You don’t have to tell the whole story, but it is important to tell people how you feel.

Posted on October 3, 2013 by rangotti

I have this crazy belief that in order to solve a problem, I first have to admit that I have a problem. As long as I am in denial, I can keep ignoring it. When I can be brutally honest with myself and acknowledge it, then I can start thinking about solutions. But that is just me and the way I deal with things, I am not projecting that as advice to anyone else. So far in my life, it seems to be working for me.

Since I came back from Africa, I have been experiencing situational depression. I have always been sympathetic to mental health issues, but this has given me even greater respect for those who are suffering from depression. With my passionate Italian/Irish heritage, I would rather be my batshit-crazy emotional self than to have to deal with this soul-sucking emptiness day after day where I try to joke around and appear normal so no one will realize that I am struggling to cope with the simplest tasks like showering.

I think one of the worst parts of mental illness is the secrecy and stigma. Talking about it, normalizing it, is one of the healthiest ways to deal with it, get support, and ultimately overcome it. And at some point in our lives, we all go through it. It isn’t just something that happens to other people. Just like we get physically ill from time to time, we also go through low periods mentally. Our mental health is as important and deserves as much respect as our physical health.

So now, I have named my demon. Just like when a person has the flu, there are things I can do to get healthy. What are my challenges and what can I do to overcome them and be well?

For me, I had to consider when it started. Sometime, mid to late summer, I got overwhelmed by too many life changes. Giving up my things, being homeless, living out of suitcases, relying on the goodwill of other people for places to stay and basic life necessities like a shower, travelling, etc. All of it just started to add up and wear on me. I am a person who appreciates time alone and it just seemed like I constantly had to be around other people or in their homes and there just wasn’t any place to just be myself.

Fly-swatter wand

Brooklyn & Charlotte

Because of that, I wasn’t ready to take on the challenge of Ethiopia, so I left Africa, and came back to Seattle. On hindsight, it might have been wiser to just go to the east coast and stay with my son and play with my granddaughters. There is nothing like some time on a backyard swingset or playing pretend as fairies to perk up your mental health, especially when it involves fly-swatter wands.

Instead, I came back to Seattle and all I have really wanted to do is get a place of my own and feel normal again. But of course, that isn’t what I did. Sometimes I have to wonder, can I ever take the easy road in life? Just once? Instead, I booked a five week trip to Spain. The plan is to go to Mallorca and cycle for a couple of weeks, then to go traipse around southern Spain from Madrid, Seville, Granada, Cordoba until ending up in Barcelona. After that, I come back to the U.S. to play fairy with Brooklyn & Charlotte. Sounds great right? My problem is, I am not sure I have the capacity to get all the details done to make it happen, I am not sure I can get on the plane, I am not even sure I can get out of bed.

After beating myself up over not being able to snap out of it, I realized I had to admit I had a problem to myself and my friends and then go about solving it. I also had to stop the negative self-talk (thanks Jeff). So for the first time, yesterday, as I was walking back to where I am staying from the grocery store, I was feeling sad and empty and I just allowed it. I didn’t try to make it wrong and fix it, I just acknowledge the emptiness, and gave myself permission to feel that way. And guess what? I felt better.

So today, my goals are to exercise go for a run, shower, eat healthy, work some on my grant that is due next week, show Jeff the KinectMath software, do some rearranging of the suitcases (AGAIN), finish my Spain reservations, and to not get upset with myself if none of that happens. One day at a time and then nine days from now, we will see if I can get on a plane and go to Europe.

For today…

Posted on September 18, 2013 by rangotti

Back in Seattle and dealing with the complex emotions of feeling like a failure but knowing with absolute certainty that I made the right choice in leaving Ethiopia in order to take care of myself. Sometimes putting yourself and your own needs first is the hardest thing you will ever have to do.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about my next step. I debated cycling across America but I think I want to go somewhere that I can stay for a couple of months, in one place, that will allow me to have time to myself and a place of my own to write and catch up on my reading. Somewhere that I can rent a temporary apartment and just hang out.

