NEWSLETTER vol. 2

vol. 2

Yesterday, I got word that things had largely improved at my former employer. My first reaction wasn't relief for the people I care about there. Instead, it was something smaller and less flattering: the thought that it took me saying something and leaving to make room for that, and now my peers get to enjoy what came so soon after. I made it about me. I made it about my ego and my fear and my insecurity. That's the accurate version. That's the truth.

Father's Day compounded it. I woke up knowing it wasn’t going to go well because it never goes well (something I’ll unpack somewhere down the road) so I tried to burn it off with a quick run down to the river and back. That didn’t work. A long day at the rink was a bit of a lift, but I couldn’t shake any of it. I have those days. I suspect you do too.

The week itself looked fine from the outside. Better than fine, even. The curated version would hold up, but the curated version isn't why you're here, and it's not why I'm doing this. The reason to follow something like this is to find out what it actually looks like from the inside, the cynical ego-maniac days, the ones where someone else's good news lands wrong because you've made yourself the center of a story you were never really in. I know I do that. I did it this week. I'm paying attention to it.

That's the thing about being in transition. You can have a genuinely good stretch and still be fragile in ways you don't see coming until something exposes them. The news from Trek didn't hurt because things got worse there. It hurt because things got better. That's a specific kind of bruise, and it's worth knowing it's one you're capable of.

Today will be better than yesterday. That's most of what getting through a bad day requires. Tomorrow we leave for California, where Nora runs Western States, her second of four ultras in the Grand Slam. I'll be crewing, which means long stretches of waiting and a few minutes where everything matters. I'm looking forward to being useful to someone else for a while.

Music this week: Gregory Alan Isakov, This Empty Northern Hemisphere - quiet and a little melancholy, which is the honest register for a week that ended the way this one did. Apple Music | Spotify

more words and images at chrisskogen.com - ideas at almanzo.cc