The Reason

I was cleaning out the word documents in my computer and found the following. I copied it off of some blog I read last year, back before we decided to do triathlons. I hadn't yet learned to swim, but I was thinking about it, wondering about the possibilities. I read this and it spoke to me. I read it now and it has even more meaning. If you wonder why, as I often do, this may help...

When bobbing around the water, waiting for the world to turn, with the music blaring and the crowds gathering and the mass of swimcaps all around - we are, each of us, a tiny universe - with a story, a purpose. We, each of us, have somebody up there who's breath won't return until they see us safely out of the water. We each answer to something other than ourselves in answering why we are here. It is never a simple thing. And when you toe that line, in the instant before you step into the water to Take Your Mark, you are their ambassador. You represent everybody who believed, or doubted. Who showed up because of, or in spite of. You cross for everybody who hasn't crossed yet, who will one day, and who never would. And you can either pull that weight, or let it pull you.

Because if you know not suffering, or anger, or defeat; if you've never felt like you are more than who you are; if you've never asked yourself what you are truly made of - what absolutes live inside you, and resolved to discover what...well then, of course you'd never be interested in the first place. It is a thing we all have in common out there - a determination, a requirement, to be Who We Are Instead.

Yes, it is. It is that big of a deal. It is that hard. It really is. That's sort of the point.

The rest are just details. The rest figures itself out. There's never a "good time". It's never going to ideally suit your universe. You'll never think to yourself, "Geez, you know what I'm in the mood for? Madness." It will always be hard, you will always have to work to find the balance, it will never make sense to everybody, often not even yourself. And that, too, is part of the journey, and part of the forging. If you have to talk yourself into it, then wait until your time comes. Until you're drawn in. Until the current takes you. But if you're just making excuses...well then. Life is short. Get in already.