got the speed up to a point where I had to really
concentrate on how I was running to keep up. My next run outside was
much faster than previous runs (and the runs soon thereafter). My
effort didn't feel any harder, but I was moving much faster. That
should have been my cue to really dig into form and find a way to make
that kind of effort a permanent part of my running. I didn't. I just
kept on doing the same old thing.

I'm proud of finishing this marathon, but I want my running reality to
match what I have in my head. (That's actually a pretty good summary
of all my goals). I just got a very real (and accurate) picture of my
current fitness level. I know what needs to be done to make my
imagined reality my actual reality. Lots of sweating in Florida
humidity while staying aware of what my knees, hips, and arms are
doing (and building up the strength of my lower body and core when I'm
not dripping sweat).

Marathon #3 incoming

It's going down Sunday morning in Walt Disney World. In a way, my
entire distance running effort has always been aimed at making it to
this race. I was running regularly before our first trip to Disney
World (as parents anyway) in 2015. I'd done the Patrick Henry Half
Marathon in 2013 (injury got in the way of me running it in 2014, damn
calves). That 2015 trip was the weekend after marathon weekend. I had
never heard of the Dopey Challenge before that weekend. I read about
the races while laying in bed after we turned out the lights so my
kids could sleep. I wasn't so sure about the Dopey Challenge (I don't
really have any desire to do it, getting up that early 4 days in a row
would be brutal), but I was very intrigued by the marathon. I ran the
Patrick Henry again that year (I was actually just recovering from the
injury that prevented me from doing the PH in 2014 while during that
Disney trip). I wasn't as fast as the first time I ran it, but I felt
like moving up to the marathon was the right next step.

I ran my first marathon a couple of years later, the RIchmond marathon
in 2017. I just looked at my Garmin data from that race. I ran a great
first half but really struggled in the second half. I was reasonably
well trained but had no idea what I was doing and really struggled in
the second half. Tiffany and I did the half marathon at Disney World
in 2018. It was a great trip to Disney, but the race was less than
stellar. It was very cold when we were standing around for a couple of
hours waiting to start the run (in the middle of the night) and
Tiffany was not really in half marathon shape. The race was very
stressful. It was not the experience I really wanted. My big lesson
from the 2018 WDW half was that it pays to submit a time to get up in
the starting corrals. Lots of people do a run/walk combination at
those races. That's not really my style so I always planned to make
sure I had a good qualifying time to ensure that I could get out of
the mass of run/walkers if I did another runDisney event.

Getting a good time for the marathon sounded like a good idea, but the
logistics were a bit of a challenge. I ran my second marathon, the
Marine Corps marathon, in 2018. I paced myself better, I didn't
collapse until after mile 20 versus about mile 15 for the Richmond
marathon, but I did not fuel very well. I just had nothing left in the
last couple miles of the race. I was very grateful for the snack boxes
that they handed out at the finish line. My time was just over 5
hours, which really wouldn't have done me any good for the WDW
marathon, but I left that race really wanting to figure out how to
complete a marathon feeling strong. The logistical challenge for
getting a time for the marathon was the timing of these two marathons,
which are the marathons closest to where I used to live. They are both
in the fall, October for the Marine Corps and November for Richmond.
That is after the deadline for submitting times for the Disney race.

Logistics for getting to the Disney marathon got much easier when I
moved to Florida. The parks are a 2 hour drive away now. I can work
all week, like I did this week, and head to the resort on Saturday for
the marathon. No flights, no day long drives. Just a short drive and
I'm there. It won't really surprise me if this doesn't become an
annual thing. It's just so close. My running is always better when I
have something to train for. The big block for me in marathon training
are the long runs. Anything over 10 is just a real struggle. My
primary motivation in signing up for the WDW marathon, aside from it
just being a long standing bucket list race, was to get back to
training runs longer than 5 miles. I've accomplished that so I have
achieved one marathon goal. Having a marathon in the distance will
give me a reason to put in longer runs every week.

