2021: Parched and Soaking

Find your why.

In the world of endurance sports, when someone starts to train for their first long-course event — be it a marathon, century ride, or whatever — seasoned members of the community are quick to advise that one of the first things to do is “find your why.” Figure out what will motivate you to keep going through the months of training and the seemingly endless hours of the race day. (For example: in an iron-distance triathlon, most newbies can count on taking 12 or more hours to complete the 140.6 miles of the course, not to mention the complicated transitions from swim to bike to run.) Having that “why” in mind helps maintain focus when fatigue and boredom and doubt come creeping in.

Most of the time, these motivations are simple and straightforward. Many participants are thrilled by the idea of athletic achievement, either simply finishing a daunting course in under the cutoff time, competing against one’s age group, or “beating your best” by shaving time off from a previous finish. Others are drawn to getting to train and race with friends or family members, spending quality time together and supporting one another through the grind. Still more people dedicate their race to a loved one or personal cause, fundraising on behalf of someone undergoing cancer treatment, awareness-raising in memory of those who succumbed to MS, campaigning for veterans’ healthcare, and so on. There are even “destination races” where the goal is the setting.

I had two aborted opportunities to race an Ironman in 2021. The first ended when I had to bow out due to a bike accident. (It was dumb: I skidded while rounding a corner on a training ride. I injured one arm just bad enough to require six weeks of convalescence. I’m fine now.) The second time I made it all the way to a bus shuttle waiting to go to the starting line, as a freak storm swept through the area and the race director had to shut the event down due to safety concerns. (It was the right call.){1}

My motivation — twice thwarted en route to the starting line— was catharsis.

2020 was a horrorshow in ways big and small, stemming from the (ongoing) pandemic and pressures on the environment to problems in policing and the politics of protofascism. The normal ways of understanding the world didn’t make sense anymore, and I cast about for an emotional anchor; I read and re-read essays with titles like “What Are We to Do with All This Grief?” and “That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief” (that latter one from, of all places, the Harvard Business Review). I stated to familiarize myself with the idea of ambiguous loss too — the reality of our quality-of-life now being worse, not acutely but generally. It was some measure of comfort to know that there are reference points for the inchoate feelings of something being wrong-but-not-definitively-so.

The big things, bad as they are, are easier to see and easier to share and discuss in common with others. The reactions to the small, personal privations… that’s the part I’m still trying to come to terms with.

I found and still find it hard to come to terms with some of those losses. For one example: A couple of friend-groups broke up at the same time the pandemic forced us into isolation — some people moved away, some coincidentally had children and were wrapped up in the attendant necessities. A book club I’d invested a lot of time in setting up simply vanished, and an athletic/social group I had volunteered with just went underground. People “podded up” or “locked down,” and the world just felt emptier.

I want to go to great pains to acknowledge that I know these are small wounds.{2} But it’s the great irony of it; tragedy allows for catharsis, but ambiguous loss just leaves you unsettled and unresolved. I was fortunate enough to not directly lose anyone close to me to covid, but I also didn’t have the depth of sorrow to be able to grieve fully. It wasn’t until two of my friends suddenly died of different cancers a few months apart that I finally found myself overcome enough to have a Good, Hard Cry. (Here, I must say thanks to the makers of Inside Out for creating an accessible touchstone for the value of sadness in helping us process difficult times. I think about it quite a lot.)

We commonly can describe someone’s affect as running hot and cold, but temperature is not the metaphor that makes sense to me here. Moisture is.

What I’ve been turning over in my mind over the course of 2021 is an idea of “dry” (diffuse) and “wet” (acute) emotions, a sliding scale of experiences that run from the imperceptible to the overwhelming. To belabor it: One can weather a diffuse or vague feeling for a long time, much as one can wear dry shoes day after day without a problem. But an acute, deeply-felt emotion is like a wet spot on one’s clothes (whether from sweat stains or a spilled drink or something worse ) in that it can be inconvenient or embarrassing when worn in public. At its most extreme, our feelings may come upon us like a flood and require some form of “toweling-off” before we move on.

We already have concepts that exemplify these different feelings, even if we don’t think of them as such. “Dry” happiness is contentment, “wet” happiness is euphoria. “Dry” fear is unease, “wet” fear is terror. “Dry” anger is displeasure, “wet” anger is rage. “Dry” sadness is like manageable depression, “wet” sadness takes many forms: sobbing misery, abject despair, etc.

(Don’t worry, I’m almost done torturing this metaphor. There is a point.)

Grief, when it’s not felt acutely, can be such an ambiguous emotion that it isn’t always obvious what it represents in the grand scheme of life. It feels like sorrow, but it’s also a form of anger — a sense of the world not being right due to our losses. Rage can power people. Misery can force reevaluation. Discontent… can be sat upon indefinitely.

There’s a theory (lately acknowledged as a myth) that people struggling with addiction can’t seek recovery until they hit “rock bottom”; the implication being that one has to lose control of everything, to feel total abandon, before turning the page on that chapter of life. I am not an addict, but I do keenly feel the importance of catharsis to clear the mind and allow us to move forward. It’s why we have bonfires and ceremonies and why New Year’s is anything to celebrate.{3} And it’s why I felt compelled to make a run at those last long triathlons{4}: it feels as though I’ve been standing on damp ground for the past two years — not solid and dry, not sodden with rain, but hinting at both. Even with the tumult of living through an era of public-health and public-safety and political upheavals… I thought I would hit a point with a flash-flood of feeling, but it’s rarely been more than ankle-deep.{5} Pushing myself to physical exhaustion seemed like as good a way as any to get to that breakthrough, drenched in brine, sweat, and tears from months of training and a thoroughly draining race day. But in 2021, it was not to be.

In the myth of Tantalus, the gods punished him for his sins by forcing him to spend his afterlife up to his neck in water, feeling a terrible thirst; whenever he bent to drink any, it flowed away out of reach. Setting aside the near-operatic melodrama of that image, I don’t think I’m alone feeling a a sense of recognition for that in-between state. We have endured a parched uncertainty and what should feel like a soaking-tub brimming with anguish for all those ineffable losses — yet somehow it just doesn’t work that way, and we can’t tell what to do.

Maybe, with luck, we’ll get there in 2022… and with more luck, we’ll know why.

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{1} I was extraordinarily lucky to get vaxxed early (thanks to my work situation), and to have access to outdoor training (open-air pools, empty roads to bike on, and trails near home for running) to safely gear up for these events while so much else from normal life was inaccessible.

{2} I want to acknowledge that life isn’t bad by most measures. I’ve had some great fortune recently, too: I earned a long-desired promotion at work; my husband and I adopted the most wonderful cat; and I’ve taken some (private) steps toward personal growth.

{3} I recently attended the (much-delayed) graduation ceremony for a master’s program I finished almost two year ago, not because I truly needed to go, but to root it in my mind that the experience is well and truly over.

{4} If all goes well, 2022 will be my absolute last-and-final races. I don’t know what’s next but I do know that this chapter is ending for me.

{5} Believe me, I thought it would be intense working at the migrant-children’s shelter for six weeks this spring. But I wasn’t ever overcome by it; I was just tired. (Feel free to page back through the 10 essays I wrote on the experience here earlier!)