A Tribe Is What Matters

Most of you who read this Blog, know I really am not writing about cycling in most of these posts.   The cycling is a ruse for the things that really matter.  And in this one, I am not even going to paint on a cycling face.   I am going straight to the point because this point REALLY matters.

The last few years have presented me with some small challenges.  I had an 18 month battle with sciatic pain that had me in wheel chair for a few months.   The last two months I have had undiagnosed problems that have effected my performance on the bike and my daily life.

A friend enlightened me that the next 10 years might not be as easy as the last 10...not really exciting, but likely true.  It seems to me that much of the general population lives in a fairly isolated manner and that as people age, that isolation can grow.   I heard a 90 year old cycle racer recently say that the older one got, the more exercise was needed.   Friends might work that way, too.  The older one gets, the more one needs friends, supporters...what Christina and I call:  a TRIBE.

At times in the past couple of months, I have been frustrated, confused, and even scared.   Feeling all this, I found the need to reach out to my Tribe for solutions, emotional support and care.   What I got was everything I needed including things I did not expect.  For one, several of them shared stories, in which they were/are courageously marshaling forward in the face of things that made my problem seem really small.  Another thing that was overwhelming was a bunch of love...more than I realized was there!

Many of us live out on the end of the bell curve.  For whatever reason, athletic, business, or goofiness, we end up in the <1%.  It can seem lonely out there.   Ever go to the doctor and be treated like you have two heads?  If you are an athlete, I know you have.  When in this <1%, one is still not alone.   One just needs to sift through the masses to find other 1%er's, those kindred spirits…they are out there.

Last week, some of my TRIBE, took me the Huntsman World Senior Games in St. George, Utah. They knew I needed some people contact as C was gone for a few days.  Unusually, I was spectating.  I immediately saw a whole lot of skinny, wrinkled folks fighting heart problems, cancer and everything freaking thing you can imagine.  However,  they were still 'in the game'.   In fact, 10,700 of them (1%er's) were still in the game.  These were not genetic wonders who age without problems.  They were just people who forge forward in the face of those problems.  Many of them couldn't go as fast or think as sharp as they once could; really most of them.   What seemed to matter though, was they were still ‘in the game’ and they were still with their TRIBE.  No one, and I mean no one, thought the 90 year old cycle racer was a freak.  He was a hero.

It does not matter where you are on life's timeline, it is not too early or late to solidify your TRIBE.  For me, this TRIBE means more each day.  So I can say conviction, I love my TRIBE and the people who make it up.

See you out there.