Good enough, OK enough, perfect enough, too flawed… would I ever be enough? Would I ever be OK?

Sometimes, the same pesky issues keep coming back just when we think we’ve gotten them beat. When we’re not looking they return and pretty soon we’re the ones who are “beaten and blown by the wind” (U2).

And we live these issues out in conscious and unconscious ways trying, I think, to finally put them to rest forever and find peace.

As many of you know, I have been training for a 50-mile race to celebrate my 40th birthday. In its inception and essence, it was, and is, all about doing something epic, adventurous and empowering to celebrate, instead of dread, 40. But four-plus months in, the stress and the magnitude of what I have set before myself is starting to take a toll. But for far deeper reasons that I originally thought.

I was getting rigid about training …I do that.

I was getting anxious … I do that, too.

I was losing sleep … I sometimes do that.

I was thinking about the same thing over and over … I do that too, on occasion.

I have been doing all of this, I realize now, for months… I don’t do that very often.

These were signs and, truth be told, I was familiar with them.

I had quickly taken something that was about joy, challenge and fun and made it a test of whether I was enough. Was I good enough to get it done? And if I wasn’t it meant that I was weak. Suddenly, I was very attached to the outcome and it was going to have dire consequences one way or another.

What kind of loser trains for 6 months and fails? I was beginning to fear, in a cold-sweat-that-wakes-you-in-the-night kind of way, that I was that kind of loser.

David Bowie and I were now officially Under Pressure.

But, after this revelation of how I had morphed this goal into something more intense, now what?

Can I enjoy (I use that term loosely) the next several weeks of training and race day regardless of what happens?

Can I just be present in the awesomeness of good friends who are willing to fly cross-country or drive cross-state to spend the day with me walking in a circle.. literally?

Do I have the guts to be OK with failure?

I have more questions than answers right now. But as the next six weeks wind down I am working on finding peace with what is, what will be, and who I am.

For now: enough.

Peace out,

G