Passage of Time

Every December, the inevitable email gets sent out...So, when are we going to start planning the Annual Girls Trip to Fruita?  A few dates get tossed around, campsite #16 is reserved, and meals are planned.  It's always the same group, we always go back to some of the classic rides, we always eat the most excellent food.

But something dawned on me this trip.  Maybe it's been a part of me that has spent a lot of introspective time examining the life that I've chosen, but I spent a lot of time thinking about what different life scenarios I'd come into this trip with over the years.  

My first girls trip I was 26, I think I was somewhere in grad school.  I was going to get a Ph. D. and save the world.  The year after I think I was still on track to save the world but was approaching it with maybe slightly less enthusiasm...in fact, now that I think about it, I may have been in the swan song era of my grad school career.  Then last year I'd moved to CeeBee and accepted the fact that I really liked riding and racing my bike but was still content to be working crud jobs in the valley inorder to pay rent.  

Last year, CeeBee was still just an experiement.  One which we weren't sure would really work out for us, as working for $8.50 an hour on the mountain wasn't exactly making ends meet.  We'd stay till the money ran out.

Then, sometime in the past year, a switch got turned in my brain will chit chatting about life at the nordic center.  This is my life.  There's no more 'when I grow up' scenarios, I am grown up.  No longer is working as little as possible to play as much as possible something I'm going to do until I get a real job.  I can no longer even fathom working a 9-5'er 50 weeks a year.  No longer am I faking it till I make it racing my bike.  I have made it exactly what I want bike racing to be for me.  

Girls weekend this year emphasized a simple fact for me: This is my life.  Own it.  Embrace it.  Be proud of it.

No one life formula works for everyone and everyone on the trip has chosen a completely different life trajectory from everyone else.  Yet everyone has found bliss.  It was an excellent reminder to keep chasing mine. 

Comments

[Bedrockandparadox]

Amen.