The View from 58-inches High

I find myself so challenged to forgive myself. Not for any one thing but for everything. For all the things I am not. The last 4 weeks have been a “flood the kitchen” kind of struggle. The kind I told myself I was going to handle better this time. I’ve learned that I lack the perspective required to know these things; and I think I might be close to flooding my kitchen again.

My feeling of obligation is so strong and I so hate to disappoint those who depend on me. I know I have not dealt with Shelby’s death. I can’t even bring myself to tell anybody that it happened or affected me. Instead of leaning on those closest to me, I have isolated myself more. Then the RMA issue blew up and, even though I know I have very little to add to the effort, I am now spending 80-hours a week on it because I can’t stand the thought of dumping it on Robert. I promised Kate I would help her with her lights. Afterwards though, I felt really used. I knew I needed somebody to do something to help me and I don’t know how to ask. I’m actually incapable of asking or even implying that I need help. The feeling I had when I got home was complete despair. I felt drained. I felt like I had left everything of myself for others. Even though I hadn’t really done much of anything physical that day I just wanted to curl up in a ball. I don’t sleep, or not well anyway.

Today I didn’t even look at my TP. I couldn’t bring myself to have to skip another workout; or worse, fail it. When I logged on, I found that my coach had given me the week off and some kind words. Instead of relief or joy, I felt dejected. I couldn’t help thinking I was capable of better. I am my own worst enemy. I am destructive. I am broken.

I stood in line to get into the grocery store for 30+ minutes yesterday. I never thought I would see that in the US. While everybody was generally polite there was definitely an underline tension in everything. Like mental band about to snap. I was not prepared for how mentally challenging it would be to not fall prey to the panic. To move slowly through the store, to smile and say thank you. I kept losing track of Brian who, at one point declared that all the food was disappearing, even though it simply wasn’t true. I felt it too and had to focus on stopping myself from being overrun by panic as well. My whole body wanted to cry, scream, hit something but all I really felt was numb.

At work, the whole team was settling into working remote. In theory everything was going well. The team stated multiple times that they were fine and, while inefficient, able to work. Underneath it all though I have one employee home with his wife and 4-kids, one packed in a small house with his parents, wife, and 3yo son. One is caring for his elderly parents at their home in San Antonio, and one is a young millennial living on his own clearly missing social interaction. While I appreciate them holding it together I’m also deeply concerned about their mental health and I’m worried about how much I can reasonably ask of them right now. Next week, I also take on 6 more employees and I am in no way prepared or enabled to do this. I worry about my own mental health as well.

I’ve always heard people talk about the breaking point. Being pushed past their limits and having nothing left. I thought I knew what that meant. I’ve spent three days trying to come up with the best analogy for what happened to me. Shorting a system, boiling a lobster alive, burning out a motor. I am a fully-functional disaster. The problem is that I cannot control my fire. I set myself, and everything in my path, on fire. I do it often and with the same reckless abandon every time. Like a drunk, I lose my ability to judge my own capability. I have no flight instinct, only fight; always fight!

I skipped OKC Pro-am because nobody from the team was going and there was just too much happening for me to handle that and then a trip to Tulsa. Jo was all in on Tulsa, so I skipped OKC. Then Jack crashed and Jo pulled out of Tulsa with 3-days notice. All of a sudden, I was left to handle a trip to Tulsa on my own with little time to prepare for the details. I had already been low on sleep and feeling exhausted for over a month but I thought, “I can push through this”. Then the charz data came in for the June launches and it was bad, very, very bad. Instead of it being an obvious pull back of the launch date, the VPs made it clear we were to persevere. They had full confidence that we could find a way. The employee assigned to this launch injured himself Wednesday and was bedridden Thursday with no idea when he would be back at work. Still, I told myself I could handle it, I could “push through”. Even as I looked to my management for help and guidance on a difficult launch situation and found myself left standing alone, I said “You can handle this!”. Even as I found myself forgetting what I was doing seconds after getting up from my desk to go do it. I would find myself walking down the hall and I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I was going or what I was doing. Still, I told myself I’d been through worse. That this was what separated the good from the great. I would not fail.

I left work 2-hours after I intended which left me scrambling for time. I hadn’t packed, had at least 5 long emails to send, needed to find food, and had to get my openers in. I started filling my brand new cooler bag and found it was just taking more time than I had. I thought “I’ll just get my bike off the trainer then I’ll turn the water off”. I stood next to the sink getting my bike ready, headed out on my openers, and only realized something was wrong when I got home and found a stream of water running down the driveway.