My goal for Sunday's marathon is simple. Finish. I would also like to
avoid injury. If those things happen, that's a win.

2022 - a look ahead

The year kicks off with a bang as I will be attempting the WDW
Marathon. This will be my third marathon. I am significantly untrained
and unprepared for the distance. I barely did a half today and I was
struggling at the end. There will be lots of walking. The primary goal
of signing up has been realized, I'm back to double digit training
runs, but I will consider the entire thing a failure if I don't finish
the race.

Regardless of whether or not I will have a new runDisney medal after
the marathon, I plan on using the momentum of my training effort to
keep up the double digit runs. I'm going to revive the run 1000 miles
goal. Reaching this distance will require an average of 20 miles a
week. Two 5 mile runs during the week and a weekend 10 miler will get
me there. I've been doing this for my marathon training so this is
realistic. The challenge will be getting in the long run on weekends
that I'm not in Florida. Or I could just bump up the distance on other
weeks to cover the lost miles. We'll see. I just want to maintain a
consistent cadence of long runs. I'm not planning for any races. If
something fits into the family schedule, so be it, but races will not
be a priority.

I will keep lifting. I want to be more intentional about doing lower
body and core exercises. I've been doing the lifts I enjoy just to
keep me moving and to get the emotional benefits of lifting. The
Crossfit workouts have exposed the weakness of my lower body. Getting
my legs and core stronger will benefit me now and well into the
future. Air squats and occasional lunges will get me going down that
path. I will add in more as it makes sense over the course of the
year. I will be adding in my daily ab work as well. That fell off a
cliff once COViD started. TIme to get it going again.

The danger of the Book Shelf Zero project is that I feel like a
failure if my to be read pile doesn't get smaller every year. I still
feel it's a worthy goal, but I need to figure out a way to cleanse it
of the negative energy that is growing around it. I bought a bunch of
books at the end of the year. My total is up to 169. I'm close to
finishing a Drizzt book so it will be down to 168 in the next day or
two. I've already decided to set prioritize reading for at least 30
minutes every evening. The trick of getting this habit to stick will
be selecting pleasant to read books for the first couple of months. I
need to find the books in my library that fits this specification and
stick to those, but still celebrate every book that I read. My book
list projects are nice in that they are static. The lists don't get
longer. I read books from each list this year. I own many books from
all three of them so I will de facto make progress on them if I am
reading books I own.

Year in Review - 2021

A year like no other. So much has happened. Tiffany said that I am
giving her a new life for Christmas. That's not hyperbole. Where
things stand in December of 2021 were nowhere in evidence in January
2021.

I'm slowly accommodating myself to the shape and feel of this new
life. Accepting the new has been easy. Letting go of the old has been
the real issue. For all my hesitancy and doubt, I knew that second
guessing my decision would be part of this process. Second guessing
isn't constructive or helpful, but it's also very difficult to build a
new life while wondering how things may have turned out if the other
choice had been made. The shadow of my old life fades with each day.
Looking ahead instead of constantly peeking at what lays behind me was
a big 2021 accomplishment.

Acknowledging that my life was about much more than checking arbitrary
goals from a list this year is where a review like this has to start.
What I set out to do at the beginning of the year was cast aside to
pursue a new job in a new state in a totally new living situation.
That became the focus. Running, reading, and getting healthier
remained important parts of my life. They just didn't look quite how I
thought they would when I took this look back at the end of the year.

Running:
I started the year recovering from a mystery knee ailment. I have no
idea why my knee started clicking and slipping last October. The
injury (if that's even the right word) worked itself out by the end of
January, but my running volume didn't get back to pre-injury volume
until I moved. I'm a few weeks from a marathon. I'm seriously
undertrained, but I'm trained enough that I can start the race pretty
confident that I can cover the entire distance. This is no small feat
given where I was as late as June. My runs were only a few miles. I
can look back and say that I was doing the absolute minimum for
running from late January, when my injury was behind me, up until I
started increasing my mileage once I was in Clearwater. I wasn't just
unmotivated, I was depressed. I was miserable in my job, mired in
remorse for work mistakes made over a year ago, and fed up with the
performative COVID restrictions (which included my kids remote
schooling at home). I was squeezing runs in right up until I had to
start work. I didn't give myself time for anything longer than a few
miles.

