I broke my resolution, and gained perspective

I didn't hold up my resolution last month. There would be no two July blog posts. No book report.

I was in a funk. I think I'm just coming out of it. I felt like I was battering myself in training and getting not-so-far. Everything felt hard for a while, on the bike and off. I'm not sure why. We all go through days like that, weeks, months, years of effort stacking up and leaving us feeling weak emotionally and physically. The flip side, neglect, also adds up, haunts us, and finally jumps out of the closet and leaves us laying on the bed in the dark, wishing for a free pass to the past, or a sweet one hour reprieve from the grief. But I wouldn't change my past, since it has made me who I am now: a strong girl, a funny-fun-tough mom, and a sweet wife. The hard things I've dealt with have made me tender, on the other side. Some of those hard things I seized on by choice. Some of them fell into my lap. Training = choice. Oral surgery = not really something I raised my hand and requested. More like a "please teacher, don't pick me," sort of question.

In the midst of my fog, I somehow forgot that I write for me. I want for the things I compose, these pourings out of my heart, to be something people enjoy, thoughts with which they can find a place of identity and stronghold in the good times and bad. Sometimes I want this to be lighthearted, to not be just about bikes, or somedays to only write about two wheels. In the in-betweens, there are beers, little feet playing footsie at the breakfast table in a beam of broken morning sunlight streaming through the window, break-down days, words consumed like food, words not consumed like food because no one wants to read a book they don't love, dinners dished, millions of pedal strokes turned, some fast and some slow, all of life wrapped up in this one long run-on sentence of sweet, crazy, beautiful moments. Occasionally the dark, shitty, and confusing make an appearance, as storm clouds looming on the horizon in my periodless life, but that's all part of the run-on sentence, too.

I neglected to remember that this forum for my thoughts isn't performance art, built to impress the outside. It isn't a novel for sale, or even an autobiography really. It isn't auto-tuned and perfected. Life on the Big Chainring is art at its grittiest, my train of thought coupled together and sent down the rails, clanking along to its destination. I can be who I am here. It is my baby, whom I'd like to see grow, but love to keep small. Writing, words... they're such a part of me. I feel better when I'm spilling them out, keystroke by keystroke, penstroke by penstroke, instead of holding them in. I can't neglect this craft and get better. But my goal shouldn't be improvement, not here; this is my story. I want to tell it. It's the only way to simultaneously extinguish the fire inside and keep it alive, to sustain the burn.