This has been my most productive year in terms of running: I’ve done (& won) four races in six months, the first one only six weeks after major surgery in my lower abdomen, and I might still manage to do one more before the end of this calendar year.
I think I’m starting to feel some satisfaction and peace for how this year has gone, or how it’s turned out, thus far. But it’s a sense of peace and satisfaction that goes well beyond the prizes I won at the races. It’s something deeper and broader.
2025 has not been an easy year for me so far, not at all. I’ve had many moments of profound, painful, overwhelming grief, devastating loneliness, dark thoughts, even despair. I’ve had health issues, some of which scary or concerning. And from the practical viewpoint, my professional situation is still unstable and thus worrisome, and my living/housing situation could be improved. But despite all these difficulties and dark moments, there has been growth for me and net improvement: some of this improvement I can measure, quantify (e.g. the running & races), some I can feel distinctly. I am steadily recovering from the real burnout that was crippling me. I am achieving the athletic goals that I had set myself for last year but was unable to pursue then due to injuries, health issues, and practical obstacles. I have been traveling a lot again, both for work and for pleasure. I have been deepening and strengthening some of my close friendships. I am effectively taking advantage of, and benefiting from, working part-time to dedicate time to travel/vacation, my athletic goals, and my other interests (e.g. writing).
But especially, I have grown: grown into myself more and opened myself more to the world.
The races I have done this year haven’t just been athletic successes. I didn’t just go and run my races, as I often used to do in the past. Now I go to races with more in mind than just trying to win the podium in my category: I go to show up openly, loud & proud, as nonbinary trans athlete, with my flags and colors and signs; I go to be with friends (almost every race I’ve done recently has been in the company of friends, whether they came to run, too, or to support me at the start/finish), thus turning the races into fun, social events and memorable experiences to share with people I love; I go to be part of a community, picking the events organized by folks with whom there’s mutual respect.
Admittedly, I still have unfulfilled dreams and unmet needs. One of these unmet needs — “I need a ‘boyfriend’!” — being the cause of me currently having the sense that “nobody likes me physically/sexually”. This perception is not completely unjustified: in fact, the physical/sexual intimacy that I’ve had with half a dozen people since moving to Colorado has been between April 2022 and December 2024, so none throughout 2025. But it’s also true that I have dedicated this year to other things that I really cared about. Of those half a dozen people, the first three were by chance but the other three or four I sought out. In the past months, I haven’t been seeking out any situations or relationships that would lead to physical or sexual intimacy. I have been dedicating my time and energy and focus to really ground myself more steadily in my life & within myself after several years of almost constant change and stress and difficulties. I have been dedicating my time and energy and focus to my new job, to traveling again, to overcoming disappointment & drama with the chorus, to recovering from (autistic) burnout, to improving as a runner, to showing up & doing activism as a trans nonbinary athlete. And to my friends (as one of my buddies reminded me recently, during one of my bouts of depression, that I “always show up for friends”).
The areas of my life that I have tended to have, indeed, grown.
So I guess we really do “reap what we sow”… So maybe now, if what I really want is “a boyfriend” (i.e. friends with benefits), I need to plant seeds in those fields…? … but how?
The Little Prince and the Fox 