In my heart, I just want to stay here. I want to go find an apartment and have a home. But I know that would be the worst thing for me. It would be akin to wrapping a chain around my neck and keeping me stuck. I have an opportunity to strip away all the layers of comfort and security that I hide behind, to let go of all the friends and support that I cherish, to stand alone. To not accomplish that would be a real failure.

When I contemplated sabbatical last year, my friend Len asked me to picture myself at the end of it. He said to think of what I would regret not doing. My reaction then and still today is two things. Professionally I want to work on my research on KinectMath and write. Personally, I want to cycle, learn to climb better, and take paragliding lessons (thanks for another addiction Matt) and I would love to ski and cycle in Europe.

In my life, I have always wanted to be a badass with adventure sports. I am not however, a natural athlete. I am uncoordinated and I am an old woman. I will be 50 years old on Monday. If I am going to do this, I have to do it now. So let the badass lessons begin.

I bandied about three places in the world that would also be conducive to having time to work, cycling daily, and learning at least one of my other activities. Moab, UT; Mallorca, Spain; and Queenstown, New Zealand. Moab is easy and I am fascinated with the desert, NZ is a little harder because although the language is English, it is further away and isolated. Mallorca is cheaper, was on my original plan, but the language is Spanish. And it is a climbing and cycling mecca.

Any additional suggestions or advice would be welcome. That’s where I am today.

Collecting stories

Posted on July 2, 2013 by rangotti

I was getting ready to meet some imaginary internet people I only knew virtually from a bike forum and I was a little creeped out by the idea. So in my anxiety, I texted my very wise friend and mentor Matt who always knows the right thing to say. I remember asking “Matt what to hell am I doing traveling half way across the country to meet some random people from the internet?” Matt’s answer, perfect as always, was “Robin, you are collecting stories and that is what life is, a collection of stories. It means you are living life like you should.”

If you have been following, you know the past three weeks I have been traveling, living out a tent (with an occasional hotel), cycling and hiking while trying to mentally and physically prepare for hiking Kilimanjaro in two months. During that time I have seen some incredible landscapes and scenery from around the United States. I have seen wildlife, amazing vistas, sun-kissed plains, breathtaking mountains, waterfalls, rivers, and too many other things to mention. Everywhere I went was a unique place with beauty all its own. But the thing that made each place special was the people I met and the stories they told.

Team Collin

From hitchhikers in Yosemite, a magical wedding in a castle in Colorado, to meeting my absolutely amazing team members of Team Collin and riding in 24 Hours of Booty in Indianapolis, I have collected stories of women and men who are courageous, joyful, compassionate, passionate, impulsive, adventurous, thoughtful, loving, and a dozen more adjectives. And I have to say, they were all spectacular. The only regret I have is not having more individual time with all of them.

When I am one-on-one with people I always try to ask them two questions. I ask them “what do you want me to know about you”? For that question, I usually hear what people are passionate about. They try to give me a glimpse of the things that mean the most to them like their love of music, being a good parent, things they care deeply about. I love hearing about those things. It gives a glimpse into their heart.

Then I ask them “what don’t you want me to know”? Not everyone can answer that question, and that isn’t wrong, it is really hard to risk that type of sharing. For me, I am always captivated by those who can answer it. People who can reach down from their gut and show the raw courage that it takes to allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to pull the mask off and show someone else our flaws, our dark sides.

The people that can answer those two questions in a very real authentic way are the people I gravitate toward because I know that they are the people who will be open with me about themselves and who won’t shrink back when I am open about myself. There are many people in the world that don’t want that kind of deep understanding of others, they prefer the superficial “goodness” of life. They want life to be “perfect”, a fairy tale where people only recognize when things are going well, they refuse to acknowledge the darker side of life. That is how I used to be…and then, I was divided by zero and life became undefined. The fairy tale ended because that is what fairy tales do.