Overcoming that depression is the true accomplishment of 2021. A Kanye
song came on as I was writing that last paragraph. Listening to that
song and every other track from Yeezus was a big part of my spring
runs. I remember how I felt on those runs while listening to that
song. My self-doubt was intense. I was overwhelmed and stressed.
Emerging from that negative space is a big part of my sense that this
choice was right. I would have descended deeper into that hole had I
stayed my previous course. My fitness is still not where I would like
it, but I'm not spending runs trying to talk myself into finishing the
run.

I wisely avoided setting any running goals at the beginning of the
year. I wasn't sure how long it would take to recover from the knee
thing so I didn't know what was realistic. No sense planning for a
race either as there was no indication of when in-person races would
come back. This year was definitely a drop compared to previous years.
As of now, December 22, my total mileage for the year stands at 580
miles. I expect that I will be a bit over 600 miles by the end of the
year. This is my lowest total since 2016, which was also an injury
plagued year. My mileage total would be much lower if I had not
registered for the Disney Marathon. My primary motivation for signing
up for the race was to get me to increase the distance of my training
runs. I wanted to get back to where I could do a 10K or 10 miles
regularly. I'm back to that point. I guess I can say the marathon was
a success no matter how I do at the actual event as I have
successfully increased my training run distance. I would not have
increased the distance without the marathon. Running in Florida is not
the most pleasant experience. I would have skipped runs or cut them
short if I was just running rather than getting prepared for a
marathon.

I did expect to have more time to run once I was living down here by
myself. I thought I would be bored and looking for things to keep me
busy on the weekends, but that has not been the case. There have been
15 weekends since I started working at my new company. I have been
back in Virginia for 3 of those weekends. I'm not going to take two
hours on a Saturday or Sunday morning to run while I'm at home. We
were in Disney World for another weekend. That leaves 11 weekends open
for long runs in the Florida sun. I was moving one of those weekends.
I ran, but it was a short run. So I really only had 10 weekends for a
run of more than 10 miles. The number is really smaller than that when
you consider I needed a month or so to build back up to that distance.
So I really have 7 or 8 chances for a long run. My first weekend to
kick things up past 7 miles fell on one of my trips home. I did 8.5
miles the week after that (this was October 16). I broke 10 miles for
the first time in a very long time on October 23. I moved the
following Saturday. Instead of getting up to 11 or 12 miles, I ran
6.26 miles. I weaved all over my new neighborhood to get 13 miles the
first weekend in November. I took a break around mile 8 to get some
water and eat a snack. I took my car to get an oil change the Saturday
after that. I had a less than stellar run on Sunday. I got to 10 miles
and called it a day. We're up to November 20 now. I had a good 15 mile
run on the Pinellas Trail. I maintained a consistent pace and felt
good for the majority of the run. I should have taken more nutrition
at my last water stop, but I was pleased with the effort. I was 3 days
into a trip to Disney World with the family the following weekend.
Some people may be able to do 10 mile runs on property. I can't. I
flew back to Virginia the following Friday. No long runs over the
weekend. I decided that I could get in a long run on Monday, December
6. I did. I ran 13 miles, but it was broken into two runs with an hour
or so between them. I was still home the next Saturday, we're in early
December at this point, so I just did another shorter run. Last
Saturday, December 18, was my only Saturday at the Florida house in
all of December. The marathon is getting close, time to get in a
quality long run. I did a long run, 13.25 miles on the road with
another three quarters of a mile on a gym treadmill. The run was a
struggle. It was hot and I just was not feeling good. It was a bit
dispiriting to struggle at such a relatively short distance so close
to the marathon.

