Tears in the Rain

I mean who didn't go watch this clip again - or at least replay it in their head when they hear that Rutger Hauer died the other day:

I couldn't but help watch it a couple times.

I suppose I could have cued it up to the start of the monologue but nah. Sure I'm linking in to someone cash machine - oh well.

Smackdown was interesting, I still struggled a bit compared to everyone else but I felt like there was a little extra there - or if not that much extra the perceived effort was lower even though the physical limit might have been the same? Make sense? I dunno, maybe. Times are consistent, a good thing, effort is there, functionality after riding is getting better. I need to keep working at it but maybe there is a tiny measure of improvement happening.

CX season calendar is sort of sliding in place. Thinking maybe no big events? Maybe still focus on Singlespeed a bit and let the other races fall as they do. Gloucester? Dunno, the 40+ and the Cat 3 haven't been filling last couple years, no pressure to decide, maybe just the saturday again? Maybe not? NoHo? Was thinking about NoHo a bit and the history I have with that venue, the location, the experiences there, the emotions, from nearly killing the Chief UCI official in a crash to finding keys to being unexpectedly given a simple sausage after a really long day. To driving up there in a volvo held together with a crushed tomato can, spokes and hardware cloth (the exhaust that is). I can replay pretty much all of the races there. Do I want to go back? Sort of, but not really. Replaying all that got me thinking about me drinking, there certainly was plenty of that there over the years, esp fresh in my mind was '14...  and then maybe why I went from mostly under control and getting faster and feeling like I had control and a direction to point in to re-inventing myself the next year and declining, new team kits focused, ready, motivated - it dissolved. But what was left was still important, and maybe i started drinking more to evade the pain. Yeah my brain has been working overtime. (not sure any of that makes sense to anyone else but me - probably for the best)

Hopefully my brain will shut off for 20 minutes this afternoon during the TT. hopefully it won't take much more than 20 min to do the course tonight. last week's 22 min time was WAY TOO LONG.

Last week it def didn't shut off. The chat with Jeffrey, and how we both graduated the same year in the PacNW and went to HS that were in the same division. It was bizarre and that stuck with me and distracted me a bit. Not significantly but I think just a tiny bit. Focus, time to focus.

I remembered, riding back from the finish with everyone last week, the time I drove to Boston to pick my mother up from the Airport and still managed to get back to the start for the TT.

But somethings I forget. I forget a lot I suppose, is natural. other stuff not so much. Weird.

This reflection on the past is a little about thinking about realizing I did an okay job getting myself faster at one point. Sort of an affirmation exercise. Of course it took a meander or two down the rest of the baggage. Someday that baggage might get lost or unpacked for good. Hopefully. fortunately, unlike normally, going on this meander hasn't called in the dark clouds of depression, they have become just facts, parts of the story, nothing more. Just there.  Acknowledge, move on, don't make the same mistakes again. If there was success at one point it means something was being done correctly - identify and implement.

So I am. TT, Smackdown, recovery, hard ride every other weekend or at least something longer than a commute. Do the work. Adapt, get faster, or at least feel better going fast. Accept that fast now is likely slower than in the past but that's okay too.

Working to moderate stresses at the jobs, mostly caught up, let things go, make sure there are a few unscheduled hours here and there to catch up on the little things, slowly chew through the list of less critical items.

I'm sure there were a few other things rattling around in my head - there was a phrase i wanted to write down...  thought of it last night heading to bed, experiential interconnectivity? Something like that.

Something about the amazing power of social creatures like humans to have different actual experiences but relate to them and get it and all that. I think it felt deeper than it is, or actually is deeper than I'm able to recall and explain at the moment.

enough for now

heddwch
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