Receiving the Spirit of Booty Award

At the same time the opposite can also be true, there are people who only see the dark side and can’t see the joy, laughter, hilarious antics, unbelievable bravery, love, tenacity and spirit of people who have faced tremendous obstacles and found ways to face them with grace, courage, and humility.

brian

My teammates of Team Collin epitomize that spirit. They see the good and the bad, they see life as a whole array of emotion. They are exactly the kind of people I want in my life. And these were the sketchy internet people from my opening paragraph. Who would have thought?

As I face the next chapter of my life, I have realized that I would rather take life and emotion raw than sugar-coated. I want to surround myself with people who can sit with my pain, share in my joy, empathize with my sorrow, and engage with me in laughter. I want the whole experience, good and bad, because that is what living life is all about for me. I want to choose relationships with people who will accept me fully. The only way to find those people is to collect their stories.

len & stacy stephen len & marvin

Try the mustard on the chips…

Posted on June 28, 2013 by rangotti

One day when my friends and I were skiing, we stopped for lunch. One of my friends had a sandwich that came with mustard, just the plain ordinary yellow kind. He also got potato chips with it. After the sandwich was gone, the side of mustard was sitting there and he started dipping the chips in the mustard. He commented on how good it was and I said “ewwww” because I expected it to be yukky. He kept saying “try it”. I finally relented and had to admit, it was pretty good.

Expectations are where we get in trouble. We set ourselves up for suffering by having expectations for what the future holds, for what our lives will be like “when…”, for what people will do, and for what we ourselves should do. When those expectations don’t come to fruition, we suffer. And the reality is, lots of time life doesn’t work out the way we think it is going to.

Expectations color much what we do and cause us to get stuck. We don’t want to try new things because of an expectation that we won’t like them or they will be scary or that we will look silly or we can’t afford it. We get mired in keeping the status quo even if it isn’t working for us because of an unwillingness to let go of our expectations of what we think our lives “should” be. And we suffer.

When I was mired in the emotional turmoil of divorce, loneliness, debt, stress, etc., one of the key reasons for my distress was being unwilling to let go of all my expectations for my life. That was when I met these people on a bike forum. At first I was a little sketched out that I was talking and sharing so much of myself with these people I had never met in person. After reading their posts, “listening” to their ideas, realizing how intelligent and thoughtful they were, I couldn’t help but trust them. So I reached out and asked a few of them if I could meet them in person. And they were even more spectacular in person than they were online.

Each time I would meet someone, I would post what I thought and felt when meeting them. I told them all how much they exceeded my expectations of what I thought they would be like. It became the running joke that the next one I met would be the one to disappoint me. To this day I continue to keep telling them that it isn’t going to happen. What they don’t know is in reality, they already have shattered all my expectations.

Today, I am riding in a 24 hour bike ride for charity and I am riding with a large group of these remarkable people. I am nervous. What they haven’t realized is that what I am terrified of isn’t that they aren’t going to meet my expectations. What I am scared of is that I won’t live up to theirs. And I don’t want to disappoint these people who mean so much to me. I guess that is the legacy of my perfectionism. I don’t want to show them that I am not who they think I am.

What I keep telling myself and trying to remember is whether I meet their expectations or not, there is still some learning for each of us by having the opportunity to interact.

Because sometimes, you just have to try the mustard on the chips.

Walking with the Raven

Posted on June 17, 2013 by rangotti

I flunked therapy…not the class, the actual experience of psychotherapy. Yes, that is right, I am too crazy for the mental health community to “help”. Today, I am going to give you a clear glimpse into my “crazy”.

I traveled from Seattle, stopping in Oregon then Nevada and down to California to visit Yosemite. I spent a couple of days of camping and cycling. Then I drove through Utah, spending some time at Great Basin National Park, before heading to Moab and doing some desert hiking and then to Colorado. I cycled in all of those states and I am getting more comfortable riding in new places by myself.

Cycling near Moab. Colorado River

I am starting to look forward to heading to Europe and even considering taking my bike when I head off to Africa to work.

