Week #15: Goodbye Game

It's always awkward. You stumble upon the blog of a stranger or a casual acquaintance and you start reading. You start to become invested in the happenings of their life. The posts are focused on racing or there's just a long break in between. Eventually there is a mention of a divorce or breakup with serious significant other.

So I guess the awkward moment has come for me, sooner in the process than most, but hey, it's already been all over Facebook, so it's not exactly a secret. I would have preferred it not happen that way, but it did, so it's just as well now. It makes the decision about what to write on my blog a lot easier. The fact of the matter is that there was a reason that I committed to weekly wrap-up posts at the beginning of the year: I knew that hard times were coming I wanted to keep myself accountable. 

Of course, I didn't know exactly how it would all play out, but when I posted my New Year's Resolutions, I knew it would be a life-changing year. Without the weekly social interaction of cyclocross, I was petrified of a making it through a long winter alone without falling prey to depression. So I focused on making it to the Death March, which had the advantages of being my first race of the year, being a race where I stood a good chance of placing well, the beginning of daylight savings time, and having another person who was depending on me to perform well. So if I ever write my memoir, "It's Not About the Callahan", I will confess that of all the bike races for which I've chronicled my training, this was the most important, because I wasn't training for a bike race so much as I was training myself to handle major life changes. Of course, at the beginning, even 10 weeks seemed overwhelming, so the weekly posts helped serve as way stations to break up that period and ensure that I was doing my best to prepare for the race, and more importantly, take care of myself.

As an aside, I will say that it was one of the most important learning periods of my life. I had to learn to how work through uncertain and ever-changing conditions. I learned to reach out and ask for help from expected sources, and came to see how awesome people can be if I just trust them a little. I also learned to deal with the disappointment that sometimes comes when you put your trust in people in a way that was healthy and empowering, rather than disconnecting. Finally, I improved my baseline anxiety a little by seeing that often whatever I imagine will go wrong doesn't and then something I never imagine will go wrong does, and either way I manage to handle it, now matter how much it sucks at the time.

I guess my point is that accountability in my blog has been and important anchor that has gotten me through the year so far, so as awkward as it is to say, the biggest thing that happened in the last week was that I told Adam that I wanted a divorce. I don't want to go too deeply into the reasons, but as you might guess from all my admission of struggle above, I basically just can't see myself being happy in the relationship and I think we have some pretty fundamental disagreements as to what is important to each of us. 

Checking important stuff before buying.

So as a first step building a new life, I had purchase my own car, since we've been sharing all these years. I wanted another Mazda 5 since it's about the most awesome bike car ever, but financially, it just wasn't going to happen. After discussing contingency plans, it basically came down to, "Here is what you can afford: the Mazda 2. We have one in stock. It is lime green." So I drove it home, made sure I could fit a bike in the back, and went back and bought it. It was the first time I'd bought a car myself and my first step towards building a new life for myself that I can be proud of. The color is also starting to grow on me, especially after my friend Sarah christened it "The Lime-a Bean".