On Wednesday, I had what I have since decided was a complete mental breakdown. I stopped sleeping, and my body started to ache. Yet, I still continued with my training schedule that had 10 workout sessions posted for the week (with double-days on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.) The bulk of my efforts on the bike are mile repeats at 280-300 watts (4.7-5.0 watts per kilo) or two-mile repeats at 240-250 watts (4.2-4.4 watts per kilo.) Then, I included 4 Orange Theory Fitness workouts and one five and a half mile run on the hilly path around campus. Physically, I’m doing fantastic, however mentally and emotionally I’m something of a wreck.
I really can’t point to a single reason why. Instead, it’s this nebulous realization that I’ve grown up to become this incredibly boring failure and I just don’t know how that happened. I went to a quality graduate program in writing, I study and write every day, I write as my profession and yet, I can’t even tell you the number of times I’m told I’m not all that great. And the thing is, I’m starting to agree.
Anyway, on Wednesday I did a stupid thing and made a second payment for the month on my student loans because I miscalculated what I had left in my account. This resulted in me being absolutely, literally broke and whatever other tensions in my life snowballed and I found myself crying hysterically at work, steeped in this helpless feeling that if I can’t pay my bills now, when will I ever be able to do that? How can an educated person arrive in their late thirties having done so little good in the world?
When I’m in this state, I feel like the things I typically worry over— FTP, threshold, V02 max, watts per kilo, hours of sleep—all of those numbers that I run in tables in my head— it fades and I struggle to understand how that even as an educated person who is trying to do good work in the world, who writes news stories promoting a local community college, a writer who is raising money for a nine-year old kiddo with JIA for #TeamCarter2020—all that goes out the window and it seems remarkably unfair— all I wanted was an MFA so that I could write stories that people would actually want to read, and that decision has ruined my life.
Some backstory
I think I was about Carter’s age when I decided I wanted to be a writer. I was that kid with her nose in a book most of the time, and if not I was inventing worlds for whatever I had around me: a button collection that amassed after years of accompanying my grandmother to the sewing room at Leisure World (the rhinestone-studded buttons had money, the wooden ones didn’t); the cats and their inherent drama about whose bush or tree was whose in the yard; the lego collections—pirate ships, vacation homes, space ships— that mixed together and formed strange peopled worlds with storylines that unfolded in a series of marriages, falling outs, unfortunate accidents, alienation and heartbreak.
I didn’t do much in the way of writing to the outside world. Meaning, I wasn’t ever the star English student that I can remember. I kept my stories to myself in journals. Every once in a while I’d get one stuck so firmly in my mind’s eye that I’d start scrawling it down on lined paper until my hand couldn’t move any longer, when the story had run it’s course and was out of my body. It wasn’t until college, really, when I just decided to declare myself an English major because no other topic interested me as much.
What followed were a series of late nights in the basement of the library until I was kicked out at midnight. Lonely days writing papers, doing research, revisions and writing some more. Graduate school— following the suggested course sequences in foreign languages, but always taking a writing seminar on the side where I wrote about a couple trying desperately to reconnect after the death of their only child, the narrative of a woman who hikes into desolation wilderness, which was as much of a metaphor as it is an actual destination. Winter and summer breaks were spent alone, writing. Then, the MFA where I eschewed a lot of the social scene so I could spend more time with the books my professors suggested I read, more time to write, more time to revise. An outside person might look at all this and determine that I’m self-centered and egotistical. In this, they would be wrong.
I have always believed that if you want to achieve something, you have to work toward it. And not lazy-work, but laser-focused work, shutting-everything-else-out-work, the hard work, the selfish work— and then, after years and years of that, maybe (just maybe) you’ll make something magic.
That is how I have always approached my training for specific races, and that is how I have approached writing my entire life. I’m not telling you this as a “see how good I am” kind of way; rather, I hope to convey the deepness of my disappointment in myself for all the ways I’ve failed, both on and off the page.
Accountability
So if I started to crack on Wednesday, by Friday I was an absolute mess. I wore the kind of tired that comes from days of crying like a crumpled up t-shirt and socks that hadn’t been washed in three days. I had expected to feel better; in the schedule I wrote for myself, I gave myself Friday morning off to recover. I spent the extra time lying wide-eyed in bed, worried about my (in)ability to fundraise for the CCC, wondering what I’d do if (or when) I will need to change my career because my writing has gotten so bad, and why my watts per kilo are faltering in the sprint.
I spent most of the day at work crying, my stomach in knots. When I finally got to Orange Theory, I used the pain of running and rowing to try and forget myself, even as the beautiful latino woman next to me kept telling me that she needed my name and number so that she could always take a class with me. “You are as strong as the men,” she said.
Strong, because I’m fragile. With -$37.24 to my name and never a significant race win, I walk into the world— that empty parking lot— as an anonymous failure.
So what?
I write all of this because in one of those many hours staring wide-eyed at the dark abyss of my bedroom ceiling at night, I thought about quitting. It would be so easy to write to the Arthritis Foundation, cite personal hardship, throw in the towel and call it a day. After all, it is sort of crazy that I’m trying to raise money for the Arthritis Foundation as I literally struggle (emphasis on the word “struggle”) to pay off my student loans and not end up on the street because I can’t meet all my other financial obligations.
I can’t do that, though. Those inflicted with arthritis can’t do that. Every day, they live with the struggle and inconvenience of their condition, even if it impacts their ability to work, to move (physically) and to enjoy their lives. I signed up for this commitment to help Carter and his family and others like him, and even if I am this big loser who’s never written anything “great”, whatever: I’m not throwing in the towel for this cause— not ever.
This is a condition that impacts a lot of people—good people. This is why I am raising money and awareness for this cause: Over 54 million Americans currently suffer from doctor-diagnosed arthritis. That’s 1 out of every 4 people. New projections predict arthritis to be the epidemic of the future. By the year 2040, the number of people with arthritis will almost double, affecting major life activities such as working, going to school, enjoying leisure activities, or keeping house. Arthritis research can make a difference.
Things that seem unrelated, sometimes, can. What is writing but the representation of memory and experiences in symbols? And following that logic, what is a bike? It’s a series of cables and chains looped through and across a frame, like some convoluted guitar. It is a vehicle of salvation as much as it is a mechanical method of storytelling. It is a metaphor, and has good as any other for the kinds of stories that play out on its pedals.
It’s a journey, and I keep trying to remind myself of that. Even though I might feel like a failure, I’m learning that I just need to take a deep breath and keep going, even though that is the hardest thing a person can do.
And yet, it can be the most important.
Thank you for reading my blog, and please continue to follow me on this crazy journey to the start line of the California Coast Classic! I’m riding, running and planking my way to fitness so that I can do the 525-mile ride to help Carter and other youngsters like him find a cure. Here’s a link to my fundraising page. Every cent of your donation goes to research and a cure.