Home sweet home

I also am getting more comfortable camping by myself in unfamiliar places and, in general, with the whole experience of living a very minimalist life. I am becoming pretty good at setting up and taking down my tent, I have had my first bear experience, my first injury by myself when I cut my foot pretty badly, and have been challenged by laundry, disorganization, and lack of electricity. My grooming has suffered and I am looking like the dirty filthy hippie I think I am. I seriously could use a spa day and some waxing. But that isn’t why I am crazy. Now I just look as crazy on the outside as I am on the inside.

What makes me crazy is how I see the world around me around me. In the last two weeks as I have traveled through six states and three national parks, I have seen some of the most amazing sights my eyes could have ever looked upon. Truly, I live in a wondrous land.

Ships made of stone

I have seen ships made of stone sailing on a sea of sagebrush. I have seen stone sentinels, guardians of the ancient places where men long dead once walked. I look in awe at stone monuments which allow me to understand how fleeting my time is upon this earth. I feel the magic in these ancient places.

Sentinels

I have seen the bones of creatures long dead and pots made by women who gave birth and raised children in caves that could only be reached by rope ladders hanging hundreds of feet above the ground. Can you imagine raising a two year old in a cave 200 feet above the ground, with no baby gates, and the only way out is up a treacherous rope ladder to the top of a mesa? The only thought to why they would do that would have been protection, safety. I allow myself to imagine the fear that it must have taken to drive these people to live in such a dangerous place. These are a people who have long been gone from this earth, leaving no history except for broken clay pottery and crumbling ruins of caves. We use their artifacts to recreate what we believe their lives were like. Will someone do that with our plasticware and ruins of skyscrapers?

I am crazy because I look around the world and I see the textures of the land. I see the contrasts in colors. I see beauty everywhere. I believe you can find beautiful things even in the most “ugly” of places or people. I see a land of valleys so vast they seem to be endless…the mountains that bound them so distant as to seem a mirage. The mountains that ring those valleys are so high they are like great stone ramparts cast before the distant sky. When you climb them, the decrease in oxygen is noticeable, your head hurts and your actions, even simple steps, take more effort.

There are barren valleys filled with salt, a world so harsh and desolate that it is amazing that anything can survive.

Yet everywhere you look, there are living organisms, creatures that eek out life in the harshest of conditions. There is cactus, sagebrush, tumbleweeds, lizards, snakes, birds of all kinds. And there are ravens.

When I was a younger, I had a rough time and was pretty messed up for a while. I had several Native American friends. One of them said to me at one time that I would never find my true spirit until I walked with the Raven. Whether that was said in a drug induced marijuana haze or if he really had a vision for my life, I don’t know. I only know that I have long had an affinity for corvids and on this trip, everywhere I have gone, every time I have had a powerful physical or emotional experience, it had been punctuated by the presence of a raven. Crazy huh? That is a hard thing to admit. Here I am trying to do some pre-sabbatical solo cross country cycling/camping trip as a warm up for heading off into Europe and Africa. I really am out of my mind.

I believe there is more to life than what we can see and hear and touch. Isn’t that what faith is? Believing in the unseen? Trust is another one of those things that isn’t tangible, yet we do it anyway. So every time I see a raven, I think of the prophecy. Who am I to say that it is too fanciful to be real? I am beginning to believe this trip is really what my friend was talking about.

At this time in my life, I am dependent on no one. This time, I walk freely with the metaphorical Raven, learning, growing, feeling, allowing myself to just BE. I am struggling to define my new place in the world as a single woman, an academic, a writer, a grandmother, a cyclist, and a traveler. Crazy.

As long as you stay on this side of the ground… ~JAB

Posted on June 11, 2013 by rangotti

When you go to visit someone and they tell you that they are cursed, that something happens to everyone that visits them, make sure you have your insurance card…just sayin’..because inevitably it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I came to visit my friends Sean and Debra on my first stop on the part of my sabbatical trip in the U.S. this summer. I have known Sean for awhile as part of a internet cycling forum I belong to called the Lounge. I had never met him or his wife in person. On the forum Sean has been incredibly supportive of my quest to become learn the intricacies of road cycling. In person he and his lovely wife were even more supportive. We had a great ride with about 2000 ft of climbing in 90 degree temperatures up to an altitude of over 7000 ft. As a low-lander from the Pacific Northwest where it is relatively cool most of the time, I had to stop a few times for water and to stand in the shade and reduce my core body temperature.

