and so it begins and ends

 The semester, teaching, and an intangible, unmentionable ending.

Realizing that this feeling every year at the end is very much like grief. It was massive work, huge effort but also rewarding and satisfying but now over. A void that won't be filled until next year.

Empty.

The first year this happened I kicked off a MASSIVE mileage May. The year I was 10 miles short of winning the competition. A month if an insane number of rides, a month of taking the long way in every day, taking a day off each week to go do a 100 miles, it was crazy. I thought it would shed some of the weight (it didn't). It did give me a boost of fitness I hadn't seen since 2013, but it was short lived and here I am. 

Older now, still searching, still wondering if I've made the right choices along the way, wondering what is next, how best to move forward.

Will I ever know? Whispers of mortality as friends and family deal with heart issues or other medical issues, some chronic, some acute. I ran to get to an honors defense on time Friday morning and my knee has been grumpy since. I think maybe more calf muscle attachment at the knee but it is manifesting in a bit of inflammation. Didn't stop me from doing back to back singlespeed rides this weekend. Saturday was longer but I felt much worse than today. Just slow, but then everyone else slowed down and I kept going to same speed. Today I had even less punch and some of the uphill technical sections I never have an issue with were just simply not rideable. Tired, mentally and physically. 

Trying to get through it all. One step at a time.

Tomorrow is a big day here - for reasons I can't talk about. Not bad just big.

Soon we'll be heading back to New Jersey near Philadelphia and then a few weeks after that Georgia.  Then the summer will be here. May stretches out between, both interminably long but also seemingly impossibly short.

Photos, taking photos still. Feels like a muse vanished, was there, now gone. Feels like inspiration was flowing and now stopped. Feels like there was a future, now not. 

And then there's all the shit happening in the country and the world and I've been so cranking busy that I have barely registered anything. 

Things were really good, then the last three weeks have seen a steady or catastrophic implosion. Yup. Wrapping up the semester, intense weekends, travel that was stressful but worth it.

Life happening. But it feels muted right now. 

Maybe I need to be more disciplined about writing here. Maybe that will help. But probably not. 

Will keep posting photos - pushing myself to create, document, look, refine my style... make, art.

and ride bikes

heddwch
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