Once upon a time, you learned something. Simple right? One day you decided to learn something (or not and learned that thing anyways) and there you go, something to put under your belt of knowledge, Maybe that thing was a of extreme importance or perhaps it was a bit odd or hyper situational. Give it a few months, maybe a year or two and that belt gets looser around the knowledge. Every once in a while you remember to give the belt a tug to bring it back up or tighten it so it actually does its job, but eventually something falls out. Conversations, definitions, memories, skills, the reason you went down outside to get your brother when you already subconsciously know he is in his room; they just escape your grasp. Whether or not you notice is another discussion in its own right.
Recently I've been trying to relearn piano (which is not going well), relearn guitar (slightly more successful), and get back into running cross country running (more successful than the other two combined). The problem with having to almost start over cross country is that it wasn't really my fault. I had an injury, which led to another, which spurred another injury to take its place and now I'm here. After about a month of not running (to put that into context, the cross country season is only a couple months long and the season is almost finished), I finally ran a race. That race wasn't quite how it would normally be after most of any other season, I ran a time comparable to times I get at the beginning of the season (that should also put into prospective just how well my relearning of piano and guitar are going) . That's like taking two or three months of work on a project and scrapping it just before the due date. Needless to say, that day was both refreshing and disappointing to me for various reasons. Nice to know that I can still run, breath correctly, and pace myself for three miles, but not as nice to know that with only a few weeks left in the season that I have a LOT of catching up to do. Conditioning is time consuming and relatively somewhat painful, but that doesn't mean I can't do it. Caught those running skill just before they got out of my reach.
Once upon a time, you forgot something. Next time, you brought it back.
Wow! This post is really well written and I can tell how passionate you are about starting cross country again. I found this really interesting because it's not a topic I generally thing about, so it really made me ponder. Also, I just want to congratulate you on your opening paragraph because it was so captivating and unique that I couldn't stop reading. Also, those last sentences...so good. Sooooo good.
ReplyDeleteI really like this post! Like Raphaelle said, your introduction grabbed my attention right off the bat. Your belt metaphor for memory was intriguing!
ReplyDeleteI think that you could make your blog post even better if you signaled to the reader early on in your post that you would be talking about getting back into cross-country. I was a little confused at first because I thought that you were going to talk more about piano and guitar. Just a suggestion.
Nice work! :)
I really like how you put your own story into a bigger idea. Your first paragraph paved a nice path for you to talk about your comeback. I hope that everything works out with cross country, Ill be cheering for you! :) Great post btw
ReplyDeleteI liked that you made a larger point at the beginning and then narrowed your focus to one example at the end. I also like that it is so easy to tell how excited you are about getting back into cross country. Good Luck!
ReplyDeleteYes lets go Grant! You can get back into it, I believe in you. I also totally feel for you, you have been a great injured buddy and I am so happy to see you getting back into the sport we both love. But it's also hard. It's hard to take the blow that you've lost something, and I think you do a really good job of describing that here.
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