The noise before the silence

The new year brought me some exciting adventures. I started a new sport. I started this blog. I started training for the Pacific Crest Trail.

2026 will be an incredible year! And I’m just getting started.

I just didn’t expect these past few months to change so dramatically compared to last year.

The drawback? Am tired. I feel like I can’t keep up with the pace of life that moves around me.

My new sport keeps me out until 8:30 or 9:00 most nights of the week. When I get home from those long nights (call me old, but that’s basically my bedtime) I’m starving, the root of which is that I didn’t eat enough earlier in the day. After an afternoon of straight jiu jitsu training, I’m hungry. Eating right before bed leads me to wake up around 2:00 am, and once I’m awake it takes me a while to fall back asleep with everything running through my mind. Then, because of my work schedule, I roll over and wake up at 5:30.

Week after week, I sleep less than seven hours. And this girl needs her beauty sleep.

My attention feels divided every day: church obligations, two sports communities, friends, family, work, this blog, and PCT preparation. I’m getting a little tired.

I’ve also noticed that I don’t present myself to people as well as I would like. When I’m with friends, I feel distracted and unfocused, and my conversations often revolve around the same things: my schedule, the road, what I think I want to do next. I feel selfish not being able to fully focus on the person in front of me or ask them deeper questions about their lives and endeavors.

Lately I feel completely dysregulated: restless, overstimulated, as if my internal balance is upset. I feel like I can’t find my footing on a ship sailing through an ocean of deeply satisfying things. My mind is in constant movement. It stems back to jiu jitsu and what I’ve learned. Then you get into the trail and how challenging and rewarding it will be. Then it goes beyond the trail, to the life I imagine afterward and the possibility of those dreams changing completely.

I plan on teaching English abroad in the next few years. I think about returning to jiu jitsu. And then I wonder if I’ll want any of those things when I get back. Will my desires change to something else? Will I meet someone along the way who presents me with a completely different opportunity? Will I move to another state? Will I return home the same person?

Will I even come home?

I feel like I haven’t been able to find balance since the beginning of the year. This contrasts with the total stability of last year. Just a few months ago, I was regularly making dinner, reading before bed, learning languages, and intentionally spending time with friends. I was hoping to keep that pace this year.

That stability has completely collapsed and I know the culprit.

Jujitsu.

Jiu jitsu is beautiful, frustrating, humbling, and deeply rewarding. It’s also something I’m not willing to give up. Maybe some of this enthusiasm is simply its newness, but I don’t think that’s the whole story.

So for now, I’m just dealing with it until I say goodbye to my job, when my schedule frees up. I eat earlier in the day even when I’m not hungry, take shots of apple cider vinegar at night to avoid midnight wake-ups, and cut back on TV and music time to calm my mind. My thoughts feel scattered and stretched, but I’m doing my best to stay on track where I think I should go.

There is only one month and one week of work left. Then I can fully concentrate on tying up this life here in my small town: the life I will leave behind for the PCT and to which I will likely return changed.

Maybe this pull in all directions is just the pre-calm storm I’ve been chasing since last summer at Dad’s, when I began to understand the value of discomfort.

Maybe I’m not supposed to feel calm right now. Maybe this stretch of exhaustion and uncertainty is part of loosening my grip on the life I know so I can take a step toward the one ahead.

For now, I’m just trying to hold my ground through this: tired, anticipating, and moving forward anyway.

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