Since writing Of Change and Trepidation I have completed Ironman Lake Placid, recovered for 3 weeks, and, this last weekend, raced in the USA Triathlon Age Group Olympic Distance National Championships. From a multi sport perspective this was a tricky feat to pull off and at both events I delivered solid races. At IMLP I was worried because it was uncharted territory. I had never done a mass start swim of that magnitude, nor had I ever run 26.2 miles. The swim start was chaotic and scary, but I had a plan and it was a good one. I listened to those more experienced than I, and that made all the difference. I had hoped to swim the 2.4 miles in about an hour. My race time was almost exactly 60 minutes. The race was not without its difficulties, frustrations, and pain....but I made it through all of that, which is part of the journey when you undertake an ultra-endurance event. I finished in 10:37, 94th out of 2800+ participants and 12th in my age group.
My goal had been a little faster time and a qualification to the Kona Ironman 2012, and I got close......close enough to convince me I can do it and should give it another try in the future. Completing IMLP left me exhausted, but with a renewed sense of confidence in myself to survive, to reach for success despite pain and setbacks, to look at my psychological and emotional state in terms of the tough moments encountered during an ironman where patience, focus, and toughness help you to persevere and keep going when you feel like stopping and giving up.
I carried this renewed confidence into my move, which happened to coincide with record high temperatures and humidity in the Northeast. I still haven't finished unpacking, I still haven't found a roommate, but I love my new home. The space appeals to me and it is new.....it does not carry with it the memories that my old home is steeped in.......I feel freer and happier in this new space, and when I relax on the back deck or wake to the morning light shining on Lake Champlain, I am flooded with brief sense of peace and serenity. I also am enjoying being downtown. I walk to the grocery store and lug my week's worth of food back home. I walk to breakfast on Sunday morning, Farmer's Market on Saturday, tea at Dobra Teahouse with my daughter, yoga with Malaika at Burlington Yoga. I talk to my neighbors and say hi to other walkers, and I feel a part of the town, of my neighborhood in a way that I never did in 12 years of condominium living in the suburbs. I miss a few conveniences of my old home, and I miss seeing my daughter Nicole on a daily basis, but despite that I think this change of residence has been good for me and has added dimensions to my life; it has helped open me to new possibilities.
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| Evening view from my new back porch |
A few days after the last of my possessions were dumped unceremoniously in the den of my new apartment, I boarded a plane that would take me from Burlington to San Diego, with a stopover in Chicago. My flight from Chicago to San Diego was cancelled and I spent a long, frustrating afternoon and evening in O'Hare wondering if I should just book a flight back to Vermont and the soothing respite of my own bed. I eventually got on a plane going west and as we few over San Diego just prior to final approach it occurred to me that the entire population of Vermont is only a fraction of the population of the greater San Diego metropolitan area.
I had a busy several days in Southern California, visiting old friends, attending my high school reunion, and also reuniting with my family. I thank Cindy Stigall for ferrying me about from place to place during my visit and Jennifer Mort for giving me a ride to the reunion, allowing me to meet her 23 year old daughter Audrey (the oldest of seven of Jennifer's children, yes, seven!), and for encouraging me to put my fears aside and make this journey in the first place. I also thank my mom and her husband Gil for hosting me, and my whole family for welcoming me and reminding me that I am special and I am loved, even when the rest of the world leaves me feeling insignificant.
I graduated with 603 other people in 1982 from Hemet High School. Only about 60 of these folks came to our 30th reunion, and I admit that I did not know most of them. I spent the evening at a table with a few people that I did know and I enjoyed talking and reminiscing about the old days. Our class had 5 honor graduates (valedictorians) and three of us were at that table. I've known Jennifer since the 5th grade and we were good friends in high school. Stacey Schilling was at the reunion, and while she and I were never close, I think we go back as far as kindergarten. Liz Rollman was there and I remember her nearly as far back as Stacey.
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| With Jennifer and Stacey after the reunion |
In a sense the reunion itself was anticlimactic because none of my buddies were there, no arch-enemies made an appearance, no ex-girlfriends came. It ended up being a relaxing, fun, unremarkable evening. For me the trip was worth it just to spend time with Jennifer, her daughter, and her mom Joyce; with Cindy; and with my family. I took my nephew shopping for shoes and a backpack to go back to school with......Zacharie didn't remember me from my last visit, and it effected me to know that and to start over with him. The same was true of my nieces, who have grown up not knowing me or my daughters.
As Cindy drove me to the airport for my flight back, I was overwhelmed with a sense of connection that has been missing in my life. It was bittersweet coming back to Vermont. A part of me wanted to stay in Southern California where I poignantly felt these connections to place and to people that I love, where affirmation of who and what I am seems to flow in a way that at best has been tenuous in Vermont. And yet, Vermont is beautiful and it has been home for many years now. It is where my life has centered.
In the few weeks that I have been back, I have stayed in touch with Cindy, Jennifer, and my family. I also feel more connected to those around me in Vermont....at work, with my daughters, in my triathlon circles, and friends like Hugh Marble, Kathryn Budnik, and Sarah Burroughs. And as I have opened, or maybe as I have been opened by the events and experiences of the last month, I find I have a greater capacity for connection, a willingness to grow in this area where for so long I have only felt isolation.
I can't explain it, which is hard for a writer, but feeling trepidation, going through change, reconciling my past so that it has a more active role in my present and future, have all worked a magic on me and I feel an energy and optimism about that I have never felt before, some days lately it is hard to contain.
And that is an outcome that I did not see coming.
