Broken Puzzles

As a follow up to my last post, after a year of silence, I offer this.  It has occurred to me that the days of personal blogs being a public forum to pour your heart out.  These days people just take care of these sorts of things through Twitter and Facebook.  Some thoughts, some idea, take a little more space to get out, and so for those sorts of occasions, I keep this.  

I am patently aware that continuing to dwell on  the unfortunate events of my life in the past few years is a sad expression of my failure to move on from these events.  I know that it is perceived as whining by some.    I actually try very hard not to dump all my struggles on others. Maybe it's my own insecurities that cause me to feel like that - this idea that everyone I  know is tired of me "dealing with it" Hell I know I am.  Regardless I get the impression that I'm not very successful at it.  I digress, though,  this isn't really what this post is about.  I'll just go ahead and call It what it is "Self-indulgent catharsis". Ultimately, I think I write these things in an attempt to have others...understand.

When others go through similar experiences. I often hear them talking about "Putting their life back together", as if, after these events your life is a broken vase, or a unmade, messed up jigsaw puzzle.  I understand this metaphor.  It makes sense.  For me though, I have begun to realize that it is different.  When I was in Pittsburgh visiting my family over the holidays, I discovered that one of my nieces liked puzzles.  The first puzzle we did together was a small puzzle, maybe 40 pieces with a castle, some princesses and a unicorn.  But we ended up trying to put it back together without the picture.  I found it hard to even find the edge pieces, let alone have an inclination as to where they went. For me, I feel my life is like that at this moment in time.   If I think of my life as that broken jigsaw puzzle, this beautiful portrait that has been shattered, and I go back to pick up the pieces and put it back together, I'm finding that I don't have all the pieces anymore. Moreover, the ones I have don't fit together the way they used to.  There aren't even enough pieces left to make the picture anymore.  Sure, I could go find a new puzzle, a new beautiful portrait, but I have no idea what that would look like.  So there is nothing to put back together, I can't even find the edge pieces,  I can't find many of the pieces at all.  All I have are these random pieces from my old life that used to be lynch pins of a beautiful scene but now they are just a puzzle piece. But a puzzle piece that I don't want to throw away, because it was once part of something great and I don't like giving up the idea that these pieces, these parts of my life, if I'm being specific, mountain biking, and rock climbing and even my profession, can someday be part of something great again, something new and great and beautiful.  For now though, I stay lost, because I don't know where to start again.

The Inspiration Dilemma

Several months ago I managed a feat that had not managed since before my illness.  I managed to ride my mountain bike up to the Brown Mountain saddle above JPL without stopping.  I'm still ridiculously slow to be sure, but this was an accomplishment of monumental significance for me.  As well, to be sure, for anyone who rides with any frequency, this is not really that big of deal.  For me however doing this ride, without stopping represent some momentous, to me it represented recovery.   For all that went through, the coma, the strokes, the pneumonia, I'd come back.  Perhaps I’m not entirely what I used to be, but this is a level of fitness, a level of normalcy that I'd at times not thought possible.  Sadly I was alone with no one to share this moment, but there are certain times in your life when guess you aren't supposed to have anybody, you know?  There are certain doors you have to go through alone.  

As I have gone through this struggle to reach this point, I have watched my friends go on adventures and reach goal that to a small degree could not imagine.   I have seen them reach beautiful adventurous goals.  Watching this has always been a little bittersweet for me, because, at the risk of sounding a little petty, I was jealous.  Jealous that they were going on the adventures I wanted to do, that once, I did thing equal or greater.  Upon reaching the Brown Mountain, I realized that many of these goals were still there, were reachable once again.  I could once again reach high peaks and descend mountains at fantastic speed; the adventures of younger days were not so far away.  So I've become more active striving to regain even a little of that.  

Unfortunately, I've run into great resistance. Not from other people, but from within myself.  Even as I am inspired by watching others go on their adventures I've found a great wall keeping me back in the form of my own motivation. I've struggled to explain it to myself just as I'm sure others would struggle to understand it.  Recently, though, I had a small revelation that may help explain this struggle, this dilemma.  A friend was describing to me her recent solo trip to Guatemala and Belize and she mentioned how much she enjoyed the challenge both physical of the various hikes and other activities she did, as well as the emotional challenges of travelling solo in a foreign country.  Almost immediately as she described this, realized that I don't enjoy those things anymore.    I'm tired, mentally and emotionally exhausted from the past 4 years of devastating health problem, job loss and break-ups, and loss of long and short term friends.  My well of strength for being to deal with psychological and emotional challenges is dry and for now I don't know how refill it.  Is it time for new dreams and different kinds of adventures? - I'm not convinced.   I still long to climb peaks in impossible ways and ride my bike to place of immense beauty.  My mind has wandered to outlandish dreams that I can't seem to pursue with any real honesty or passion, thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, pursuing a job in New Zealand, among others.  It is a source of sadness for me, as see the years of my life slowly passing by and these adventures and dreams fading.   I guess all  can do for now is keep doing what  can, what I can motivate myself do, keep trying to find dreams and adventures that inspire and motivate me, and hoping and searching for a way to refill the well.