The End

I did it.

This means so much to me because I haven’t written ‘The End’ on anything in almost eight years. There were times in these last eight years that I felt like a failure, a fraud. There were times in these last eight years that I felt like my entire identity had eroded and that I was nothing.

It took a long time and a lot of work to get to shake those feelings of failure, of despair. I had to come to grips with the fact that this is important to me, without letting it consume my identity. I needed to reset my expectations of what success looked like and learn to love the process again.

Being a cyclist helped. I love getting home, taking a shower, eating heartily, and feeling generally awesome. But I also love the ride, seeing new places or even the same places on my old, familiar route. I love feeling the wind, breathing deeply, the sun on my skin. I also realized that there was a point in every ride, usually a couple miles in, when my body tried to rebel, convince me that I just wanted to go home and sit on the couch.

There were rides that I was uncomfortable, cold, soaked to the bone. But I always say that I’d rather regret the ride I went on than the ride I didn’t. And so far, I haven’t regretted any of my rides.

So this story, this draft, was about pushing through those feelings of negativity. Of not listening to the voice that said I should just give up. I clawed my way through and wrote ‘The End.’

And I am so fucking proud of myself.