"I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. The game is worthwhile insofar that we don't know what will be the end."

- Michel Foucault

This weekend, I had to begin the process of saying goodbye to a community I have held dear for almost 3 years. Pride & Prejudice, my final show at UT, opened on Friday night. I was exhausted, ready for it to just be open...and then it was, and I was strangely troubled. I went to bed at 1:30a, knowing I had to be awake for training camp at 4a. I didn't want to go, in fact, after the show was done, I was kind of dreading it.

You see, last weekend I had an opening performance on Friday night, and all day clinic and ride on Saturday in Fayetteville, and then a drive back to Austin to do another show on Saturday night. I had two shows on Sunday, so I wasn't planning on returning to training camp for the second day.

Well, the morning came, and I was much more excited once I woke up, but still apprehensive about the community I had just left behind the night before. We drove. The fog was awful. The drive was memorable. The Streets were good company. And the sunrise – to die for.

And then, my day sort of started to turn around. It only took an hour and 15 minutes to get there – much less than the two hours we were expecting, which meant I could return for Sunday's ride. Although this made my weekend incredibly hectic (4 shows, 2 rides totaling 80 miles, and 5 hours in the car total) it was all worth it. And though everything about training camp was great, I had a moment (or a three hour long realization) where something clicked in me.

The quote at the top of this entry is one of my favorite of all time. For me, humans are nothing if not changeable creatures. We exist in a constant state of uncertainty about who we will be in six months, a year, five years. The best way to live is to embrace it - live in the moment. I am a very grounded individual and I believe I have a good idea of "who I am" as a person. But that idea is only true right now. Who I am in six months will be fundamentally the same in core values, but different in many, many aspects. And on Sunday of this weekend, I got a rare glimpse of the "who I am" that will be around in 8 or 9 months.

Saturday was a great day, but the eye opening for me happened on Sunday. On Sunday, I rode with an amazing, excellent group of riders (Group 3) on a nice rolling route in a double paceline much of the time. I rode next to Leah, Krisztina, Jared Muston, Jared Mendeloff – I rode behind Basia, and within shouting distance of so many others. I learned some things I didn't know about people, and I felt genuinely moved by the teamwork we began to accomplish. I felt home.

I went into the weekend with a measure of uncertainty about community, about place and time. I wasn't apprehensive about the bike or the riding, but I was afraid to put myself out in another strong community so soon after beginning to let go of one I have considered home for so long.

On Sunday, I realized that the letting go I had experienced on Friday was fine. It was time. I had to let go of Winship, of nights on the grad studio floor and hours on my computer typing minutes in the atrium. And though it hurt Friday night much more deeply than I wanted it to, I realized on Sunday that I had experienced loss so that I could accept my new home and family more fully. I embraced a different reality - one of chamois butter, pacelines, laughter, loss, and people who believe in a cause so strongly that you can feel it in the air.

And so, I am again, becoming someone else that I was not in the beginning - another iteration.

"One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been."

- Sophocles