More than Just a Date

It’s November 19. I’m sitting by a fire in my backyard as I type.

I started the fire at a quarter to five after working on projects all day, grabbed a Surly Furious from the fridge and my laptop from my desk. I secured Bear, our three year old 110 pound German Shepherd, to his leash so that he could chase the sparks. He LOVES to chase sparks and catch them in his mouth. One of his favorite things to do. Period. Then I positioned my chair toward the sunset and sat down to reflect.

I didn’t even have time to get comfortable before Melinda returned from a trail run with her friend leading the charge through the back door. She had to know the latest news about Coulee River Trails.

“Here, pull up a chair.” 

“Do you want a beer?”

It’s three hours later now. I’ve had a bowl of homemade chicken soup–in a Yeti mug that I bought for Melinda and used on my first winter camping trip. I’ve also stolen at least two balls of cookies from the pan before Melinda could stick them in the oven and save them for her book club tomorrow. The logs split from an ash tree I cut down two years ago have been reduced to glowing embers. I won’t put more wood on this fire because I’ll need to call it a day soon. 

But I still want to write. At least a little.

I finally opened a Google doc to start typing what I’ve been thinking for the last year. I type a title. Maybe it will become the title of this blog post. Maybe not. 

How should I start? What’s my first sentence?

My oldest daughter calls. I text back: “Can I call you a little later?”

I’ve been trying all day to take some time to reflect. Other priorities keep getting in the way. That’s totally okay, though, because those other things are just that: PRIORITIES. Friends and family are IMPORTANT. I’ll catch a minute to myself soon enough.

This date marks a momentous moment. Everything changed at exactly this time one year ago: 8:12 PM, November 19, 2022. That was when I took a selfie to send to Melinda to tell her I was still alive. 

It just happens to be 8:12 PM exactly one year later at this very minute as I type this sentence. I should have taken a screenshot to prove it, but you believe me, right?

Before I continue. I need to return my daughter’s phone call. I missed it while I typed those last paragraphs. I’ll be right back …

Okay, I’m back. But only for this sentence and the next.

It’s time to get ready for bed and connect with Melinda before we cuddle and fall asleep and wake up to another Monday.

Good morning! I’m back at the keyboard. You’re wondering what happened last year, aren’t you? I left you with such a cliffhanger.

It was a Saturday. I had the day off. I went for a 45 mile training run at Afton State Park to celebrate my 45th birthday and to prepare for an 80 mile winter race that I was planning to complete six weeks later–the Tuscobia Winter Ultra. It was relatively cold (10 degrees Fahrenheit with a fierce wind). The trail was covered in the season’s first snow. It was cold enough to try out some new gear combinations in preparation for Tuscobia. I was pumped. The day before I had publicly announced my transition to a new job that would give us more flexibility in our future and more financial support.

My manifesting affirmations were coming true. Miracles were happening in me and through me. I felt Spirit’s presence and the energy of Wisconsin’s winter wind.

You can see how happy I felt in this photo I sent to my wife while she was visiting her family in the high desert of the Southwest. 

At around 5:15 PM I started to feel pain intensifying in my left hip flexor. I was at around mile 20 on the trail. It was completely dark and getting colder. I played around with different positions and gaits. Every adjustment would help temporarily but eventually I couldn’t extend my leg without excruciating pain. I pushed through the pain for three more hours, imagining what it would be like if something like this would happen to me at 2:00 in the morning on an isolated trail in the middle of a wilderness where cell phones don’t work. There was no way that I would make it to 45 miles that day, so I aimed for the 45 kilometer mark instead so that I could tell myself I’d done 45 something for my 45th birthday.

The last half mile was uphill. The pain had locked my left leg completely and every step sent searing pain through my body. I had to pull myself along using the trekking poles I had packed in case of injury.

I made it back to the car and sent a selfie to Melinda to tell her that I was still alive and show her how well my new hat worked. Then I tried to get into the driver’s seat. I couldn’t sit down. I had to use both hands to bend my leg at the hip, screaming in pain as I forced my way into the minivan.

