Friday Tri: What have you left unfinished?

I've talked about DNF's before and how painful it is for someone who thinks of him/herself as an athlete to go to a race and discover not only can s/he not do as well as expected, but cannot even finish it. This has only happened to me once, but it's still something I think about a lot. And I'm an amateur. I don't primarily identify myself as a triathlete. It's fun, not exactly a hobby anymore because I think of hobbies specifically as activities you do so that you don't have to compete, don't even really have to be good at.

But as I've been thinking about the DNF in my life, the race that eluded me, it occurred to me how the idea of a race that hasn't been conquered yet can be applied in any pursuit in life. So I ask you, what have you left unfinished in your life? What do you say to yourself often (or maybe only now and again)--I wish I had done that? I wish I could do that? I wish I had learned that? I wish I was better at that?

I'm not saying making a list. Actually, please don't make a list. I'm one of those people who has to fight against the list making tendency because then the list rules my life. If I don't make the list, then I can go to bed at night. If I do make the list, the list will be accomplished, but I may not sleep. So don't make a list. Only think of one thing. One regret you have. Focus on that and think about how different your life would be if you could do what you couldn't do or if you had finished the thing you started but failed at. If your life really would be better, then do it. Go out and do it.

It will be hard. It will take time and energy away from the other things you are doing now. But those are just excuses you are making to avoid the pain of facing your past. If something is really bothering you, you can't pay attention to the voice that tells you that it's past and gone, that you're over it. If you are still thinking about it, you are not over it. The longer you let it sit in your mind and corrupt your opinion of yourself, the deeper the wound you have made in your heart. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Yes, you are older now. Yes, there are certain things that you may not be able to finish that you started as a younger person. But don't immediately dismiss them. If you can't do exactly what you wanted, be creative and think of ways that you can finish things differently, but that can still satisfy you. You deserve to be the you that you wanted to be. You deserve to finish yourself.

It still surprises me sometimes when people make the assumption that I have always been athletic. I haven't been. I started training more seriously about eight years ago and every year I've had a different balance. Some years have been more intense than others. But the real change isn't in my body. It's in my mind. For twenty years, I lived with the failure of my high school swimming career. That sounds so melodramatic when I put it like that, but I told myself "you're just not an athlete," and that statement became ingrained in me. That's why it is still surprising when people see me and see an athlete. I'm not sure that that word is my default yet. But slowly, slowly, I am finishing what I left unfinished. Slowly, I am finishing the self I want to be.