The immediate reaction was, again, to fight. I moved furniture by myself, I shop-vac’d, toweled, and moped water with energy I didn’t have. I lost even more of my ability to concentrate and stay focused. I did what I could and shut down. I haven’t touched my bike in 2-days and don’t know when I will again. The line I need to draw is at work but I don’t know how. I love my job but I’ve quit it 5-times in the last 3-days and I need to be honest with where I’m at right now before I burn this whole place down.

I love lazy Sunday mornings that are slow to get going. The cloudier the better. I sip my coffee and listen to music as the sun comes up. I reflect on where I am.

I am leading a group ride clinic today. I’m thrilled for the chance to ride easy and teach others how to ride better. I’ve barely prepared because all of this is second nature now. I know my legs are capable, I know my my body will be ready. It’s no longer a stressful experience. I’m a cat 2.

This year I am more excited about racing than I’ve ever been before. I don’t want to crash, but I understand that it is what it is and I don’t fight it anymore. I don’t worry about getting dropped or not getting good results. I know when I’m ready to race and when I’m not.

Wade passed away last Tuesday. While I knew the end was near I didn’t realize how near. His death, the cancer that took him, the three and a half years we worked together on a hellish project have dominated my idle thoughts this past week. Now that I’m sitting in front of a screen all those thoughts have run from me. I haven’t even remembered to take a photo of the “scotch glass” he gave me. Like Missy, Wade was a force on this world and on everybody he interacted with. He changed people just by being. I think “being” meant something more to Wade than it did for most people. I’m sad that I won’t miss him on a daily basis. The evil of cancer is that is isolates people from their lives before they die, making their passing feel like they just moved away. Wade didn’t hide from what was happening to him. He didn’t hide from the inevitability. I regret not reaching out to him more. My problem is that I don’t keep connections that move past convenience. I’m a terrible person in that way but I find too many people condemn themselves to living in the past by holding on to stale connections rather than accepting a new, and better, future. I wish I was as good with words as Wade was but I don’t commit the time it takes.

I suppose one of the worst feelings in the world is realizing that everybody you know may totally hate you behind your back. Even one “friend” deceiving you can call into question everybody else in your life. When all Kim’s shit hit the fan I took up for her. I never once questioned that it was the right thing to do. She had my back completely when I caused a crash and would do the same for her. On facebook, things go bad quickly, but with everybody posting in the open, it fizzled quickly. The anonymous forums are another beast all together. Early on I checked them just to see when the news hit but then I never when back; and I never told Kim. People who won’t post with their names are cowards. When Kim found out she was devastated but I told her she needed to stay strong and just let it go… I hadn’t read the posts yet. Either these folks trolled months of my facebook history or they are friends on facebook and have been taking notes on the things they hate about me for a while. Even after everything I told Kim, it did make me feel a little sick inside to see my name and quotes from my facebook called out on another forum. I felt a little violated and it did take me a few minutes to force myself past it. The damage is already done as I don’t think I’ll look at my cycling acquaintances the same ever again.

Making friends was always difficult for me when I was younger. Like there was some secret handshake I didn’t get. I would always hang out just on the periphery of real friendship. Sometimes, I would think there was a moment of acceptance that brought me to “friend” status only to find myself quickly, and often publicly, corrected. Probably similar to going in for the kiss a little to early on a date.

With the growth of social media over the past years and being one of the few women in engineering, I haven’t really had to worry about these catty, social circumstances. I’ve gotten used to being accepted pretty easily. If anything, I have been the rejector since I have pretty strict rules about “friending” only people I have meaningful, non-work conversations with on a regular basis.

So when I had a “friend” requested accepted on what was obviously restricted permissions after, what I thought were, a few meaningful non-work interactions I was dejected. Logically, it’s tough for me to complain since I know I’ve done this to tons of folks who have not met my “friend” criteria. It’s hard for me to believe that I don’t meet this persons criteria so, in my mind, they think I’m creepy or insane.

I find myself at a loss for what to do next. Socially inept but wanting to badly to be accepted. It’s so “middle-school” and yet I cannot bring myself to want it any less.

“I think we made a mistake”. That’s what Brian said after describing how our pool contractor was screwing us. With ultimate confidence we walked through everything he was sure they weren’t telling us. I made a mistake when I married my husband. It’s been 15-years and I’ve never written or said that before. I’ve never let myself believe it. The irony is that he’s been telling me the same thing since before we were married. I don’t mean that I don’t love him because I do but he doesn’t love me.

In the beginning I thought this was perfect. I never wanted to be loved. I never thought I deserved to be loved. I didn’t want to hurt anybody and I was a mess. I found and married the guy who was a bigger mess than I was. For a while it worked but then something happened. I got sick of hating myself. I’m not in love with my husband anymore. It’s impossible to be in love with somebody who hates themselves completely. I know, I was that person.

So what now? Nothing. I still love him and care about him. As long as he will stay with me I’m his. But I won’t be his emotional punching bag and that may be enough to end this relationship. I wish I still knew how to cry over this.

Some days the world feels so small. Today was one of those days that made me feel like the center of my own world. I should start by saying that the last few days have been a mental struggle. I’ve been burring myself in my work, really attacking it with an urgency that is difficult to explain and completely unsustainable. I’ve also been thinking a ton about people I find incredibly interesting who don’t really know I exist. There’s something demoralizing about wanting to know so much about somebody and having them care so little about you in return. I suppose you could say it’s like the adult version of being left out of the popular crowd. I was also feeling the pressure of being selected as “high potential candidate” and all that may entail.

I’ll spare the details of the day and just say that I discovered one of my other coworkers is also a “high potential candidate”, I lead my first work bike ride, and I spent an hour teaching my employee how to not over write code. By 3:30 I was done and was headed out for some impromptu beer with coworkers.

We had a great time talking and drinking and I felt much better after an hour and half of this. When we turned to go, somebody mentioned that there was another work group behind us. When I looked back, I saw one of the “popular” kids and he waved at me. It’s stupid. I mean it sounds even worse to write it down but I felt accepted.

Then, to add to this miracle, I drove over to MJs to pick up a helmet and some decals and when I got out of the car I saw Colin and JM. Colin is super cool but also very excepting and easy to be around. JM I find fascinating and completely exclusive. He also spent a good 15-min talking to me! I usually completely trip over myself when I’m around him and his friends but I was already feeling so good that I wasn’t nervous at all and we had a great conversation.

The universe did me a solid today. When I think back on this day there will be a look, a wave, and a nod that I remember vividly. On my way back from JMs, I passed a bunch of higher ups in my company as well and I really reflected on how small my little world is and how much I appreciate knowing somebody almost everywhere I go.

If this were a TV series episode, it would open with the photo of me below. There are days when the most unexpected things happen and remembering how to you got here is half the fun. So, today’s episode starts out with Chris, Lindsey, Robert, Matt, and Charlie on the roof of our office building, with beer, preparing to watch me drive a go kart around the roof.

The day started off innocuous enough, the Monday of the last week of the year. The building is half empty, it’s 9:00 in the morning and I’m already on edge having picked a fight with one of the managers in Singapore (a fight I couldn’t win).

I passed Robert in the kitchen and was going to keep going when I thought I heard him say something to me. With a huge grin on his face, he tells me Matt has a go kart that would fit me perfectly. He and Charlie had spent the weekend welding a roll cage to it. Both had test driven it and had a ton of fun. So where was this go kart… in the back of Robert’s truck.

I asked him if he thought I could drive it on the roof, to which he replied “Why not.” I immediately asked Matt if it was cool. Pretty soon the time and place was set; Roof @ 3:30. As the time approaches, Robert starts to get pretty anxious and starts trying to sell me that it’s not a good idea ;). I’m not buying given that he’s the one who told me I should drive it in the first place.

Also as the day goes on, I’m able to get in touch with Chris about the fight I picked with SLI. He’s out of office but happens to be downtown and headed out way right at 3:30. Robert, Charlie, and I literally open the stairwell door on to Chris and Lindsey who were just coming in to find us. We’re all grins as I mumble “Go karts on the roof, now!” while trying to hold back laughter. I put my lip to my finger to hush him as he tries to repeat what he thought I said. After all, we were on a covert mission. Even though Chris doesn’t completely understand what I’m saying, he knows it’s gonna be good.

So, here I sit in a go kart for a 10-year old. I’ve never driven one before and I have no idea what I’m in for but I’m pretty sure it will be amazing and a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’m also pretty sure I can’t get fired for this. I’ve got my helmet and driving gloves on for good measure (all Giro!).

Off we go! It takes a little while to get used to driving with two feet. The seat is only connected on the top too, so while my instinct is to use my weight to stay stable I’m actually moving all over the place.

The part of the garage we’re on is a split tier with a stair from the bottom to the top. It’s basically 180deg turns over and over again. As I come to the end of the garage, I try pushing the speed. I get a little confused on the breaking and give it gas too early. I’m headed for the railing so I slam the break while I’m still giving it gas and I pull the steering as hard as I can. I loose the rear end and start sliding towards the other railing. At the last minute the wheels catch and the whole thing shoots left, towards the opposite side of the garage. I gain control and head back down to the crowd, who all have their jaws on the floor.

So I can now cross off go karting on the roof of my office building from my bucket list. Thanks Robert and Matt!!