Feels Like

I don't really know the intent of this blog, I just want to write something. I haven't really said much about my skating over the last several weeks. Honestly I haven't wanted to think about it at all.

The absolute biggest change for me competing and training in an Olympic sport versus competing in a Pan American sport are the highs and lows. The highs feel really good and the lows make you rethink what you are even doing.

Fall trials seems like a nightmare and I can't even remember that much about it. I just remember the way I lost.. the last race. Then I remember all of the feelings afterward. I wanted to walk away.. for about two weeks I didn't want to skate anymore. Then I was all in. Then Olympic trials happened. It felt similar to fall trials but completely different at the same time. Olympics trials didn't go well from the get-go. There wasn't a single race I felt that I didn't underperform. So there wasn't a crushing/bitter defeat to end the competition it was just a slow grind of underachieving for four solid days.

The similar parts are the feeling afterward. I'm going another four years. But in my head I just hear this crazy echo of four years. The things I need to improve upon to make that next step are so minute yet make such a profound difference it's incredibly frustrating. I have a hard time thinking about how much hard work has to be put into this. How much stress and sacrifice it involves. The feeling of utter exhaustion of throwing 40 hours/week of work over the next 208 weeks understanding that until I am done skating I can't advance any further in my workplace.

When I switched to ice the idea of skating until 2018 was a given, I was pretty confident 2022 was in play as well.

But I actually had to sit down and contemplate if I wanted to skate anymore. Right now, still in one of those crazy low points I mentioned earlier I still don't know if I should. My deciding factor when I put my thought process into it was to eliminate the now. To try and imagine sitting watching the 2018 games without absolutely no regrets. To see some of my competitors or teammates at the games and not feel like I should be there. I can't do it. That alone is the reason I have to move past this. I feel a certain amount of pride with being able to make that decision. I don't want to feel this low but somewhere deep down I know this agony I can't get past will only help me. Lastly, I found a quote by Abraham Lincoln that pretty much put everything in a nutshell for me. He once said, "My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure."