i spent 2.5 days on what is, to date, the most stunning, remote feeling, pristine, and beautiful alpine climb of my life. got weepy twice behind my glacier glasses from sheer feelings of awe and gratitude. never have i felt quite so small and insignificant, and yet so vast. i am still very emotionally and mentally raw from that experience. this is a beautiful planet we have, treat it well.
Still experiencing very, very high highs, and very, very low lows. I'm really looking to my therapy appointment tomorrow. I had thoughts of self harm a couple of weeks ago. Again this morning. Not suicidal but...not happy about experiencing this again for the first time since 2014. I've had enough experiences dating in the last 7.5 months that it's not so much impacting my self-worth/confidence/etc., but it feels like I keep totally misreading the other person, their intent, our dates, and it's got me to the point where I have little-to-no confidence in my own intuition and understanding of the person across the table. I guess I do feel pretty unwanted. At the same time, I'm pretty happy by/with myself and don't necessarily feel lonely. Just really do desire sharing this life more intimately with someone. Anyway. Here's some photos from Canada last week. That trip was amazing. My body is still sore. oyster if you're still around, sure was a fantastic view of the chateau from Louise Falls!
oh pubski things with girl a (girl from Dec.) I think I ended a few nights ago - told her I cannot be in a space with so much uncertainty, and no expectation of receiving any amount of affection/attention/affirmation, and not even knowing when i would see her again. that all of that is not a tenable situation for what i need and want. we ended with "let's figure out a timeline that's comfortable for both of us to reconnect over a cup of coffee or lunch in the future, and in the interim, not have contact". it was a challenging hour long conversation. i returned a couple of small things to her two days ago. but then last night she called me on facetime...i'm about to call her back to see why... girl b - surprisingly awesome date at one of the local spots to catch concerts, just hung out in the lounge/bar and walked around for a while after. soooo much in common. made out in the streets at the end of the night. seeing her again tomorrow night, and i kind of want to try and take things slow with her, i feel there could be potential to build something with her. trading music suggestions over text messages the past couple of days. girl c - also a fun climbing night date, going to see her again after i go on this trip to canmore, alberta, for a week of ice climbing. she's a bit older (6 years older than me) and seems to have a different perspective on some things. it's very unclear at this moment if she's looking for a climbing partner or more than that, but i'm fine with either. edit: girl d - also fun, not as physically attracted to this person I don't think(???), but super interesting, very mountainous, and is an underwater photographer for the smithsonian??? (have i mentioned all of these girls are very intelligent, driven, etc.) so, i'm managing...it's been a very challenging, emotional month of january. i've had a lot of anticipation for girl a, and now trying to not make the same mistakes twice with girl b in particular, and have also had a lot of anticipation for this trip to canmore. where it's looking warm, almost too warm...highs in the mid-30s for ice isn't super great... somebody asked me what would be my ideal for all of this dating. it made me uncomfortable to say "i want a relationship". trying to unpack why that is.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh what a whirlwhind the last few days have been matched with somebody on bumble who was really interesting to me! an alpine rock climber, snowboarder, but somebody who also stated they enjoyed exploring themselves and the world around them. and was attractive. we've gone out each of the last few nights, from a first date, to spending the night together, to having come out for some birthday festivities last night and meeting quite a few of my friends. just amazing conversation after conversation, so much laughing, awesome sex, this whole thing almost doesn't feel real. need to make sure i'm actually pacing things, both my feelings for her, and the amount and quality of time we're spending together...but i did jokingly say we should plan a weekend together out somewhere in the mountains, and that then turned into a "no let's do that" conversation. i also won a ski pass at an outdoors film festival last night (which was my bday) and got the details for that february canmore trip. just a lot of exciting shit happening in and around my life right now and i need to be mindful that the level of high right now is temporary, and to enjoy it while it's here.
Well my relationship of 3 years ended, and my boss is leaving the company, so I would say I am not doing okay today.
I accepted a new job, with a new company. I’ve worked for my current employer in five different roles in the last 6.25 years, and it’s a bittersweet ending for me. It’s going to mean moving away from a city I love, and that’s stressful because the move needs to happen sooner rather than later, and the rental market is also insane in the area I’m moving to. Not having the most fun this week.
This must be an exhausting engagement for you and just wanted to pop and say thanks for sharing your perspective, the last line in your post which I’m replying to is poignant.
