New Year, Nothing's Changed

Wow, 2009. It's gonna take a while to get used to writing that.

Okay, just a warning - this post is incredibly long and verbose, and doesn't really contain anything of interest, substance, or meaning. Cheers!

2008 was . . . ??? It was a good year. I got to do lots of awesome bike racing with my awesome team - new roads, new faces, fresh pain. Some wonderful mountain bike riding with Cody - Santa Cruz, Gloucester, Tahoe, always in Reno on Peavine and down by Galena. It was my first year with my dog, who is always happy to be my trailside companion when Cody is absent. Good road rides with my dad, and lots of support from him at my races.

I feel a lot older, but not in a bad way. I think this is the first year that I really assumed responsiblity for my actions, and for what my inaction might bring. I learned to keep my mouth shut when it would do no good to open it, and I learned that doing what I feel is right can mean putting myself out there where I might be uncomfortable, and I might face sometimes scornful disagreement, but if I don't do it I'll regret it. It's always worth the discomfort to do what I feel is right. And without those nagging regrets for not doing what I know I should have, I feel more like who I want to be, and that's never a bad thing.

I have so much to be happy for, and I'm so constantly overwhelmed by the wonder of being alive. And yet, in this last year, the delicate balance of life and happiness has also become more apparent to me than it ever was before. Bad things happen to wonderfully and brilliantly vital people for no reason at all. I guess what gets me is that nothing really bad has ever happened to me. Knock on wood, right? But I have a feeling that when something bad does happen, when I lose someone close to me, it's going to be big and bad, and I'm not going to be able to deal with it. I've had all these near misses - a friend of a friend dies, or gets cancer, or has a bad, bad accident, but it's never happened in the circle of people most dear to me. I know, I know - no matter how many times you flip a coin your chances of getting heads are still 50% (which is a convoluted way of saying that just because something hasn't happened does not increase the likelihood that it will). So I guess all we can do is keep living and dreaming and trying to get it right.

So what's in store for 2009? Riding my bike lots. Hopefully racing with a little more success than I did last year. Hopefully coming a little closer to having firm control over those things I say and do that make me kind of a jerk sometimes. I know, that's a pretty watered down version, but I think it's realistic. I'm not always a jerk, I don't think, just sometimes it gets away from me. I'm hoping for a happy happy year with lots of fun stuff.

I hope Cody doesn't take off for the summer again, 'cause I can't pick up and leave again. I don't want to leave my job, and I have to take summer classes so I really can't. Plus, I want to do all those bike races that I've missed the last two years that I've gone to Gloucester to be with him. And Tahoe in summertime is the best mountain biking ever - next to Moab, Santa Cruz, and allllll the other places that have epic riding that I haven't done. Haha. But it's really hard to beat looking down on that amazing big blue lake.

Okay, enough of the sentimental rambling. It's New Years Day, and I'm going for a bike ride. And then I'm going to clean my house. For real this time. ;)