Tri again

Or, Let's burn the ships, shall we?

Last August, I wrote an essay a few days before my first triathlon, the one I completed as a relay team with my (now ex) husband. Re-reading this piece today—knowing the woman I was when I wrote it—I meant every word, and I can still feel the earnestness in my heart. I wanted that miracle for my marriage so badly. And I truly thought God was moving us in that direction. I had no idea in those months of rigorous training we were climbing different mountains. We were never going to meet at the summit.

Less than a month later, my marriage was over. 

I’ve wondered a few dozen times what to do about the evidence of my life that exists on the internet, much of it in my own words. Take it all down and scrub all remnants of it? Delete every picture? Try to make it look like that part of my life never happened? I honestly still don’t know how to approach this. A few months ago I got a message from a reader that said “you might want to change your about page” and lo and behold, there was our family picture from last summer, me still referring to myself as a “wife” six months after my divorce. I felt called out and slightly embarrassed. It hadn’t even occurred to me how many “about” sections I hadn’t changed.

But for now, I guess this is where I land on erasing my past: I can’t. Those ships actually sailed and found their way to their destination. Everything I lived and wrote was real. I certainly don’t have the time or mental energy to divide my life in a palatable before and after for easiest public consumption. 

Instead, I’ve decided the best way for me to move forward is to take an honest inventory of the memories that feel the heaviest in the wake of my divorce, to line them up like dominoes, examine each one and what it means. And instead of looking back at them with sadness and pity, re-living the trauma or bringing the anger back up to the surface where it completely changes how I move through my day, I needed to decide which memories are mine to make new. 

This, friends, is how I burn the ships.  

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The term “burn the ships” is attributed to the story of a sixteenth century Spanish conquistador who, upon docking his ships at their intended destination, sent his men forward on their mission into unknown territory. But before gaining any indication they would even be safe, much less successful, he commanded his army of men to do one thing: burn the ships they arrived on right there in the water (see notes 1 & 2).

The message was clear: no matter how tough this gets, no matter how impossible it feels, we are moving forward. If we give ourselves the options to retreat, we will. And we cannot. 

Burn the ships.

First up, the triathlon redux.

The Olympic triathlon consists of a one-mile swim, twenty-five mile bike ride, and six-mile run. Running has been off the table for me since 2004, when I began the first of what would be ten knee surgeries to rebuild the joint, so I knew right away I would have to recruit a runner friend to be the anchor leg of this race. That part was easy, my girl Stephanie said yes right away. 

I had already completed the bike ride on this course once, and I knew how challenging it would be to climb those mountains again. But honestly, I didn’t feel overwhelmed by the challenge, because the bike and I had already become good friends. Climbing is what I love. And Robin Arzon tells me a few times a week that I can do it and y’all, it’s hard to not believe Robin Arzon. 

It was the open water swim that gave me the scaries. 

I once held the record for fastest 50-meter swim as a nine-year-old on the local swim team, and to my knowledge that record stood for two decades. But you should know I set that record accidentally, about two minutes after I was stung by a bee on my foot while waiting for my heat. I think I was just swimming out of sheer panic and it happened to be fast. I remember the afternoon well because that race was so out of the ordinary and never happened again. What I could not remember, however, was the last time I put goggles and a swim cap on. 

But on Mother’s Day, I stopped making excuses. I asked for one hour alone to go to our local gym and use the pool, and I swam a slow and ugly-looking 1000 meters. It took me 37 minutes and at least three breaks. The race would be 1500 meters, in a lake, with wakes and white caps, and other swimmers kicking water at me, and no place to take a break, and… the list of conditions more difficult than a pool I had to myself goes on. I was second guessing the whole race idea on the third lap of that very first swim. 

But burning the ships means one thing: the only way is forward. 

For the last three months, I swam every single Sunday afternoon in the pool, and also did a handful of open water practices. And before every single workout, I didn’t want to do it. I did not want to get wet. I did not want to have goggle marks on my face which, at almost 40 with the skin to prove it, do not disappear quickly. I did not want to smell like chlorine. I didn’t want to walk past a mirror on the way to the pool in my swimsuit. I just did not want to do it. But forty minutes later, I felt amazing. Every single time. 

And slow and ugly swim strokes turned into more confident ones. And I got used to the chlorine smell and the goggle marks. And on my last open water training session I felt great, swimming .75 miles in about 35 minutes. I got on Voxer on my way home from the swim and told my friends, “I’m going to be okay in this race. I mean, I’m not going to be fast, but I’m going to be fine.” To which Ashlee responded, “Write that down, Katie.” 

I have spent the last three months so determined not to look back at a race that meant so much to me with pain, but with a new storyline. And every effort toward making that happen was worth it, because last Saturday, on race day, I did the mile swim in 33 minutes, which is approximately twice as long as it takes Katie Ledecky to swim that same distance but for me it was basically flying. And then I jumped on the bike and climbed the mountain again, this time with no fear for the incline but the sure confidence I was ready. The mountain hadn’t changed, but I had. And best of all, so many of my friends and family came out with signs and green hats that said “keep moving”, and Ashlee made a video ( which so many of you reading this contributed to, bless you!) with words of encouragement, one of my favorite lines being: “Keep swimming, Brock Purdy is at the finish!” I actually thought of that sign halfway into the swim and smiled. And by the end of the morning, my legs were so tired but my heart was beyond full.

The new storyline is this: I did something challenging, but I was never alone. And that’s how I’m going to remember the triathlon.

No going back. The first ship is burned. 

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When I tell you I’m burning the ships behind me, I hope you don’t picture the vindictive, scorned woman with a torch in my hand and bitterness in my heart, eyes red and angry, stomping toward the object of my wrath ready to destroy. That’s really not the image I’m going for. 

What I hope you think of is the humbled woman, but the wised-up one, who knows she is not going to flourish by continually looking back on the things that hurt. Because I have already named them, already acknowledged how maddening some of those memories are. And I have a great counselor and trusted friends to validate my pain and confusion when it surfaces (and it does, and it will). 

But the girl burning the ships today, her goal is peace. She is throwing the flame towards the thing she’s tempted to look back on not out of spite, but so she can stop the tendency to stew over, revisit, or torture herself with unanswerable questions. Burning the ships is simply her reclaiming the space where the pain exists, reminding herself there is nothing back there for her, that moving forward is so remarkably hard and yet, it is the only way. 

There is much more in my life I want to redeem from the stain of what me and the kids have been through, and I know some of that cannot happen this side of heaven. Not every scar will fade. 

But some will. 

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Notes:

(1) Some historical sources say he sunk the ships, but modern retelling changed the story to burn. Rhetorical choice aside, the only thing left to do was move forward, and that’s the whole point. 

(2) I have many (as in, as many as one can have) moral and ethical concerns with the way history is taught and re-told, especially in reference to European colonialism. But this is not an OpEd on the subject. Maybe someday I will write that.