In May 2026, I graduated college. I had no plans for after other than knowing I was moving back home. No career plans, no racing plans, just swimming, tanning, riding casually, and blasting “Work Out Fine” by the Terrys. A typical summer break itinerary. Except for the silly little twist that hadn't set in yet: school wasn't coming back around and I wasn't really on summer break. It was the start of “real life,” as everyone was calling it.
It didn't really dawn on me at first how hard and unreal it was going to feel. But then August came and I hadn't done one job interview, didn't have my next collegiate race season to prepare for, and started feeling really lost in myself. The entire summer I hadn't been training, I was adjusting to moving and finding a new flow of life, working at a local bar, and felt like I lost time for all the things I loved to do. I was sick more times over the summer than I had been in the last 5 years. Every time someone asked me, “Are you still riding bikes?”, my heart shattered a little bit more, because I couldn't understand how someone would even think that. It's not like riding has been my entire life for the last decade or anything. I literally felt like I was falling apart from the inside out and I had no idea how to put the pieces back together. But on the outside I was playing it off as I was just going with the flow.
In the midst of fall, I tried to start “75 Hard” at least 5 times, tried to stick to “100 days of habits” to rebuild habits I had already had and somehow lost to the business of life, kept getting job interviews and daydreaming about what it'd be like to get that position, and then getting a “Thank you so much for your time, but we have ultimately decided we won't be moving ahead with your application” email the next morning. Motivation to be consistent in anything became extremely hard because it felt like any glimpse of next steps fell through before I even got a foot up on it.
Most of my time for a couple months was made up of traveling with my boyfriend to crazy events like Pastranaland, X-Games, and spending 24 hours in New York City riding around on a Gnargo. Which, don't get me wrong, it was such a blessing to be able to up and go to those events, but it still didn't feel like I was achieving something for myself. It felt like I was living a false cool life that I was posting about, but internally felt like I had been achieving nothing.
So anyways, that was like last month, and now I'm putting my un-used energy and effort into this digital space of things I care about and working to build my life towards my passions of travel, media creation, and living to work and not working to live. Struggling with my health hasn't gotten easier. Each day I'm having to fight my anxiety to workout, but most importantly, reminding myself that the future doesn't exist and to just be where I am in this moment, and have joy and peace in the process.
On that note, welcome to my world.