When they showed me where we were going and I looked up the hill, I didn’t think I could do, I really didn’t. I could see failure looming on the horizon. Sean never gave me the opportunity to quit. I remember him telling me that I could totally do this. As the breath sawed in and out of my lungs the whole way up twisty switchbacks, sweat pouring down my face, legs just turning the crankset, I kept thinking about how I needed to make sure that I gave it my best effort for Sean and Debra who had taken the time to ride with me as well as my other Lounge friends who have encouraged my riding. I kept repeating wabi-sabi, my climbing mantra, over and over as I thought about Cooper, Mike, Eric, Stacy, Bill, Greg, Len, Terry, Jeff, Kurt, John, Janet, Jonathan, Marvin, Steve, Jason, Stephen and all the others who have given me countless hours of advice and encouragement and I realized, whether I made it to the top or not, as long as I gave it my best effort and stayed on this side of the ground, they would still be proud of me. And then…there it was…the summit. Thanks Sean and Debra…and all my other internet friends. Great ride. Then I realized…OMG I have to DESCEND back down that? Sean can’t you just go get the car and pick me up? Descending is way scarier than climbing.

Again, Sean totally normalized my apprehension and there we were, descending down switchbacks, cars whizzing by, sheer drops down thousands of feet if you were careless and fell, and some of the most beautiful scenery my eyes have ever seen. . I laughed the whole way down. It was like flying, totally free, unrestrained, AMAZING. The ground leveled out and we were down. It was the greatest ride ever. We went back to Sean and Debra’s and had an incredible steak dinner and sat on the patio just enjoying a beautiful high desert evening.

And then the curse struck. With the dry air and the wind from the ride, one of my contacts got stuck up under my eyelid, folded in half. I thought it had fallen out and that my eye was irritated from poking around my eyeball trying to find it. We left to go hiking the next day and there, in the middle of nowhere, it felt like a white hot poker was being driven into my eyeball…I had scratched my cornea. Sean and Debra again were totally supportive, we found a Ophthalmologist who was able to remove the contact. Our day of hiking was ruined, but on the good side, I didn’t go blind.

It was unrealistic to think that in a year of traveling that nothing bad was going to happen. So I have had my first blip. It happened when I had supportive friends around and was in a place where medical attention was reasonable easy to find. It was a good trial to have to go through to realize I can handle whatever problems arise. I was reminded of something John once said to me, “as long as you stay on this side of the ground, it will be okay”.

No matter what challenges we may face, what climbs we may have ahead of us, there is nothing that can’t be overcome if we have hope, move forward, and just keep turning the crankset. Never give up as long as you are on this side of the ground.

Wabi-Sabi

Posted on June 6, 2013 by rangotti

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese term that represents acceptance of transience and imperfection. Beauty is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. The wabi-sabi aesthetic is asymmetric, austere, simplistic, modest, rough and non-regular. It promotes intimacy and appreciation of the integrity of natural objects and processes. (Source wikipedia).

When my dad had his first stroke, as part of his rehab he learned how to make oval shaker boxes that nested within each other. He gave sets to all of his daughters. The weekend that I was visiting him, he didn’t have any perfect ones left, he only had the imperfect set that he made when he was learning. He wanted to make me a “perfect” set, but to me, those were perfect. In their imperfection I saw his tenacity to fight through the health problems, to learn a new skill, to practice getting it right. I saw a craftsman who loved to build things with his hands. I saw the father I loved in that imperfection. Wabi-sabi. I would post a picture but they are packed in the boxes in my office.

My friends Tony and Ken demonstrate the wabi-sabi aesthetic in all the things they surround themselves with. Their home is so tastefully decorated and comfortable, you can’t help but feel refreshed and loved when you walk through the door. It has been a haven for me for the last 6 years. A great example of their sense of taste is in their dishes, none of which match, all which are imperfect yet, to me, they are absolutely stunning.

