End of a Mud Year

Last fall I went to the Wilder, wild writing retreat.  This writing retreat was brought to life by Lauren Fleshman and a host of other empowering women before I moved to Bend and before I could afford to attend.  It was on my ‘some day’ bucket list for years and years, until, finally, the stars aligned.  Not in a magical way at first - I had a strange stress response during the first race of a series that I planned to be my focus for 2025.  The unidentifiable (although suspected) root cause for the incident led me to delay my plans for another year… and completely rethink my 2025.  I was grateful for every alternative plan I made in 2025, yet I was a lil sad for most of the year, too.  My original vision was just so BIG that I spent most of the seasons of that year, feeling my previous visualization for the year like a shadow of an alternative life.  

In the shadows of the year that could’ve been, I’m not sure that I was ready to admit that I was also in another muddy, grey area of life where I found myself out of resonance with passion.  I was… grateful… to be going through the motions, yet I knew it for what it was.  “The motions”.  As I patiently took the next best step each day, I befriended the grey area by starting each day with the questions:

What do you need? 

What are you drawn to? 

What secret dream is ready to finally be spoken?

The silver lining in the MUD year was that I said ‘maybe’ or ‘yes’ to a myriad of opportunities that hadn’t been a part of the original vision, which leads me to the day I said, “hell, yes”, to attending the Wilder writing retreat in the fall.  I was only 7 or 8 when my mother put my first diary in my hands.  It was teal green, with purple checks, and had a gold lock that wrapped to around the side of the little book.  That was the day my mom invited me to value my secret, private thoughts without fear of judgement.  For a little girl growing up in a highly gendered part of the midwest, this simple act was a piece in the puzzle that changed my life.  I have been writing, in some form or another, ever since.

What transpired at the writing retreat was exactly what I needed, even if a pattern of mine became very apparent:  I can walk into a conference room filled to the brim with men… and only men, until I enter…. holding my head high with a confident, right-sized smile while my backbone stays firmly in place and speak to my decades of technical expeerience and knowledge.  Yet, on day one of the retreat, with so little experience being surrounded by women, I found myself off kilter and uncertain.  I told myself to be brave, to invite others to be comfortable, and to appreciate every single moment as an opportunity to learn from this rare event.  By day two, I found a flow and felt wildly open and connected.  At dinner that night, another person snapped at a few of us for not receiving a story as they expected and I instantly felt the shutters coming back into place.  What I noticed for the rest of this retreat was that other women dove deeper and deeper into their confidence in sharing deep and scary feelings.

Unexpectedly and despite uncomfortable feels, some of the mud settled during this retreat and I ’knew’ my next challenge.  As someone who always writes, I don’t think my next growth phase lives in the light stories of how I am striving.  I think it lives in the darker corner of socially unpalatable stories that I have never told.

“The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it.” - Brent Brown

This year’s grand plan involves significant sacrifice to level up my home.  Although I know that this type of effort fills me with deep pride and satisfaction, it does not necessarily light me up.  I am excited to take on the hard work ahead but even more excited to have set my sights on a big dream for the 2027 season that will force me to start training by August.  That leaves me just three months to focus and commit to my house projects.  Just.  Three. Months.  I’m looking forward to the grind but I’m also looking forward to using this year of unadventure to tell the stories that I’ve avoided and, maybe, to find a more regular space to spend time with women.

At the end of the day, I find I'm still in the mud in several facets of my life, yet, some water has stilled enough for me to see partially through and I'm excited for the life ahead.