My god, man. I think we could have a much more fruitful conversation right here on Hubski considering that myself, c_hawkthorne, steve, goobster, NikolaiFyodorov, WanderingEng, and viceroy have recently transitioned jobs, back to school, or actively interviewing elsewhere, all within recent months. That’s like half of the active user base on Hubski.
A shitty decision to make is: “should I go home soon while my aunt is still in moderate health, and miss the funeral, or wait until the funeral.”. Stage IV pancreatic cancer, more or less a death sentence. She was supposed to retire this fall. Hopefully she won’t suffer too much through this. I am very disengaged from work these past couple of days because of this. The cancer/retirement timing is just awful.
If there's one thing I appreciate about Hubski, it's being reminded of my past sins.
There's a lot I could bitch about right now, but I just hope you're doing okay OftenBen.
Rough times. One friend out biking is hit by a drunk driver, damn near died and is still having surgeries every single day. Permanent damage for sure but not quite as bad things were initially looking. About three days after that, one acquaintance out biking is hit by a drunk driver, died. Fuck drunk drivers. Third friend is in his early 30's and in Chemo right now and has recently developed a fever. I don't know much else to do outside of be angry and that and be angry at the financial implications of being in a hospital for weeks on end in the greatest nation on Earth. Kind of makes you wonder what you're really doing with your time and with your priorities. I could just as easily be the next person hit, get cancer, whatever.
Certainly a lot I could talk about since “leaving” Hubski. But here’s what I’ve been up to for the last eight months. Not much more I’d rather be doing. What a wonderful world.
Some updates on last week. I did end up breaking up with my girlfriend, in person. It did not go over so well with her, I received...five or six messages over the next couple of days. So that's unfortunate, but the way things go. I think with time some of these wounds will heal. But it does raise points of what I want/need in a relationship which, right now, I don't even want one. Almost every weekend is committed from now to mid-October, because I'm committing to myself. A good friend and I have started to scale more adventurous outdoor areas, continue to climb, run, etc. This is a year of personal development. Maybe next year will be, too. What I can say for certain is that this is an interesting life in the now, and that it's hard to argue against spending three hours on a summit at 7,500ft with some great friends doing things like this:
This is the Hubski content that keeps me here.
Name: bfx Location: PNW Age: +/- 27 years old Current Preoccupation: not sleeping? Sleeping in cars? Usually it involves how to get sleep and food on a regular basis because of too much doing elsewhere. Reconciling the image imposed on me by others. Fast tracking myself to burnout or great things. It's scary. Two classes outside of work, work, and mountains and mountain running are occupations too, I think. They're certainly an identity. Previous Preoccupations: radio, arts and cultural nonprofits, dating and relationships, personal downtime
Figured out a major source of my social anxiety is due to not really having a place in society. I'm becoming a full time runner and outdoorsy person, and yeah, I'm am engineer who's really into coffee. But I've been a part time punk for a while now, part time coffee in the sense that the scale I'm at is so far removed from everyone else, and I don't really have a societal group. Most of the runners are in a different part of life than I'm in. The punks are, well, punks. Everyone has their enclave, and here I am using my company phone over bluetooth in a new car to play Unwound. Not that I have a clue what to do about this. I moved again. Way South in the same city, less desirable area, with two people I know. I'm paying half what I had been laying in rent, so the remainder is subsidizing the car I bought and otherwise going into my student loan payments. Thinking this will be a six to nine month arrangement and then likely moving into a studio.
I am with someone who is a kind, patient, and talented person. Whom I like a lot. But I don't know if I want her. Or a relationship. I feel guilty over how crazy my schedule is, and frustrated over the state of my body, and unsure of where I will be in a year. She's great, but I'm not as excited, and wondering if I will end up in love with her or not. Wondering what that even feels like. I've felt love once in my life, and that was five years ago now.