So what's my takeaway from this tedious review of my weekend runs? I
think I did the best I could with the time I had. The first trip home
came right as I was really building good momentum. That slowed me down
a step. The move was another derailer. I had to get out of my
apartment in one weekend. I was exhausted by the time I had everything
in the house. It sounds minor, but losing my running routes at the
apartment was something I had to overcome. I was just settling into
the area when I had to establish new routes. I still miss easy access
to the trails for the long weekend runs. I had that great 15 mile run,
and then I had a stretch of weekends where family came first. The
Disney trip was followed by two weekends at home. That was prime
training time that I readily sacrificed to family needs. There is a
pattern where I have a good long run and then I hit a derailer. I have
no idea how this fragmented training will show up in the actual
marathon. It will be my slowest one so far. Not that it matters. The
primary goal was realized. I just need to make sure I don't regress
and go back to 3 or 4 mile runs on Saturday mornings.

Reading:
I started the year with a few clear reading objectives. I accomplished
one of them by reading the very mediocre Riftwar Saga. My unrealized
goals boil down to me buying too many books and spending time doing
things other than reading. Starting a new job and moving to Florida
were also pretty hard to overlook factors. I set my reading goals
before I knew I would be moving, but I thought reading would be one of
my main activities after I moved. Wrong. I forgot that I actually have
to live while I'm here. My days weren't as empty as I had anticipated.
Shopping, cleaning, and all the other small tasks of living add up.
There would still be plenty of time to read if I made the effort. I've
been paying more attention to how I'm actually spending my time. I
don't ever prioritize reading. I did a small experiment where I set 30
minutes each night for reading. It made a difference. I always enjoy
reading (assuming the book is good) once I get started. It's just the
getting going that can be a challenge. Reading is always something I
will get to eventually. If I'm serious about wanting to read all these
books, I have to make reading a priority. I have plenty of time to set
aside for reading. I just spend time doing other things instead.

Lifting and other fitness goals:
This was the best year for lifting I've had in a long time. The amount
of weight I'm lifting always seems to plateau right around 270 for the
bench, but I was at that point for a pretty big chunk of the year.
Going to the gym is one of the things that gets prioritized over
reading. It's a big part of my life. I feel better when I lift.

The rower isn't with me and I don't have the time or motivation to use
the rowers at the gym. I need to row. It's the best way that I have to
get lower body work (at least right now). We'll see how it fits back
into my routine once it's back with me later in 2022.

My weight has floated between 220 and 230 all year. That's how it's
been for years. I enjoy eating too much. Will that change soon? Maybe,
but the odds are not good.

I could go on and discuss professional things, but this is already
long enough. The professional stuff is so extensive that it could be a
whole series of posts. Maybe later. Maybe never. Maybe I'll just read
instead.

Rearview Mirror

When do we move beyond the past and live our life in the future? Let's
be honest, that should be when do I move beyond the past and start
living my life pointing toward the future rather than gazing into my
past. I was lying in bed this morning, my alarm having gone off, when
I felt a familiar clenching in my gut. My new friend anxiety coming to
pay a visit. Anxiety can't just come and hang out for no reason. There
must be something that I am dealing with in my life that is making me
anxious. I don't remember what issue I started to fixate on, but I
stopped and asked myself if the thoughts were causing the feelings of
anxiety or was the physical sensation that I have come to link with
anxiety making me find something to feel anxious about? I never really
had the physical sensations that I was experiencing before the bad
January of 2020, when I took a large load of work stress with me on a
trip to Disney World. I spent the entire trip in knots about a couple
of decisions that I had made. They were risky decisions that were not
panning out and I worked for a company that worked hard to protect
itself from risky decisions. The situations were resolved and my
reputation with some people was damaged. I thought that was a big deal
and those few weeks hounded me for months. They still do. The decay of
that impact is asymptotically slow. It lingers. It's why I had that
clenching in my guts this morning.

