"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered."

Tom Stoppard

There are so many different things going on right now that I'm scared and don't know how to deal with. This is going to be both my 2011 in review and my looking forward to 2012 and also a stream of consciousness to make sure I do remember.

2011 Part 1: Georgia

Ever since I left California to move to Georgia in 2010 I was very ambivalent about the reasons why I moved. Yes, I needed the change, I needed the challenge, I needed to prove to myself that I could do it. What didn't dawn on me until I went back to work in January was that it didn't feel quite right and I let slip that I wasn't happy... it would definitely come back to bite me later but not in the way that I thought it would.

I had managed to keep myself entertained, busy and exhausted outside work. I signed up with the Georgia IronTeam from Team in Training in 2010 with the full intention of racing Ironman Arizona in November of 2011

Things didn't quite work out the way I want the, to put it nicely. I vented elsewhere at length about what happened and why I chose to leave Georgia after I was fired (I've also discussed elsewhere why I still consider I was fired even when I resigned). I didn't have enough money to stay in Georgia and the emotional weight was too much and too soon. My mom would have killed me if I hadn't come back to California but I still do wonder if things would have been different if I had chosen to stay anyways.

I did learn a lot about the year in Georgia. I did learn, again and hopefully for good, not to rush things. The move itself wasn't bad but the interactions and the communication (or lack thereof) taught me a lot about when to leap going and when to fold and move on

The year I spent in Georgia (outside of work) also taught me how to push on... In the past I would have given up right after the first surgery, particularly when I woke up with the pump sticking out of my belly and was scared shitless. But the team and the TNT family in Georgia kept me going. I didn't want to, I couldn't give up and stop training... it wasn't until I broke my leg that I had to quit training.

2011 Part 2: California

"We all die. The goal isn't to live forever. The goal is to create something that will."

Chuck Palahniuk

I got back to California in a cast, with my leg swollen after hours on a damn airplane and had to rebuild my life around being broken both physically and emotionally. Physically the leg had a one way to being healed (and I didn't know the half of it) and emotionally because of what I had to give up and the reasons why I felt I had to do it (starting with the fact that I had no money at all)

The leg stayed in a boot for a month but the pain didn't go away. I had a CT scan and around Turkey Day I found out that surgery was no longer an option... I had to have a bone graft with meant that any endurance even for 2012 was out of the picture. Ouch was the first thing that came out of my mind, followed very closely by why the fuck now? and that followed by what the hell am I gonna do?

I'm still trying to answer those questions as I write this (and yes, I did backdate it but not by much :)) and I'm coming to the end of the cast/x-rays/CT Scans/surgery/recovery period and can start thinking about what is it that I want to do and how do I want to do it.

Moving Forward: 2012 and beyond

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming [of] men that strove with Gods.

Ulysses - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I'm turning 38 this year. how the hell did that happen... I'll avoid the debates regarding whether that's old or not; it's just how I feel. I've been running like hell for years, changing course every so ofter and it hasn't worked. Part of me wants to just run, regardless of where and for what reason I want to run.

I'm tired of school politics and I want to explore professional boundaries that I'm afraid I won't get to explore if I don't start now. Alex may have given me a way out of this impasse but I don't want to get my hopes too high as I've been burned too much recently.

I'm tired of people doing what they think is right without consideration of the world around them. Things like this article in Rolling Stones last year make me sad and, most of all, make me angry. How do you reconcile what you see as the truth of your faith with what you see people doing in the name of that faith?

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Ulysses - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

What I want, or what I think I want

I want to get a job to get my independence back; It may mean I don't get to stay with mom and cat for long but that would save my mental sanity.

I want to travel and save for the Triad bike of my dreams 😀

I want to get back into training and push to Ironman training levels some time this year (see the saga of the leg for the reason why)

I want to do something to stop being disgusted with politics and religion