In many ways their love for me has also shown that aesthetic and that is true for all of my friends. My friends saw this broken, damaged woman and recognized the internal beauty in me, my spirit, and my story. Their love for me has helped that spirit come out. They didn’t love me because I am stunningly gorgeous, witty, sophisticated, charming, or cultured because I am none of those things. I am too serious, I swear like a sailor, I could seriously use a shot of botox for my squint lines, I am blunt and outspoken, and I wouldn’t know culture if it slapped me upside my head. But with all the flaws, they see the beauty of my compassion, my love for the physical world around me and the people in it, my vulnerability, my shame, my fears, and they still think I am beautiful. It is their love and belief in me safely tucked in my soul that gives me the courage to embark on this journey.

One of my cycling flaws is that I suck at hills. When I was riding with Steve Cooper (an amazing cyclist), he told me to find a phrase that could match my breathing and my cadence, a mantra that I could chant while climbing. My friend Jonathan told me about the wabi-sabi. So now, even though it isn’t perfect, my climbing like the rest of cycling and my whole life, is wabi-sabi. Filled with the joy of the impermanent, the imperfect, the incomplete…undefined. When you pass me on a climb, you will hear me sucking air into my lungs and feel the energy of my legs pushing the pedals to turn the crank arms on the bike to the rhythm of wabi-sabi. And that is true of all parts of my life. The good part of life is the imperfections, those things that make us unique.

Today, take the time to see the beauty in someone you love. Not the idea of beauty our western society imposes on us, but take a look for the imperfections, because they are truly what makes people beautiful.

White sand days…

Posted on May 31, 2013 by rangotti

One of my favorite analogies about life was shared with me from my friend Pat. I was really struggling with letting go of past hurts and disappointments. Pat asked me why I was devoting so much energy to trying to change those things that can’t be changed, no matter how much I wished them to be different. Then he told me his analogy of the hourglass.

We all have an hourglass that represents the length of our lives. The hourglass has clear sand it, we don’t know how much is in there or when our lives will end. The moment we are born, the hourglass is flipped upside down and the sand starts running through. When it comes out, each grain is either white or black. It is white during those times that we are appreciating our lives, being good human beings, making good choices, etc. It is black when we are stuck in the past, complaining, being mean…you get the idea. So all of us, when we look at the sand of the part of our lives we have lived already, have some shade of gray. None of us has been either all good or all bad in how we deal with things, we are all somewhere in between.

Here is the thing…We can’t control the amount of clear sand that is in the hourglass, it is a finite amount and could run out anytime. We have to live our lives today, this isn’t a dress rehearsal. We also can’t take the sand that already came out and change its color. It is either white or black, it has already happened and we can’t go back in time. We have to accept what life is right now because the only thing accomplished by wishing for the black sand to be white is to make more black sand fall as we waste our lives on regret. The only thing that we can control in that equation is the neck of the hourglass, this moment. So I began to ask myself when I woke up in the morning, “Robin, is this going to be a white sand day or a black sand day? How do you want to live your life right now at this moment.” That line of thinking has totally changed my life. Thanks Pat.

So today, my first day of homelessness, I woke up late and went on a spectacular bike ride. I am still struggling to find a photo client that I like for displaying pictures, but here are a few from my ride. It is definitely a white sand day.

Adventures with Nana

Posted on May 26, 2013 by rangotti

I remember very clearly what I was doing on this day 2 years ago. I sat in my apartment on pins and needles waiting while 3000 miles away, my two beautiful granddaughters were being born. Their names are Brooklyn and Charlotte and they are the most amazing, intelligent, beautiful, loving grandchildren on the whole planet.