If emotions are just the labels we put on physical sensations, that
incident back in 2020 taught my system to treat a certain kind of
feeling as the anxiety that comes from regret about past actions and
the fear of what those actions may have on my future. I need to
reprogram that sensation and teach myself a new way to interpret those
sensations when they emerge. It's like my body got in the habit of
feeling that way for a few months and finds every opportunity to
recreate that experience. Disney World has been linked to that
episode. The complete release from reality that I used to experience
while on property has been replaced by this bracing for something bad.
Sitting on the porch at Riviera taking a call about what was going on
at PDI remains a vivid memory. It's like a part of me wants to go back
to that moment. I'm not in that moment, but I continue to experience
the fear and helplessness that I lived with during that entire trip
every time I step back on property. I will continue to relive that
bleak time until I fully confront that issue and put that period
behind me.

That's a very poignant and sharp instance of where a moment in the
past provides the lens through which to experience my present. That's
not the only one, even if it is the one that I dwell on the most. My
obsessive record keeping started as a way to track my progress. It
looked very future directed to me when I started, but the practice
roots me deeper into my past. I'm in a constant struggle with the
previous me. I'm not battling with my fear of The Edge or finding ways
to propel myself to new levels of performance or achievement. I'm
training for my next marathon in the context of my training for my
previous marathon. It's not about what I'm doing this time, but how
this time compares to what I did the last time. The objectivity of
training run distances and times has always attracted me to running,
but the ability to go back and see what I did last time is not really
helping me get ready for my next race. The cold clarity of the numbers
obscures the context in which those numbers, both present and future,
are produced. The question of whether I am doing all that I can to
prepare this time is muddled with how much running I did last time and
the impact that has with how I managed to perform on race day. I'm not
training for my next race. I'm retraining for a race I've already run.

The record I keep of how many times I've been intimate with my wife
reminds me of how things have changed in our life. Seeing trends go up
and being able to do more of what you enjoy is fantastic. It's easy to
read that as I must be doing everything right. It also makes it easy
to say that I must be doing things wrong when the numbers go down. The
numbers need to be seen in the proper context, but digits on a
spreadsheet don't say very much. They are clear about a very specific
event, but they say nothing about what was going on in every other
part of my life.

This rooted in the past orientation that I've been in for a couple of
years is really an issue of poor data interpretation. I hit a dip in a
few measures and started obsessing over the fact I hit a dip rather
than incorporating that trend into a broader time frame. I never dealt
with anxiety or similar feelings before that January, at least not to
the depth and duration that I hit in January 2020. I had always been
able to engage the problem and move beyond it. I wasn't able to do
that so much in January. I didn't solve my own problems so they kind
of lingered. I accepted the lessons and made some changes in how I
approached work, but the stress and anxiety stuck around. The world
didn't help, but I didn't really help myself either.

Bookshelf Zero keeps me pointed towards my past too. My books have
always been something that I enjoy having around. If I read them
great, if not, that's fine too. I made some choices to buy books in
the past, the choice to read that book was a choice for the future.
Bookshelf Zero makes reading all those books a sign of progress. A
year I read more books than I buy is successful while a year in which
I fail to achieve that goal is a failure. That's a 100% self-imposed
performance metric. Should I celebrate reading a book, no matter how
it came to me, or chide myself for reading a book that I just bought
or some book I got from the library rather than clicking another book
off my shelf? There are good reasons for both, but I feel like this is
also a question of data interpretation. It's the story I tell myself
about my reading habit that matters.

I feel like I've kind of built my own emotional prison (a bit
dramatic, but it was the first thing that came to mind). I put myself
here, I have the ability to get myself out. Let's start now. I saw
that a former colleague has a new title. He's in the space where I
used to toil. I felt a small pang that he was having that success that
I'm not, but then I had to ask myself why that matters. I made the
choice to leave that organization. I'm doing something new now. That's
what matters. I need to stop revisiting places where I used to do
things and put my energy on where I am now. I'm building a new life.
I'm sitting outside, by my pool, writing this entry at 11 pm on a
Monday night in December. In short sleeves. And it's super
comfortable. This is what matters now. The fact that Jim is a Team
Lead is great for him, irrelevant to me. I miss my old organization,
but that organization is dead. It's time to look ahead.