Droopy Dog

I am working on a humorous post about triathlete idiosyncracies, and I was thinking of posting it tonight, but I can't do it. It's just not coming together. If you'll allow a little wallowing, I am in a real funk.

This has been a tough week. You all have probably experienced the blues or depression after a big race or when you back off your training. This was the week after my Ironman 70.3 race, and I have been resting and intentionally beginning a period of detraining. Add to this that Mrs. Greyhound and the puppy are away, and you can imagine why I'm a bit down.

Tonight, I was sitting at my desk trying to organize the bills as Pararie Home Companion was ending. I flahsed back, eighteen years ago, to a winter evening when I would have been listening to the same progam in my empty quarters at the University of Wisconsin. Most everyone else was out on State Street. I listened to their voices and watched the snow from my window. My afianced Mrs. Greyhound all the way across the country, just like she is tonight.

I am nearly twice as old as I was then, but I feel the same angst of youthful loneliness. In a sense, it is worse now. The Christian marriage liturgy talks of how man and wife become "one flesh." As a younger man, those words meant something primarily physical to me. As an older man, I know tonight that part of who I am--part of me--is not here tonight.