Happy New Year | 21 Months

Christian life is a journey toward love, growing in love, expanding in our ability to love, surrendering our hearts to love, increasingly becoming a person who is motivated by love. Gary L. Thomas, The Sacred Search

Dear Muir Rock Family,

Happy New Year! Can't believe 2024 is all done. I wanna still share about 2024 along with some photos but I'm ready to move on, I think. As usual, lots of talk about.

21 months....feels like 21 days

New Year for many of us means new routines.

January 2 to me is more meaningful than January 1, since it marks 21 months since Teri passed away. I'm so thankful for this monthly routine that I’ve been using to reflect on how things are going and remember her. As I've been living a really fun and exciting single life and meeting lots of new people, she comes even more special to me. I can't explain It. Like how marriage should be, it grows over time. Except we aren't married anymore, she's in heaven with Jesus.

I guess I've never been more proud of having been married to Teri. If you're in a relationship, my prayer is that you'll be doing the same. Your love for each other should grow, over time. And we just don't know how long we will be with the person on this earth. So why fight about silly things that aren't worth fighting about? Why not spend more quality time together instead of work so much? I know, easier said than done.

Mayo's like...give me a break Erwin, how about all those walks you skipped out on?!?

While I am excited about 2025, I don’t plan on doing too anything differently just because it’s a new calendar year. Okay maybe a little bit. We will see.

After spending time this past week reflecting with my therapist on an important dilemma regarding my love and attachment to Teri but still wanting to win the new spouse lottery, I feel like I have a lot more clarity on how to approach everything. It doesn’t need to be complicated.

Here are two guiding principles I will try to live by to share today:

Grow my capacity to love

I love the book Sacred Search. I read it every time I need a refresher on what’s important in a future spouse. In summary, it's not about who you marry, but why? The quote at the top of this post resonates with me quite a bit. Reading it recently reminds me of all the triathlon training I do, with the goal to expand my fitness capacity so my body can do more work over time. If I can spend 600+ hours last year being active, what can I intentionally do this year to grow in my capacity to love God and love others? Some ideas include:

• Finish my bible reading plan

• Get more involved at church

• Put my phone away when I’m with others

• Make room for the right people that are aligned with my values and goals

• Be mindful of how much I complain about areas I can’t control

Nothing complicated. Stuff I already know. Just wanted to write it down again here.

Take things one day (or week) at a time

I love planning and making schedules. Looking back, I usually don’t stick to any of them. I can’t think of a time recently that I had a plan (work, fitness, etc) and stuck with it till the end.

So I am gonna stop over planning and just be content with at least having a plan for the upcoming week. Some weeks I’ll do more yoga since my favorite teachers are teaching more, some weeks I’ll run, bike or swim more because a race is coming up. There’s just no point in stressing about goals. I can still be ambitious and would love to reach all my race goals I have on the calendar, and have some high level guidance on what I should do to increase the chances of reaching the goals:

• March LA Marathon (Goal: 3:30)

  • Eat 8x "meal prep" foods to lose weight at a sustainable pace

  • Keep it light with weights at the gym/yoga (lose some muscle)

  • Run 25+ miles a week

  • 
    

• April - Oceanside 70.3 (Goal: 5:15)

  • Start using the bike trainer 2x a week

  • Swim 5K yards a week

    
    

• April - Hyrox Men's Singles (Goal: TBD)

  • Focus on strength workouts & rebuilding muscle after Oceanside 70.3

Photos from various races with Teri

21 Months - What's on my mind this morning

I had ambitious plans this morning to go to my 5:45AM yoga class and then go do a 16 mile run afterwards. That's what the schedule says. I was on it last week with the 14 mile run.

Unfortunately I wasn't feeling it after my class, so I said that I should go home first and do a 2 mile warm up run with Mayo first, and then head out. He needs his walk so might as well. Unfortunately, he doesn't want to go outside since it's too cold. So I'll finish this post up and then see how things go.

Brunch with Karen and Chris

A few weeks ago I posted my Christmas Card on Facebook. My high school friend Karen saw it and reached out to me, wanting to meet up since she was in town for the holidays. We haven't seen each other in almost a decade:

Silver Dollar Pancake House in Corona

We spent quite a bit of time catching up. We talked quite a bit about relationships. Having kids feels so complicated, especially in the bay area with everything being so expensive. Thankfully they are figuring things out, and perhaps they'll have another kid in the near future.

Since we weren't rushed, I shared with her about my story with Teri and some of the lessons learned from it. I spent about 30 minutes (which felt a bit rushed). In the end, I felt really thankful to share with them since it's been a while since I shared the story in person. It was also another reminder to me about life being so short and you never know what to expect. One day you're planning to have a child through surrogacy, and the next day you're figuring out if your wife is gonna make it because she has stage 4 cancer.

At the end, we talked about fitness goals. Like many I've talked to recently, Karen was sharing about her interest in exercising in the morning, but there's no time. I get it, everyone is super busy, especially with a child. I pray that if God does provide a family for me in the future, I can still stay disciplined with my health and fitness. And I can encourage and help others like Karen in the meantime.

I guess to say that I've been thinking of Teri quite a bit again. I know at this rate it seems like I can do this till I'm 50. Who knows. I'm glad though to share since I always feel a bit better every time I click the "Publish" button.

I try to get to bed early so I can wake up early. 9:30PM - 4:30AM is the ideal sleep schedule for me, but lately it's shifted about 30 - 45 minutes later.

Right before I fell asleep, Mayo jumped on the bed, actually on top of me for a second and then found his spot. Surprisingly, that moment reminded me of the photo with Mayo before Teri had to go to the hospital for the second time:

Feb 13, 2023 - The Second ER Visit

I spent a lot of time thinking about Teri and all the hospital stuff before I eventually fell asleep.

Everything from February and March 2023 felt like yesterday again. It made me feel quite sad about Teri not being here and it's really all over and time to move forward. I'm not sure why. I had such a great Saturday with seeing friends and attending yoga classes. I'm so blessed to have the first world problems I have, like having to cut back on yoga and strength training to focus on my running, or what to do about Mayo always going on the table. Oh yea, can't forget about cleaning up the garage, hopefully tonight is the night.

I guess this is the reality of grief. It will come and go when you least expect it. The highs I'll have in life (like having a great Saturday) may or may not have lows afterwards.

So I guess back to my original intent of this post and growing in love, I guess it's still complicated. I can focus on growing my capacity to love, hoping to make more space in my heart to love someone else in the future. I also think I think a lot about what others should do regarding growing their capacity to love in relationships a lot more than what I need to do for myself. It's just easier to focus on other people's problems vs. our own. Something I need to work on.

Today, my capacity to love feels quite limited, just like how my legs feel tired and will be even more tired after my run. Thankfully there's church in a few hours, looking forward to it.

Speaking of the run, Mayo seems interested in going outside, so I better get on it so i'm not late for church. I know I always feel a lot better after a long run, even if the last two miles, regardless of distance, feels terrible. One thing for sure: I gotta keep doing hard things.

Thank you for reading and your support. Lastly, Happy Birthday as well to my step dad, Tito Gil!

Blessings,

Erwin