Reborn

The art of fluidity

The way you exist in your current state will die before you do. Are you prepared to be reborn?

In my youth, I obsessed over becoming a professional soccer player. As an 8 year old, I spent every free second in the back yard “training”. As a teen, I joined one of the best club teams in the country. At 16, I showed up unannounced to an open try out for a new local professional team and was offered to train with them until I was 18. At 18, I signed with them and became a professional. I had arrived. I would do this until the lights went out. My life was sorted out and all my hard work had paid off. I was 18. And an idiot.

10+ diagnosed (and countless undiagnosed) concussions later, I went to bed one night after a match with a headache, and woke up the next morning and retired, never to touch a ball again. My brain was broken, I was quietly (but not always so discreetly) suffering from a multitude of issues stemming from my 15 years of head traumas. When I went to bed that night, I had no thought of quitting. No plan to be done. But when I woke, a light switch had flipped. I was with the utmost certainty, done.

My identity died over night. How do you become new after a lifetime of the old? From 1st grade through college I was the guy who kicked a ball and (to myself, and this is key) nothing more. What value do I have now that that me is no more? I was unable to zoom out internally to see a larger perspective that would allow myself the answers to this.

All I knew was I wasn’t going to be 50 years old working in a cubicle telling my coworkers stories from my glory days on the pitch while some ass hole boss told us our 30 minute lunch break was over.

And so I was reborn.

I dove first into the gym and coaching, deeply. I immersed myself in what it meant to help other humans and became obsessed with movement, effort and exertion. I took the same drive I had on the field and moved it into a box filled with barbells. I created a new identity, one built around how I could move a barbell and how many pounds I could shred off someone. This was shallow. I needed to evolve.

One day I saw an ad for a Tough Mudder. Their standard courses were 8-10 miles, but this one caught my eye. “WORLDS TOUGHEST MUDDER” it exclaimed. “24 HOURS, AS MANY LOOPS AS YOU CAN DO OF THE COURSE”. Now we’re talking. I was in my early 20’s, a former professional athlete, had a 6 pack and far too much ego. A couple clicks and a few hundred bucks later, I was in. Technically, I just signed up for my first ultra.

When my DNA was put together, it was done so with an intention to move. My mother received a full ride to the University of New Mexico as a swimmer and went to the olympic trials. My father an elite road runner, throwing down times in every distance from the 5k to the marathon that could have put him close to the Games if he had so desired. I was born to move and movement was part of me.

I quit at Worlds Toughest Mudder roughly 8 hours in.

The race was held in New Jersey, in the winter, with multiple frozen water crossings and long miles that didn't really give a shit if I was 23 and used to kick a ball for money. My body shut down, my brain shut down, I lost. I was hooked.

I spent the next 5 or 6 years exploring what it meant to suffer. I ran ultras, went through GORUCK Selection a few times, dipped my toes into the mountaineering space and generally pursued anything that seemed like it could hurt me. I thought the “pain cave” was where I’d become a man, where I’d learn the secrets to happiness and life and where I would arrive. I was sure that if I woke up every day, blindly did hard things and never reflected on the lessons they taught me, that the sheer exertion would mold me into something good.

Turns out I was real fucking wrong.

Effort without examination is useless.

A failed marriage, a collection of depression, anxiety and C-PTSD, several years of moving place to place and a trail of burned bridges later, I was still lacing up my shoes and venturing into the deep scary water looking for answers, but I started to evolve. I started to ask myself questions. I started to feel what I was doing. I started to explore it. I started to finally get it…by recognizing I had never understood it to begin with. I was more than what I had been before and yet I still had not arrived, because there was more for me to become. There always will be more, so I will never arrive. Neither will you.

Fast forward to today, and I still have not arrived, but I now understand.

I no longer chase a title or pain for the sake of pain. I don’t give a shit if you give me kudos on my strava or a like on my instagram posts. I am not a thing, I am not the thing I do. I am me, and I do things. Some seasons I am drawn to longer miles, so I run longer miles. Other years my eyes gaze upwards and I feel the mountains and have a need to climb more, so I climb more. I don’t race, unless it feels like it’s something my soul wants, and then I do race. I run long when I was supposed to run short and I lift light when I was supposed to lift heavy, if I feel like it…because that is my guiding light.

I cannot do the things I do now forever, so I am fluid in my action to ensure I enjoy what I do. One day I will take my final step in the mountains. I will lift my final rep. I will run my final mile. I most likely will not be dead when those things happen for the final time, so I will be reborn into a new version of myself afterwards. I practice now my internal fluidity around effort so that when I am given no choice but to alter course, I will be ready. And when I reflect upon what I have done, I will do so knowing I enjoyed every second of it.

You must be ready too. What you do now will end one day.

But for now, in the present me that exists, I will honor every second I am able to spend in this form. I will never take a step, a rep or a summit for granted. Every breath I take doing the things I desire are sacred to me and so for this version of me, every single opportunity to express effort is something flooded with gratitude, love and acknowledgment of how special and short lived it is and will be. I do not wish for this phase of life to end soon, but when it does, I will be prepared. And I will take on my new form with the same curiosity and drive.

Honor your past by understanding your present and recognizing your future.

Onward, Always.