Bummin'

This weekend had three days of just jiu jitsu. Last night was a submission only tournament and tonight is EBI. Awesome to train with people from out of town at other gyms and get some slick moves to work on. I was super bummed to not be able to roll since I have a fight coming up. It kind of leaves one feeling in the fringe, maybe it's since I normally would've rolled. I was excited to have another Jess from Ann Arbor, Michigan coming to train but Coach put the kibosh on rolling at all. 

Since I'll definitely be coming back to these posts whether or not I fight again, this is that day in camp called What the Fuck Am I Doing? Like I have this friend who's moving to Africa for two years and I have training every night so can't leave town to see him before he goes and probably won't get to see him again for a long time and that's majorly bumming me out. I quit a job to be able to train more and ended up quitting another job since it was affecting my shoulder (and overall happiness in life...). I'm hesitant to just find another since it's become a debilitating cycle of not knowing what I want to do in life. If there's one thing I need in life to get anything done it's a GOAL. Like solid, challenging, concrete goals. 

There's this part in Peter Heller's "Dog Stars" where the main character, who is virtually the only person left in a post-apocalyptic world, talks to himself. Which is what I do all day, naturally. 

I mean what do you want? What the fuck do you want?

Silence.

You can't form a plan unless you got a mission. You can't have a mission if you don't know what the fuck you want. First rule. Have a clear mission, have an exit strategy... That's the first principle. Anyway what the fuck does it matter? You got a bigger problem to solve first. Which is: What the fuck, Hig, do you hope to accomplish?

I keep jumping from one job to the next, and normally I stay at jobs for a while. I'm having a mid-life crisis at 27. You know, I didn't do what I went to university for because I went without knowing what I wanted to do. So I job-hopped the last three and a half years but never have gotten into doing anything I really love except coaching. I'm stuck. Do I stay here and get a normal life and make money and train or should I do what I've always wanted to and travel and do whatever work I can find? 

Wendell Berry has this phenom quote, 

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, 

we have come to our real work 

and when we no longer know which way to go, 

we have begun our real journey. 

The mind that is not baffled is not employed. 

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

I've totally hit rock bottom with this. Seeing everyone this weekend who loves jiu jitsu and training pads with my teammates for our fight yesterday has me hesitant to leave a place I love and learn so much for a pipe dream. I get lonely and moody and bored and depressed when I'm alone, even travelling. I have to have alone time but also need people to converse with and something to learn and to be active and athletic. Those are hard to come by when travelling/living away from anyone you're close to.

Adding to this is the fucking stupidity of how my body basically is refusing to cooperate. It just gets gassy (sorry, not sorry) from all the vegetables and beans and shit but refuses to drop any weight. Like at all. I can cut water weight but walking around am the same as when camp started almost two months ago. While I am more focused and less moody (usually), my stomach and gut feels funky anyway. Everything is a learning curve though.

Maybe it's the utter depletion of Vitamin D in Rochester after September that's hitting me like a wall right now. Camp is going well and being at the gym makes everything better but I still have to figure out what to do outside the gym soon. 

Anyway, here's a pic of everyone from yesterday. Herbert somehow dove into the photo just in time.