Mom has moved into a memory care facility. The transport happened today, bringing her from Southern New Mexico to Northern New Mexico. I wasn’t capable of being there, as I had to work, and I wonder if my presence would have made a difference.
Now she’ll have 24/7 care since she can no longer be left alone. This change will relieve some pressure from the caregiver friends and give us peace of mind knowing she’s in safe hands.
As I sit alone in my apartment, typing on my computer, I find myself reflecting on how we arrived at this point in life. It’s hard not to shed a few tears. Writing helps me process these feelings, I think.
Failure is the best teacher. Every setback is a lesson in bold letters, making us wiser and stronger. It drives us to reassess, adapt, and develop resilience. Without those stumbles, we would never reach the heights of real success or fully appreciate them.
How have failures shaped me?
Experiencing first disappointment can be humbling. Yet, it’s important to realize that setbacks can lead to other, more positive experiences. Life is full of events, and while it may appear like there are predetermined paths, we still must take action. Some things will work out as expected, while others won’t. Once you move past the disappointment, you can learn and adjust your approach. The desired outcome may not manifest itself, but what matters is making continuous attempts and persisting to achieve what you want.
I’m back- Life has been incredibly eventful since my last post.Writing is cathartic and therapeutic for me, so I wanted to share my latest adventures. I returned to my hometown and realized the situation was worse than I thought. I’ll spare the details as it gets quite personal.
From there, I traveled to Wisconsin for a race that was canceled, to Cincinnati for a work training, Oregon to run my 40th state marathon, and then to Atlanta for a job interview.
Along the way, I embarked on planning a new and thrilling adventure: walking El Camino de Santiago for my next birthday.
Here’s how that came to be:
During my work training in Cincinnati, we were asked to jot down notes and finish exercises in a notebook. One exercise required us to write about vacation trip we wanted help planning. I expressed my wish for a journey to find myself- a place to understand my life’s purpose and my impact on others.
We exchanged notebooks with randomly selected colleagues to gather ideas. My colleague, who is originally from Spain, instantly knew where to send me after reading my prompt: El Camino de Santiago. He was surprised I wasn’t familiar with it and explained its spiritual significance, convincing me that it was something I needed to do.
The training ended on Friday, and I flew out to Oregon for a marathon. At a 5K Shakeout Run, I chatted with a woman named Molly. It was her first half marathon race and we discussed her experiences. She mentioned having done a part of El Camino. I got chills when she uttered the words and I had to ask for clarification, it was indeed the trail in Spain that she was talking about. I shared my colleague’s suggestion, and she encouraged me further with her own story.
After the shakeout run, I spent several hours at Powell’s City of Books, browsing travel books on the pilgrimage. I focused on Andrew McCarthy’s “Walking with Sam.”
Today, I took my first training walk, spending 2 hours and 40 minutes on the paved bike path.
The evening was overcome with sadness—a profound level of emotional despair with a planned trip back home this week. I was informed of a distressing situation at home. Yes, it involves mom. Mom isn’t doing well. They said she’s okay, but I can’t have a coherent conversation with her anymore.
“No, she’s not okay.”
I’m going back home.
Writing about it helps—it lessens the emotion that I try so hard to shut off when I’m at work and have to lead. Writing about it helps confirm that my emotions are real— I do feel pain. Through it all I question whether my life choices were the best possible.
I am not fulfilling my culturally expected role of taking care of my ailing family member.
There was an interesting live eating competition on Netflix today, and I found it rather intriguing and peculiar as a sport. Typically not a fan of such things, but I was entertained by the ten minutes of hot dog guzzling. Joey Chestnut became the champion as he managed to down 83 hot dogs in 10 minutes, while Takeru Kobayashi, his competitor, ate a whopping 66. What I found most entertaining was watching the trailer for the hyped-up event and hearing each competitor discuss how they prepare for eating competitions – tongue exercises, jaw movements, practice sessions, and extra water drinking to expand the stomach. This was the first live event I’ve seen promoted by Netflix, and I wonder if the company is using it as a pivot action for their declining subscription sales. Clever. I suppose. Joey Chestnut was kicked out of the yearly 4th of July Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest this year, we may now have the Labor Day Food Eating Challenge as a new tradition to watch out for.
I seem to have become desensitized to stressful situations around me, or perhaps I’ve just become better at problem-solving, so most issues no longer affect me. Even when multiple things went wrong today, I managed to handle it all without feeling pressured or stressed. While others seemed panicked and concerned, I remained calm, knowing that everything would work itself out and that we would find a solution to the problem. We did. Everything was okay, regardless of how crazy the situation unraveled itself. Now, we learn from the issues and brainstorm on how systems can be improved to prevent chaos from reoccurring. Of course, not all events can be mitigated; some situations occur due to natural causes and can’t be controlled, but those that can should be analyzed and perfected for future reference.
This weekend, I was reminded of the importance of discipline when motivation is lacking. If you can stick to the process, everything else will fall into place. I’ve learned that life can be unpredictable, but adherence to one’s beliefs and hard work are essential for achieving goals. When the urge to pursue those goals diminishes, relying on discipline will keep you on track. Many people falter when it comes to discipline, and as a result, they fail to achieve their goals.
Today, my mom called several times, but her conversation was incoherent. She did manage to recall my name, and she mentioned spending time with someone who doesn’t exist anymore; the hallucinations appear to be more frequent now, which is concerning. When my father realized it was me on the line, he picked up the call and said a quick hello. He handed the phone back to Mom….we exchanged only a few words before the call abruptly hung up for the last time today.
Fun Fact Friday: The Apriori Algorithm is a widely used method in data mining, specifically for association rule learning in unsupervised machine learning. It was initially developed in 1994 by Rakesh Agrawal and Ramakrishnan Srikant. The primary goal of this algorithm is to identify frequent patterns.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact one person can have on your life.
Now that a specific person is no longer in my life, I’m struggling to find motivation.
I now realize that seeking external motivation has its drawbacks.
I’m trying to understand why this person had such an influence on me. I know I shouldn’t dwell on it, but it’s been hard to find motivation from within.
I feel like I’ve lost my desire to achieve much.
The yearning for success I once had is gone, and I’m trying to convince myself that this person still cares about me, even though deep down, I know they probably never did.
Journaling was Recommended 