For the next week I tried to rehab myself using the techniques I had learned in Becoming a Supple Leopard. It didn’t help. I went to a chiropractor who had fixed my debilitating aches and pains before. It just got worse. Finally I visited an orthopedic urgent care facility. That turned into months of physical therapy, steroid injections, multiple types of scans, consultations with two surgeons, and ultimately surgery to repair a torn labrum and reconstruct my hip.

I lost a winter season and a summer one, too. No snowshoe running. No distance swimming. No biking the hills in the countryside. No burpees or deadlifts. 

My dream of completing Arrowhead slowly died as the reality of my injury set in. Outdoor exercise had been my therapy for the last decade since my divorce. Endurance training was the goal that infused me with energy for all the other parts of my life. Both were gone.

I was in a dark place. Before that fateful trail run on November 19, 2022, I felt like I was speeding down the runway about to take off into a glorious new life of financial freedom, health, and happiness. But that hip injury popped a tire and made me skid off the tarmac, never to get off the ground.

The death of that dream forced me to ask a new question: What’s next? 

I’m still not 100 percent sure about the answer. But I now have (re)new priorities and perspectives that are shaping the next years of my life. I’ll share a few thoughts about those in a minute and potentially in future posts.

But first a big caveat: It almost seems trite to talk about the painful experience that changed the trajectory of my life when others are enduring so much more–the explosive conflict in Israel and Palestine, the ongoing war in Ukraine, the political turbulence in our own country that threatens to combust in a civil war or spread globally to culminate in World War III. Apparently, there’s even an imminent alien visitation. (My friends saw the alien ships last night while standing around a fire in my backyard sipping whiskey and smoking cigars. Real life UFOs streaming through small town Wisconsin skies! Here’s the article to prove it.)

I am so privileged. Yet global and galactic conflicts don’t erase the daily grind of our individual lives. The ruck remains. Just trying to get through another week, another month. Divorce, death, debt, teenagers, and a thousand other pains tear the labrum of our hearts and cripple us on the trail.

If we take a deep breath and quiet our minds long enough to receive renewal from Source, we might begin to see the opportunities in front of us. Serenity and stability through self-forgetfulness. It’s available to all of us.

If we take a deep breath and quiet our minds long enough to receive renewal from Source, we might begin to see the opportunities in front of us. Serenity and stability through self-forgetfulness. It’s available to all of us.

Life moves so fast. Difficulties come, and difficulties go. Like the rushing waters of a 340 foot tall waterfall in Yosemite National Park.** When I breathe, I release and I receive. What I receive washes over me and changes me if I can let go and flow with the current that carries me into oneness with the life force of the universe. 

The last year has been filled with challenges on many fronts—marriage, parenting, work. It might have been one of the most difficult years of the last decade for me. The hip was just the presenting issue that complicated everything else. I may have skidded off the runway when that labrum tore, but now I know I wasn’t supposed to fly. I’m made to ruck instead.

During moments of serenity, I can see with new eyes. I have fresh perspective on fatherhood, finances, friends, food, fitness, fasting, and fertility. Those are all F-words I’ll save for more stories about the F-ed up ruck I call life. It’s been a year long purgatory, but I’m better for it.

Embrace the suck. It won’t last forever. And enjoy the good times when they come.

Make a fire. Hug your partner. Breathe. Take an ice bath. Or a hot shower. Call a friend on the phone. Better yet, invite them to a volunteer trail work day and do something great for the community. Make a cabbage salad with sardines, turmeric, ginger, apple cider vinegar, Korean barbeque sauce, goat cheese, sliced beets, chia seeds, red pepper flakes, and chopped walnuts. Eat it for breakfast. Go for a walk in the woods. Catch a fish. Cook a deer heart. Play basketball in the driveway. Sit around the dinner table for a half hour longer. Force your kids to join you for a hike. Then eat peanut butter and jalapeno hamburgers afterward at the local dive bar.

These opportunities for joy come and go quickly. Grab them while you can.