Someday

Like many 20-somethings (I'm sure) I often feel like I'm living in the 'someday'.  I'll be making dinner trying to maneuver around a roommate's dirty dishes and I'll think "someday I'll have my own place" or I see posts from friends and their partners and I think "someday, probably when I'm not skating all the time, I'll have time to meet someone" or, on the other end of the spectrum, I think about my life and think "someday I'm going to have to get a real job."

I think the problem with focusing too often on the 'someday' is that it can take focus away from the 'now'.  I have to remind myself that although I still have to live with roommates, I can't afford certain luxuries, I have very little time for a social life, and I have yet to finish post-secondary school of any kind I still have a lot of very good things happening right now.  I have a kind of blind optimism that someday all the things that are missing from my life now will work themselves out but things aren't so bad now either.  I'm lucky to be able to skate full-time, I have a supportive family and good friends (even if I can't see them as often as I'd like), and I do have a plan for my future even if I'm not in a place right now to pursue that plan.

Lately I've been catching myself whenever I start to think about the 'someday' and trying to do whatever I can to try to bridge the gap between 'someday' and 'now' and I've always been of the mind that life is long and there's plenty of time for me to figure out all those personal/career things that are weighing on my mind but (unfortunately) there's a limited window for skating, I can only do that now.

Injured

I moved to Nottingham to join the GB short track speed skating team in June.  At training camp in August I had a fall.  A 'nothing' fall; I was more worried that I had hit my head and concussed myself again than anything else.  Turns out my brain was fine but something in my leg not so much.  I kept training thinking it would heal up and it got worse.  By September I was off the ice and I've been off and on all season.

For a full time athlete I don't know if there is anything more frustrating than being injured.  Suddenly I wasn't able to do what I had moved across the world to do, I wasn't able to do my job.  I love skating but sitting on a spin bike at the side of the rink to keep my fitness up?  Yeah, that I don't love so much.  Being injured is boring, it's depressing, and it's isolating.  I can go days in which I barely talk to another member of the team and then I go home and make these sweeping statements about how motivated I am on social media (because fake it 'til you make it right?).  Weirdly enough being injured is motivating for me.  I think it's just stubbornness but as soon as someone tells me that I can't skate I want to do everything I can to get back on the ice.

I've never had a season like this, never had a season where I wasn't able to train fully for so long; so whenever I went to race I always felt like I was a step behind.  How was I supposed to race better than I ever had if I was training less than I had in years?

On the plus side I'm now in a unique position (for me) where now at the end of the season instead of feeling run-down and tired and in desperate need of a break I'm in a headspace where I can and want to keep training so that hopefully I can be strong and ready to go for next season.

in my injured natural habitat: on the bike
tights: Lululemon

About Me

I've always written for myself, random thoughts scribbled down into one of many notebooks (I have a notebook problem), and I've tried a few blogs before but I was always trying to find a theme, was always trying to write what I thought other people would want to read instead of what I wanted to.  I've had some big life changes since I last tried to blog and it's a new year so I'm starting fresh and the only theme here is me. 

My name is Sam (hi), I'm 25, I was born in Canada but I am currently a member of the Great Britain short track speed skating team.  I'm currently a full time athlete but I have studied English Lit. in the past so I devour books, I travel a lot (although most of the time just from one arena to another), I like to take pictures (mostly of landscapes I haven't quite mastered people yet), and I like to write.  I'm not sure what direction this blog will take but I'm excited to see and I'm looking forward to writing posts with no pressure to fit into one specific box.