Failure is in the eye of the beholder

I’ve been blessed with so many successes in my life it’s easy for even me to wonder why I would take up something at which I am so abominably bad.

I’m the over-achiever – the section leader, the yearbook editor, the straight A student, the scholarship winner, the Mensa candidate, even the beauty pageant finalist. I got the good jobs, married the good guy, got the big house with the big dogs and the big yard.

I literally do not know how to fail. I suspect I’d be pretty bad at it, should failure come my way. And I guess it’s bound to happen, because I just can’t leave well enough alone. I’m not happy unless I’m staring down another challenge.

I suppose there are those who would say I’ve failed at plenty of stuff. Take my first major – Nuclear Engineering. Loved it. Loved everything about it. But it’s true what they say about weed-out classes, and I damn near failed out. Me, of the formerly perfect grades, on academic probation. It’s been more than a decade and I’m still ashamed of it. But you know what? At the time, I didn’t see it as failure. Couldn’t, or my world would have come crashing down around my ears. I chose to see it as a wake-up call. One that had the dual purpose of getting me into a course of study that ultimately shaped my future, and getting me out of an industry that was in a death spiral. Failure is in the eye of the beholder.

There are those who would say I failed myself because I let my health and my weight spiral out of control. I got sick enough one doctor said I could have died. But I fought, am still fighting to this day, I continue to win battle by lonely battle, and one day I'll claim a victory over this too. Will be leaner and stronger and healthier than the size 6 teenager who got on this roller coaster. Do I wish it had been otherwise? Damn straight. But if this is my road to travel, then I hope I learn something along the way.

But for all my successes, and fighting the good fight on my less-than-successes, my dirty little secret is that I suck at sports. Reaaaallly suck. Pick a sport, any sport, and I can likely produce concrete examples of my superb suckiness. Because I keep trying, so I’ve had lots of opportunities to stink.

My physical limitations are right there, every day. They serve many purposes - sometimes as excuses for sucking, but mainly as obstacles to overcome that make any success that much sweeter.

I’m short. Finding a racing bike to fit me was an endurance event in itself, spiking a volleyball isn’t an option, and don’t get me started on basketball.

I’m curvy. Running – from bases to races - is not just exercise, it’s an exercise in shopping for industrial strength bras.

I've got allergies from here to next week – my congested head makes swimming on any given day a coin toss.

I'm hypothyroid. My energy level on my best day is probably about what the average person's is on a day with PMS, insomnia and the flu.

I have chronic migraine and my eyes are hypersensitive to light – a lethal combination. If I’m in direct sunlight for too long I can end up in the ER getting special shots so I don’t pass out from the puking and the pain – not exactly a recipe for athletic success.

So why triathlon? Why embrace the opportunity to suck in triplicate?

I have to admit that initially, a large part of the answer was "because nobody thought I could." There was a time when nothing got me going more than wanting to prove myself to others. Not very noble, certainly not very mature, but there it is.

Another piece of the puzzle is that I get bored easily. Very, very easily. Just the nature of a Mensa IQ. Few things can hold my attention for very long… but this, this is different. It’s impossible to get bored with things I can never conquer. That's incredibly appealing to me.

The rest of the answer is that, deep down, I always wanted to. Most people, when they first learn of triathlon, have something of a ‘that’s cool, but I will never do that’ reaction. My reaction from the very beginning was an awestruck “wooooooooow.”

My original motives might not have been pure, but now I can say I'm in it for the love of the sport. The wow has long since won over whatever petty little chips were on my shoulder this time last year. Without the wow, one race would have been enough. Even I was surprised when it wasn't. But it's how I knew it was real, and nothing matters now but the joy it brings me.

So, here I am. Still overweight? Yup. Got a fancy bike? Nope – she’s entry level. Can I run? No. But I will.

I will. And I guess that’s the essence of it. I love knowing that, with hard work, I will be able to do the things that used to elicit slack-jawed awe from me when I witnessed them of others. Because something about this sport beckons to me, whispers in my ear that it doesn’t matter if I’m bad at it. Makes me believe that maybe I’m not really bad at something that, every time I do it, I get a little better. Strokes my ego with the knowledge that, even though I do it badly, most people don’t even have the balls to try.

Failure is in the eye of the beholder. That's why I'm happy doing something I stink at. I show up for myself. I do my best. That's how I define success.