Analogy to Roller Skating

To begin, March is half over! Half way through March means I should be half way through my Lazy- Iron-Man, and I am...mostly.  I've completed 44/79 laps of swimming (better than half!), 60/112 miles biking (also better than half), and 13/26 miles of running (exactly half).  I've improved somewhat athletically.  I ran 3 miles today and then biked 14 miles, and I'm not even too terribly sore, though I felt it when I climbed the stairs up to my astronomy class again this week.

Now- on to an entertaining analogy.  This is merely another piece of evidence that I have far too much time on my hands to think.  I have determined that, sometimes, life is a lot like roller skating.  At least, it's a lot like roller skating as a little kid.  I remember (admittedly vaguely) the first time my family went to a skating rink.  I had been rollerblading up and down the street, but the asphalt rode has quite a different coefficient of friction than the smooth skating rink.  Skating in a rink, I discovered I could go quite a bit faster than I normally could up and down my street.  I also discovered that it is possible to go too fast.  "Too fast" for a little kid meant I reached that speed where I realized I had lost control.  If I tried to stop, I crashed because I stopped too fast.  Slowing down was a difficult option because I had already lost control.  My only hope was to keep going as long as possible, hopefully regaining some control as my momentum decreased and maybe getting close enough to the side to grab onto the wall and stop myself.

What does this have to do with life?  Sometimes, life gets to the point where you realize that you are going too fast.  There is too much to do, too much to think about, too much to live up to.  You lose control and can't slow down.  If you tried to stop you would only crash... and that might be worse.  That's usually what I do...I crash, I give up, I stop existing for a few days until I feel fully recovered from all the bruises I've acquired, and then I get up and skate again.

Today was a realization that I was going too fast.  By 10 am I was ready to fall apart and enter a self-induced-social-comatose for the weekend.  For the first time, I discovered there is another option.  I can briefly let go of everything that is pulling me forward faster than I can manage.  I can forget that which doesn't matter.  I can go to the gym for far too long and exercise till I'm sore and stop worrying about the homework assignment I didn't complete and the class I already missed.  It has come and gone and left me without injury, so why fall on the ground now?  This was one of those moments were I got to think about what really matters, and that doesn't include grades and test scores.  I got control and I'm still skating.