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With everything going on in the world, why am I telling you about a toy goat? Because it makes me laugh. Because during those two seconds my goat is screaming, I’m not thinking about abused children or losing voting rights or people being kidnapped off our city streets.
The goat screams for all of us.
It’s that time of year again, when people set unrealistic goals that seem great while in a cheese-and-chocolate-induced haze, but suddenly feel impossible when it’s time to throw away all the sugar in the pantry or wake up at 5:30am to hit the gym before work.
While I don’t set resolutions, I do set goals throughout the year.
This is a positive story, I promise.
I’ve never been one to shy away from trying new things. Physical, mental, intellectual — very few experiences things fall into my “No” category.* So last summer when a neighbor invited me to sign up for a bike race hosted by her mountain biking group, it didn’t take much to convince me.
Little did I know at the time how much that race would change my life.
Today is my 50th birthday! That’s 18,262 days if I’ve counted leap days correctly. I’ve thought about this milestone A LOT in the past year, mostly with excitement, but also with a tinge of trepidation. Each new decade has brought more wisdom, less f—s, and an increased sense that the only person I need to please is myself — and the best way to do that is to follow my passions.
Around my 48th birthday, I got the idea to compete in a triathlon before I turned 50. I talked to a couple friends who regularly compete in them, and we agreed we’d start training together. Then time slipped away, I lost my nerve, and I hoped they didn’t remember that conversation. Cut to the beginning of 2024, aka the beginning of the end of my first half of the century, I got the bug again. But this time the friend I talked to about competing was in my weekly ice skating class (oh yeah, I did that for six months!) so there was no escaping my declaration to attempt a triathlon before my 50th birthday.
The past few years have felt like a roller coaster that keeps going faster and faster until there’s no way to climb off, I just have to hold on tight and hope I’m not flung into the ether, never to be seen again. (Although some days, that seemed like a nice alternative.) Some things were within my control, others were not, but all of them culminated this summer and I’m really really glad to have it all behind me. I’ve alternated between feeling like I’m failing at everything, to not caring that I’m failing at everything, to wishing I could just press pause on life and catch my breath.
In January 2020, I declared this to be The Year of Being in the Moment. Today that feels almost prophetic, but at the time it was nothing more than a reminder to myself to focus on what’s truly important. My friends and family, my health, the little things that bring me joy. I started the year by training for and then performing in my community’s Dancing With the Local Stars, then in early March we vacationed in Key West with our best friends. We traveled home (BY PLANE!! ON MARCH 12!!) as the country slowly came to grips with what we were facing.
Like the rest of the world, our world suddenly shrank to within the walls of our house.
We were very much living in the moment.
It should not come as a shock to anyone who knows me that I’m terrible at resting. Pausing. Catching my breath. (And that’s despite having the word breathe tattooed on my wrist.)
How are you coping? What weird things have you started doing now that you’re ALWAYS AT HOME? Anything you want to get off your chest?
Nature and water have always inspired me. There’s something about being outside that wakes me up and makes me feel alive. And if I can be near a large body of water, even better. The sound of the waves crashing calms me like nothing else—even in the midst of a raging storm. I was born …