I sat here that day, waiting…and waiting…and waiting. I find that it is especially hard to be away from family during times that elicit strong emotions, things like births, weddings, and funerals. You sit alone and wait for news while people who are physically there are caught up in the event and don’t necessarily have time or the capacity to send out notifications. But the really hard part is wanting someone to share the emotion with, someone who will feel the joy or the sorrow with you, someone to cry with, someone to hug. One of the hardest things about my relationship with Brooklyn & Charlotte is being the grandparent who is “from away”. Their other three grandparents live nearby and see them often so have stronger bonds with them as a result. I have to admit I am envious.

When my son and my daughter-in-law chose the girls’ names, I figured out a way that I could have a special bond with them of my own. I looked up the names Brooklyn and Charlotte as cities. There are 8 towns named Brooklyn and 6 named Charlotte in the U.S. So when the girls get to be about 7 years old, every summer we are going to take a vacation. We are going to go two towns, one of each. We are going to have our pictures taken next to the Welcome to Brooklyn or Welcome to Charlotte sign, do a little cycling, and figure out the special things those towns have to offer. I want the girls to realize that everywhere in the world is some place special. Adventure doesn’t have to be about traveling to exotic places, you can find adventure in your own backyard. The easiest way to be happy in a place is to look at where you live through the eyes of a tourist and find the interesting, funky things that make the place you live in special. That is the legacy I want to leave them with. I am calling these trips “Adventures with Nana”.

When you have children, you worry about everything. Where will they go to school, what if they get in trouble, what if they get a C in algebra, are they hanging around the “right” friends, etc. and those are all things you are supposed to worry about, that is what a parent’s job is. But when you are a grandparent, you only have one task, one thing to teach them about life. Your only job is to show them that, no matter what, they are worthy of love and belonging.

Happy 2nd birthday to my beautiful granddaughters. Nana loves you always and misses you more than you could ever imagine.

The Best Way to Get Over a Man…

Posted on May 15, 2013 by rangotti

I have the best group of ski friends ever. I mean seriously ever. They are not only some of the best skiers I know, but they are real, authentic, loyal, smart, etc. The thing I like best about them is that there is little subterfuge. They keep it real and don’t bullshit around. We talk about love, pain, joy, triumph, despair, sex, men, children, relationships…the whole gamut of emotions and situations that life throws at you. There are no boundaries or forbidden conversations and we can all be as crazy as we need to be with each other.

One of them, when she was recently out of a pretty traumatic relationship, told me something I would never forget. We were talking about men and how hard it was to let go of relationships that we had really wanted and expected to work out. She said “I have learned something from my most recent breakup. I learned that the easiest way to get over a man is to spend 24 hours in lock up”. Yeah…that would probably do it for me too.

The problem is our expectations. I truly expected to be married forever. I had dreams of dancing at my grandchildren’s weddings with my ex and being that last couple standing when they do the dance with married couples and keep having people sit down depending on the length of their marriage. The couple that is married the longest is the last couple standing. Watching that dance still gets me every time.

The past couple of days have been spent saying goodbye to some of my best friends. As usual, we had a grand time. Today, sad and lonely, I have accomplished absolutely nothing. Not only have I not packed anything, I have to go teach class and I was going to ride in, here it is 12:40 and I am still in my PJs so it doesn’t look like I am going to get any cycling done either. I have been surfing the web, thinking about cycling in Spain on my birthday.

And that might be why I am in the doldrums, my birthday. I just don’t want to spend another birthday alone. And this is my 50th. Again, I think back to the expectations my ex and I had for our 50ths with the kids grown and gone, what we were going to do together…and here I am doing it alone. A friend of mine once said “there is alone, and then there is ALONE”.

My girlfriends’ advice was to ask someone to go with me. I have asked a couple of people if they wanted to come with me and both had exceptional reasons for why they couldn’t go. At 50, most of my friends work, have young kids, responsibilities, etc. They just can’t take off for a cycling holiday in Europe. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me that I have to do this alone. I don’t know…I just know that today is one of those days where I am questioning my resolve.

Maybe I need to watch this again, about 50 times. http://weliveunbound.com/

Life Divided by Zero

The Journey of Becoming Undefined

Category Archives: Cycling