Life Event, Pt. 1 Today's my birthday. I've never been much of a birthday person. For this one, I'm thinking a 16km run, 10 climbing routes, and maybe driving out somewhere to catch a meteor shower. The run will be solo, the climb with some friends, and the meteor shower with who knows. One of those instances where having a partner would be nice, but here we are. Community Involvement I'm on the board of local Nonprofit. We've been going for 25 years. We might end up going dark next year due to a lack of funding. What happened? Years of mismanagement both monetarily and people-wise, a lack of board members, and a lack of focus on sustainable fundraising. This year, one of the members had promised at least submitting 5-6 grant applications, with help from some local graduate students. The graduate students did their part, yet the grants were never submitted. I really like this organization and think it's good for the city, but damn. Talk about a situation to find yourself in... Life Event, Pt. 2 Ran my last race of the year this past weekend. A 25km race out on the peninsula, it was an amazing course with some single track trail interspersed through a great park. Small crowd, extremely friendly crowd which is par for the course for trail running. I went with two friends, who came in 1st and 2nd overall. Somehow I'm friends with some really great runners, who are also really great people. My race got off to a great start, was going to set a personal record for this time and probably place top 15 overall (granted, the field was probably 50 people but I would have taken it!). Until my achilles started to blow up. What an exciting, new issue to have come up! It was a crushingly disappointing moment, standing there after 15km, feeling great outside of one small area of your body, but knowing that dropping out is the safe option if you want to keep running in the near future. I haven't been that angry in a long, long time. Ended up wandering off into a field and just throwing a lot of my clothing. Working on finishing up my marathon training plan, fitting in climbing and strength workouts, and planning to get a full gait analysis at a place up in Seattle, along with chatting with a "hopeful 2020 Olympian" friend on all this. I'm feeling so much more determined to make 2018 a great running and racing year after this letdown. Maybe that's what resiliency feels like.
Everything I read from you really makes me think you're the kind of person who makes the world for those around him a little bit brighter of a place. Great read, steve.
Happy 4th of July to our American contingent. I'm celebrating by going to Canada for the remainder of the week... This post hit home for me, and I seem to share a handful of sentiments with zebra2. But then I updated my finances yesterday, and saw that while I think I'm spending too much, and will be cutting down the groceries/going out bills, I still put away a grand in savings last month. And have at least a year worth of money to get by on should I be laid off tomorrow, upped my 401k contribution, and am trying to parse out what out what if any other investments are worth pursuing. It doesn't feel like I'm in a better place financially than most of America, but then I read all the statistics kleinbl00 et. AL post and, damn, apparently I'm doing better than most of the country. It's something to be thankful for, and something to strive to maintain if not grow. Also have a bit of a product idea which I'm hoping to look more into after this round of backpacking.
Alright, god dammit. Yeah, I saw Jawbreaker at the beginning of the week. They still kick-ass live and played all the hits except for Chesterfield King. It was an amazing moment, not as transcendent as when I finally saw Yo La Tengo where I did actually cry, but man, who the fuck am I to have thought I would ever see Jawbreaker, a band who broke up when I was barely starting school? Music as an emotional carrier, a reminder of who you were. I'm realizing this is true. I was texting kleinbl00 about this show a bit, because I have a really hard time with the punk scene and in general, the music thing. And I think that's because I no longer belong to it. That's a thought that has taken too long to reconcile, but there is an undeniable sensation I haven't felt (certain exceptions, such as the Yo La Tengo show, or finally seeing Belle and Sebastian live) that I don't feel anymore. It's the love of the new band, the new lyric you hadn't caught before, the extension of yourself through somebody else' song. The community all struggling against themselves and trying to make sense of it while arguing over the better punk scene. It's not me anymore. It extends beyond that, and tacocat touches upon this...the extreme feelings of the late-teens through early 20's just aren't there anymore (edit: I don't even think they can be called extreme, but they've certainly been dulled. It makes me a bit sad, really). I don't feel the love I felt for the long-term girlfriend I had in college, I don't get the butterflies in the stomach when meeting new people or seeing somebody interesting, or a nervous feeling of going to a concert and knowing all your friends are there. It's almost as if a lot of these things have been numbed, and here I am trying to desensitize through the mountains and ever-greater challenges. But it never truly replicates those feelings, both in good and bad ways. There's a great The Mountain Goats interview that touches on these topics, as well. The view of who I was in the past, and who I am in the current, are amazingly different. There was a thought in my mind during that Jawbreaker set: I Don't Want to be the Sad Guy Anymore. Which, I'm not, in the current, but when all this music, all these much stronger emotions were being felt, I was very much that person. I almost shaved my beard off the very next day.One thing you can do with the stuff you used to be into is to ask yourself, "What was in there for me? What was it about that that called to me then?" Once you have a better view of who you were then — why did you like it?
