I said in the beginning that this would be a long journey and I wasn’t going to crush a typical “New Year’s Resolution” in three weeks like losing weight or learning a new skill to only fail and give up. This has been a long road, one with lockdowns, missing family and the inability to mountain bike; but I consider some wins and some loses as I prepare for 2022…

Physical: Return to Dirt

Ah the long awaited freedom of the no radius and being able to pedal away into the bush far from anyone else unlike when I went for walks within my 5km radius. Going for a walk felt more perilous than mountain biking at times since people without masks pose more of an issue than rock gardens and low hanging branches. Being able to go out with a mountain bike and get lost in the flow of a winding trail or focus squarely on a technical feature is the therapy I needed after spinning the indoor trainer while watching whatever on Netflix.

Majority of rides have been on Warpath due to the house move and muddy conditions resulting in only one bike can be dirty in the garage while the others stay clean and inside, and what better way to inspire confidence and fun than the fat bike that had been retired for almost a year? Riding Epsom, Strathdale, Spring Gully, Bright and Harcourt has been great because they are some of my favourite trails around Victoria and while my skill was slightly lower than I expected for Bright and Harcourt, my fitness was alright and I didn’t feel like destroying the fat bike for 2022 season.

While I would have liked my fitness and skill to be as good as pre-Tasmania, I have at least improved from mid year and the terrible lockdown blues of last post. Where I go from here is honestly a slow, controlled rehabilitation for confidence in my skill and maybe improve riding fitness. The gym I went to has been open and closed so many times it phased out of my routine and with proper gym enthusiasts needing the bookings for their physical and mental health, I thought it was better to hold off payments and walk a way for a bit. But with the pandemic slowly becoming an endemic maybe in the next few months to years, being in a room full of strangers breathing heavily without masks is uncomfortable, so I have for the moment resigned from the gym. One day I will return, but for the time being walking and riding outside is pretty good for my physical and mental health.

Mental: A Disorganised Mental Space

Landscaping planning, working during a pandemic, regretting staying with my current internet provider with how inept they are, making sure jobs and quotes are still happening in the background, and making sure my fiancé is fine in the middle of my stress and her own personal stresses. I honestly thought that after I moved house, the only thing I would only have to organise was the wedding but boy was I wrong. Work and my fiancé have always been things within my mental to do list since they have been constants for almost 7 years now, but it feels like with the strain of the pandemic, things just seem harder? I politely ask something to be done in an email, leave a reasonable amount of time (5-10 business days depending on my request) and then somehow my email was “forgotten” or I get a rude reply that somehow blames me. I understand that the world is a bit of a circus but can we just try to be good to each other? With the internet issue, it threw me so off guard that not only did I feel angry and wanted to speak to the manager, but the issue got a rent free space right in the middle of my brain. Went to Bright Brewery to relax, how do I get in contact with the company over the phone? Walking home after a lovely meal, I wonder when I can ditch this useless company? And the trouble is for some reason my stubborn bull brain only wants to charge at the internet issue and literally not think of anything else. I felt this was quite new to me but apparently I am like this from time to time around my fiancé, it’s just that maybe this is the first time I have genuinely been angry with something?

For this reason, I need to figure out a way to stop focusing on just one thing, but also not worrying about twelve things at the same time. I should only be really thinking about maybe 3-4 things at a time and if at any point in time I am driving or riding a mountain bike, probably need to make that 1-2 things… My main idea is to sort of triage things into what I should realistically think about and when. For instance, wedding planning is fairly important, but can wait until after work even if people hammer me for details while I am using a CT scanner. The internet problem can only be solved or moved along once I have received a message to react to, and again best not to look at phone or email while driving or working. It may seem trivial that I have to explain this to myself, but at the same time our thought processes get tripped up by such small and menial things?

Emotional: Resignation

As I wrote last month, this blog will be winding down in the next few months due to lack of mountain biking and personal lessons content. It’s hard to let go, you feel sadness, frustration, restlessness, and the emptiness that comes when something that has been so significant in your life leaves you. While there is nothing really from stopping me from turning this blog into a car review blog for Forza Horizon 5 vehicles or real life cars, that is something this platform was not destined for and that essentially means that sadness and frustration may manifest if I couldn’t get the next idea to work. It’s why I view resignation as a mountain hike, where the emotion slowly builds up over time until the point that you pull the trigger and quit, which then leads to the emotions slowly fading away until you resume an emotional normal.

2021 Sucked

Computer chip shortages, work troubles, a long winter filled with rain and more rain, communication issues with businesses, border lockdowns, the inability to exercise in my preferred formats, and realising at times I was my own worst enemy. There were some good parts like Tasmania and moving into a new house, so at least there is some contrast for the good and the bad. But as I get older and look upon the world in different lights as a man, a radiographer, and someone trying to develop a creative brain; I will always have to reflect and improve myself in order to keep facing an ever changing world. I couldn’t have imagined the bush fires of 2019-2020, the early days of the pandemic and where we are now, or the economic catastrophe that may happen in 2022 and 2023. But I also couldn’t have imagined meeting my best friend and soon to be wife in life, building a house together and actually wanting to face the new and changing world together? 2021 has taught me that things do suck in the world, but you can always be a better person in a dull and unforgiving world. What I have achieved and set about this year is at least more than if I had maintained the same path that I was on at the beginning of the year when I realised the rut that I was in. It will therefore be my personal responsibility and endeavour to improve myself in pursuits of mind, body and emotions. It’s not much, but it’s the best I can do. My gift is my song and, this one’s for you… Damn it Elton John lyrics!

In any case, I hope you are well and you have learned a thing or two from my plights this year? Keep safe and stay awesome!