Somewhere Between Here and Gone
Plushies, Pain, and Poor Decisions
My coach reviewed my data this morning and confirmed my nervous system recovered well despite yesterday’s stress. Good news. The kind of good news that gets immediately buried under a nine-out-of-ten back pain that is, frankly, running the whole show right now. The plan is conservative and clear: flat terrain only, heart rate under 105, shift positions every thirty minutes, short easy walk when I get home. Get back safely. Reweigh tomorrow morning. Resume normal life.
The trouble is I am nowhere near regulated. After my coaching session I switched to my Oura Ring Advisor and ended up in a full argument with an AI, eventually just typing “Fuck off” over and over. Yesterday did not help. Two back-to-back social gatherings, the kind that hollow you out at the cellular level. I did what I always do and disappeared mid-event, slipping away for a two-mile ride and a thousand feet of climbing just to breathe. Later, Mo found me glazed over on a couch and nudged me toward a hike so she could regulate too. The second gathering was worse, long drawn-out mini conversations that went nowhere, everyone trying to leave and getting pulled back in. I survived by turning the whole room into little plushies in my head, actually rendering them in an AI program, which probably says something about me I should examine later.
Somewhere on the drive home I slipped into a full disregulated trance.
This morning I keep drifting back two weekends, when the dysregulation was still manageable, when I was watching my daughter’s family charge through a Spartan race in Bigfork, cheering them through the mud and the obstacles and the whole glorious mess of it. That felt good. And this week's target, friends, that feels good too. But not my nervous system.
Two weeks later I am totally gone, and I honestly do not know if I am coming back. I am just not comfortable existing right now. Sometimes that is the most accurate thing you can say.
May 24th Keeps Showing Up
Nineteen years of May 24ths add up to something: race wins, crash recoveries, muddy midnight laps, and a few quiet moments on the coast. This date has a habit of showing up with something worth writing about. Turns out it always did.
Read more: https://8i11.vercel.app/story/9ksf8h2r