I've been thinking about birth and rebirth a lot lately. Not the reality-defying religious kind that speaks to an improbable life after death, or schmaltzy spring with its overabundance of the pestilence that is a hillside full of fluffy bunny rabbits or cute little lambies that are destined (I hope) for my dinner table. Rather, the process of going through something so difficult you couldn't see the way out, yet eventually, gradually, imperceptibly, you emerge stronger and somehow changed. And how one life-change can lead to others which in turn give rise to actions and events and communities you once would never have imagined.
Literally.
If you'd said to me 20 years ago when we first arrived in California, that I'd be a crazy endurance athlete, I'd have turned the crazy right back on you. As a family member once said so proudly to me last year "I don't exercise."
One of the reasons I chose eventually to do the full iron distance race on Sunday rather than the half, is that I realized that this month is the ten year anniversary of joining Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers begat a new physical me, which begat an athletic me, which begat a more confident me, which begat success in my career, the right to call myself Ironman and the achievement of dreams I didn't even know I had. I am 100% sure of the logical, causal relationship between these things. (And of course, all of it leads to a closet full of shoes.)
Four years ago this month, I joined Team Z which also has changed my life, bringing me not only athletic adventures, but also a circle of friends I never could have imagined and innumerable stories filled with laughter, tears and lots and lots and lots of sweat-drenched hugs at the end of rides, runs and races. Without the job I was given on the team, I don't think I could have gotten through my depression of the past few years and arrived at this iron moment.
A few months ago I was thinking about my next tattoo. My first tattoo is a koru - a fern unfurling, representing the spiral of life. The koru is a very common Maori symbol in tattoos, carvings and decoration. Look at the tail of an Air NZ plane. My wedding 'ring' is a greenstone koru pendant. It's on my back, surrounded by the words that got me through training for my first Ironman while also breaking my elbow and losing my job in a very nasty way ten days before the race. Tinana kaha (strong body). Wairua kaha (strong spirit). Wahine toa (strong woman). These words carried me and sustained me through the next 2.5 years of un/underemployment and depression. But the tattoo is on my back and I can't see it unless I look deliberately. And there were/are times when I've needed to be reminded that I'm an Ironman. So this next one will be somewhere I can see it, for sure.
As I was talking about the tattoo idea with my friend, I showed him a gorgeous design of a cyclist with wings. Perfect, I bought - IndyFlies! He screwed up his face and said that he thought I should celebrate more of what I've overcome to get to the start line of an Ironman. Something more along the lines of a phoenix.
Hence all this thinking about birth and rebirth. I'm not pretending I'm soaring majestically over everything in my life. But I'm back and it feels great. I've not trained nearly as well as I did four my first Ironman, but I've enjoyed the training and I've gotten a huge amount of pleasure out of being a veteran on the team and sharing my knowledge. As I said the other day to someone, I've only done one Ironman, but I did it realllllllllyyyyyy sloooooooowwwwwlllllyyyy so I learned a lot! But when I look back, I'm grateful I'm no longer crying uncontrollably for no reason, I'm glad I'm no longer going to bed in the middle of the day, I'm glad I have meaningful employment, glad that I'm loving cycling and even liking swimming! I'm laughing again, crying appropriately again, physically but not emotionally tired, and contributing monetarily and domestically to the household. Most of all I'm so happy that I can begin to give back the love and support that my friends and family gave me while I was down.
And on Sunday I'll swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run a marathon
I am the Phoenix.
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