The View from 58-inches High

This weekend my mom visited, I had the worst race of the year (10 minutes of glory), went to the rodeo, took apart my dryer, and got over Jimmy. There’s something sad about wanting to say so much and feeling so little. I find that everyday is about filling time. My mom comes and throws me off my rhythm. I should say that I love having her here but I don’t. I’m not sure there’s enough space on this server for me to adequately summarize my relationship with my family so I won’t. I’ll just say that every one of us has issues and mine is that I can’t make myself form meaningful relationships with people.

The rest of the stuff just added more strain to my weekend. We were up late every night which made me and my mom grumpy. Plus keeping my mom up late meant that I didn’t get my late night hours to myself.

I wish I could pour my thoughts onto paper and not have it read like a technical paper or psych dissertation. I wish I felt anything deeply anymore. The first 20 years of my life were spent so angry and emotionally unstable. All I wanted was to find the middle. Now I don’t feel anything. I move as quickly as I can from one thought to another, from one action to another; maniacally. Mostly I’ve shed myself of drama. I’ve walked away from people, connections, labels, and judgments.

I want to write more. It’s hard to write on the computer with so many background notifications. Most days nothing noteworthy happens but I realize now how much I have changed in the course of my life and sometimes it’s nice to have reminders of where I came from.

Talking to Beau about high school left me feeling so strange. Even as I was explaining my huffer boyfriend who was 2-years older than me and who I dated for 2.5-years the whole thing sounded like a story I made up. I don’t even think I’ve said the word huffer in 20-years. Thinking back I couldn’t believe that I met him right after his first sent in rehab, or that he would head back to rehab within our first few months of dating. I was 14-years old when we met. My mom was more upset when we broke up than I was.

I went straight from that to being a total nerd my senior year. Astronomy club, UNIX accounts, IRC, physics, science fairs, and a ton of sex in the back of my mom’s Cherokee. Then college where I met my first real family, and married in for keeps. More nerd, lots of sleepless nights, depression, and anger. Also so many good times with people who were as peculiar as I. Those were my best years. Even with a string of terrible roommates including one I didn’t say one word to for 9-months. I miss Harris and all the people I met there. It was 20-years ago but it feels like yesterday.

Then the lonely years when I was working, living in a new town, and only had Brian. We fraught constantly that I always needed to hang out with him. I smothered him for years. I eventually got in with “the wives” and somehow became “a wife” too. Even though I also worked with the husbands. I crafted and we talked a ton. For the life of me I cannot figure out what we talked about so much because in retrospect I have nothing in common with those people.

Next were the Jessica years. These overlapped with the cycling years, which are still ongoing. Being a connector, Jessica was my wine, food, and book friend. While I really liked Jessica, she’s the type off person who puts a ton of herself into friendships and I don’t do that. Yes, I’m a terrible person for this. When Jessica moved to Chicago I all but completely cut off communication. Calling and messaging were just too much work. I wish I could explain how much energy small talk takes for me. I prefer to be “doing” things with people or talking in person. There is so much I cannot understand over the phone or messenger.

Finally my current time line is racing, work, and the house. I take a ton of time for reading (which I have most of my life), and I’ve gotten into indie movies. It feels like so many lifetimes when I write it down like that. It’s exhausting to imagine keeping ties to all those facets of my life. So I don’t. One thing I’ve learned over time is that the memories are almost always better than the reality.

After a rotten weekend of racing I was really excited to make up for it with the Wimberley Memorial Day rodeo. We had box seats for two days. The first day was Sunday. I had to race back from Dallas to get back in time for dinner before the rodeo. Todd, Benjamin, Sree, Cuvee, and Sam joined us. As we were leaving it started to rain hard but the weather held and the rodeo was great.

The real highlight was the next night though. Kate, Holly, Andrew, the kids, and Jen joined us. None of them had ever been to a rodeo like this one. We bought funnel cake and fresh made potato chips. The potato chips were made with a drill that turned the potato into a razor blade. You can’t make this up.

I was just waiting for the adult calf scramble; which I talked Kate into doing it with me. It really only took telling her it was a competitive event to get her to join.  We were nuts trying to get one of the 6-ribbons. We were yelling commands at each other making sure we had all avenues cornered. It was the very last flag but Kate cornered it and sent it right my way. As we were walking back up, somebody congratulated me on getting the ribbon. Without missing a beat, Kate replies “Thanks”. Then she’s all “Ohh, I kind of took one for the team there!”.

Maple and Waylon decided they had to do the children’s calf scramble after watching us. Maple ended up having to pee just before and missed the whole thing. When I got back down to Holly, all the other kids were coming back out; but not Waylon. When he finally came out and we got back to the seats everybody was laughing. It appears Waylon was so intent on getting a ribbon that he found himself one.

It was really nice to do something that wasn’t associated with cycling. We laughed so hard we cried and I can’t wait for next year.

Sometimes a week just kicks your ass all over the place. This was that week for me. Tuesday I finally got my promotion. I was actually more nervous than I expected but the team took it well and the cross-functional teams immediately started integrating me into things by giving me all the actions Brain had failed to attend to. By the end of the week I felt like the new college student with books piled high in their arms.