Everything is trending "up" except for my ankle at the moment, and even that is slowly improving as I keep off of running. The pluses: 1. Just saved between $200k and $250k on one of my work projects. 2. Signed up for a night class that will get me a great certification, and no cost to myself. 3. Continuing to power-of-will a nonprofit through some very hard times, and attempt to rebuild the board and restructure the organization. 4. Photography is really, really fun! 5. Have some super-fun events coming up with friends. Seeing Free Solo this Friday, and will get to meet Alex Honnold and Jimmy Chin!!! These guys are so inspirational to me. Some minuses: 1. My body is still not doing great. The rest has been amazing for all the minor bumps, bruises, and aches, but my ankle is still a problem. 2. Probably ending yet another relationship. Finding that a partner who has ambition and confidence in herself is extremely important to me, but maybe not as important as having a passion (or multiple). Doesn't even have to be the same as mine! But have something that you're passionate about, that keeps you going, that's a driving force.
Uhm. I ran a MARATHON this week, and signed up for another... And will probably run a 2nd 50k this year. And am going climbing outdoors after work today. Because the pacific northwest is the best place in the goddamn world for me right now. This year is shaping up so much better than I could have hoped for despite the set backs. I want to keep that momentum going. Went on a couple of dates with a girl this past week, and realized a key component was missing from my last relationship. There wasn't enough of an "edge" to it, and I think I understand why people break up with nice guys a lot better now...
I basically don't live anywhere for the next three months. Planned a very last minute vacation to Arches National Park in two weeks...with a weekend summit of Mount St. Helen's permitted for the following weekend. And maybe work travel to Knoxville in between. This is fine. I'm living what, to me, is an interesting life with a job that pays enough to sustain it. What more could I ask for.
Usually the URL brings me to Hubski. Sometimes it brings me to Zork. The people are what kept me here. Just did lunch with a person from this site earlier today!
Yesterday was hard, I finally have to start confronting something I've been avoiding. I was born with or developed in childhood external tibial torsion in both my legs. This is not even a little conducive to distance running. My only option is to manage it and continue to strengthen basically all my muscles and tendons in my lower body. Even then, I'm more likely to be hurt running long distance than the average runner. To add, my movement efficiency will never be great because a lot of power is lost when pushing off my feet due to this alignment. I might never be the runner I want to be, due to something completely out of my control. That's a hard pull to swallow. I don't like feeling constrained because of something out of my control, and right now, I do.
"Be ready to sacrifice at any moment what you are for what you could become". There's a lot of changes happening in personnel at work, again. I'm about three years in here, and unsure of what a career path in this company looks like moving forward. Sounding similar to goobster right now. After July it might be time for some serious soul searching and job hunting...
Merry Christmas all. Hope you all had a good one this year, and that the year 2018 treats you well. I’m on a train leaving my hometown, heading to the city. I come from a place where you say you’re going to the city and everyone knows what you mean, even though it’s four hours away. This state is large and old and filled with the spirit of better times had. When we talk of two America’s this is the one we speak of in a lesser light. Or at least view it as a dimming light. There’s a feeling of if stagnancy that is unsettling to me and is something I finally put a pulse to this year. Now, there are some pocketed gasps or maybe grasps at revitalizing this small rust belt city which hasn’t been in the limelight since before WWII. Those places are great for my hometown. But there are so many unfulfilled promises, plans which fall apart immediately or in the last hour, and a general air of wanting things to get better but never truly believing it. These are the people who are the salt of the Earth, those who have never left the northeast or even their own home state. Some of them have never wanted to leave, the rest have never had the means or ambition to actually get out and explore. The attitudes are, at times, as calcified as the economic situation. I’m happy to be heading back west tomorrow. It feels more like home, or at least I’ve made more of a home there than I have anywhere else at this point in my life.
I'm flyin' off the fuckin' handle Hubski. Had my first camping trip of the year and just look at this shit. Mainly, look at that form. Was actually pretty stoked to see that my form is much, much better than previous years but not better than great runners. More importantly. How gorgeous is this? I think doing 10.3 miles mostly running, with friends, with dogs, on an amazingly beautiful day rewired me a bit. Went on a run last night and was just exceedingly happy the entire time, went on a bonus run after, and felt great. I was literally just running and smiling at one point. On the not so great side, I get to go down to a manufacturing plant that's closing to assist with the shutdown. Which means I get to be the worst person in the world in the eyes of a hundred plus people for a week.