I went from work straight to a craft night with the Market women. The crafts themselves were not great but it was really fun to hang out with the ladies. We spray painted plastic animal figurines glued to mason jars. For a group of women, we were decidedly un-crafty. Most of us spray painted ourselves at some point, the spray paint bubbled and crackled on our projects, and the way over did it on the glitter. All of my projects had fallen apart by the time I got them home. The best on of all of ours was Kim’s lavender lion’s backside w/ glittered balls. So Kim.

Unfortunately, it meant that I didn’t get dinner and drank more than I should have. I didn’t get to bed until 11:00 and had an early morning the next day. Not that I’m complaining, It just get reminded sometimes how difficult out it is for me to hang out without feeling like ass the next day.

The rest of the week was a blur of extreme time management. I somehow managed to fit in all of my workouts; with legs that were not over Pace Bend. I attended 3x as many meetings as I usually do, picked up my packet for Lago, and saw Brian off to Penang on Thursday.

Saturday, I rolled out to Lago knowing I had nothing in my legs but trying to convince myself that everybody else was feeling the same. I hung in but I could feel my lets scream on every hill and I was fighting hard in the wind. On the third lap, I was in poor position in the wind and I had too many gaps to close when it blew up. I ended up forming with a chase group of about 7 but they were not steady and I dropped them after a lap. Kim picked me up with Kelly B. and the two of them kept me going. We got cut by one lap and I came in DFL (except for the folks who dropped).

Kim and I were feeling pretty shitty and I was already feeling lonely with Brian gone so I agreed to meet Kim for Dinner. I won’t harp on this (even though I should). I drank too much and woke up very embarrassed that I couldn’t do the math correctly on the check. I should not have driven home either. I tested myself, walked a line while touching my nose. I had the coordination, but not the good judgment. At one point I was trying to text when I had no business texting and the car swerved. There was nobody around me and, while I’d love to say that’s why I thought texting was ok, it was completely bone-headed and I threw my phone on the floor so I wouldn’t be tempted again. I woke up feeling like an out of control juvenile and wanting a complete do-over. I completely hated myself.

Finally, today we were met with a freak cold-front that dropped out temperature 40 degrees in 1-hour. I didn’t race because I had a brunch with Jessica, who was in town for a birthday surprise, but I don’t know what I would have done if I had been registered (BRRRRRR)!!! Seeing Jessica was great but it was so loud in the restaurant that we didn’t get to talk much. She misses all of us and I know she left feeling like she didn’t get enough time with us.

This week had highs and lows reflective of our temperatures lately. Even summarizing this week is exhausting. I’m hoping this week is a little more low-key but I’m already looking at a pretty full calendar!!

Well it’s been an incredible 2014 so far and we’re only 8-days in. I did spend the first week of the new year sick. It’s remarkable to me how each day I’m sick feels like it stretches out into an eternity. I think mostly because I’m home when I’m sick and not constantly interrupted by other people.

At any rate, we started out the new year with a new car. I have to admit that I’ve suffered some DINK guilt over this purchase. I’m one of the few people in the history of the world who every thought to themselves that they loved a Nissan more than their 36K BMW. Here’s the thing, the truck was so great for my lifestyle. Does that mean there weren’t problems? Hell no. It got 17mpg and couldn’t corner faster than 35mph in the rain. I just never realized how much space it offered. Trying to move my life from a Frontier to the X1 felt like downsizing from a 3bd/2bt to a 2bd/1bt. The bike fits, but then there’s very little room for groceries… and forget it if I have to pick up dog food too!! It’s a compromise and the only thing getting through the transition is knowing that the truck is still in the driveway for when I need it!

In other news I’m going to Dubai and I’m bringing my bike! I’m so totally stoked about this now. It’s been an emotional roller coaster with it being a girls trip, then my friends bailing, them my dad getting really excited. So now this is it. For better or worse. At least I’m using my CC points for most of the trip. We’ll see about the bike fee situation. I’m still working on that.

And finally the promotion a  year in the making. No, it hasn’t happened yet but it’s been mentioned at length by my boss and his boss so I’m confident it’s imminent. Plus, I’m comfortable with the roll I play. I’m good at my job and I’m ready to move to the next step. Part of that is due to some very good hiring but I still find myself more able to let go of the details and trust others than I thought I would be.

I’m so bad about updating these things. If you’ve stumbled on this blog because you’re dying to know how this worked out for me you’re probably super frustrated by my complete lack of updates. So, my hearing remained strange until my follow-up appointment 8-days later. I just felt like I was hearing through water or something. Everything was loud but muffled and high frequency sounds were tinny. My hearing results at 8-days showed a huge improvement in my hearing at low frequencies but a sharp drop as the frequency went up. Turns out, this normal if the swelling in the ear doesn’t go down quickly. I got a huge steroid shot and got sent on my way. Within hours I was hearing almost normally.

Things have continued to improve from there. After 2-weeks post op I was able to shower normally. At this point, the blood that was built up in my ear started to come out (like scabs, not liquid). Each time another scab came out I could hear a little better. Now my only complaint is that I fell deaf in my other ear.

I wish I’d done this years ago. The surgery was not as minor as I would have liked but considering the benefit, it’s more than worth it. Just have some patience.