As time elapses from my summer health scare, I'm afforded the opportunity to look back on it through a clearer and clearer lens. The first week I was home, I was very emotional about it and the decisions I was making reflected that. This is one of the reasons I had waited so long to write about it and the reason why I tried to push any decisions I had to make into the near future. Can you really blame someone for that though? Why make an emotional decision that you may later come to regret because you were too impatient to wait, all while knowing that you were in a very emotional place. In the moment, you don't realize just how emotional you are or how hard the events you experienced have actually hit you. It was only on the suggestion by my wife, who told me to look out for it, that I ended up trying to push decisions or conclusions. For example, while in the hospital, I had turned to her at one point and said, "I'm done with Jiu Jitsu. I can't do it anymore. Not with this disease." After all, this would be the second time that colitis had hammered me and caused a break in training. This last time, I had given everything I had to try and get my purple belt. I was months away from getting it. Something that meant the defeat of my disease (in my mind - this is kind of silly looking back at it) and my disease clobbered me into the hospital. I had fought through a flare to train up until the point where I wasn't sleeping at night, making training impossible, and it still hit me hard enough to cause that opportunity to go up in smoke. I was devastated.
Yet, in that low moment, where I had decided to hang it up for good, my wife turned to me and said, "Hold off on that decision. You're tired, you're hurting, and you are angry." Those two sentences snapped me back to reality to realize that I was being emotional and hurting on several levels and maybe I should just see where the future takes me.
Two months later and I'm not yet back to training full time. I've been to one open mat in that time period. While that open mat went better than I expected, I still paid the price for days after and it showed me that I wasn't quite back to normal. A few months ago, this would have been unacceptable. After the hospital stay though, it was quite all right. I found myself sparring/rolling differently at this open mat. It was less competitive (on my end) and more exploratory. I was trying to remember what I knew and attempting new moves that I had been working on before getting sick. I didn't care about tapping out like I had before and it was a true learning experience. I started to understand a hobbyist mindset after living my first thirty five years making everything a competition. It was enjoyable, but at the end of the day, I knew I wasn't where I needed to be to find myself back on the mats training again.
The experience got me to thinking what my future is in the sport. Yet, the more I think about it, the more I end up at the fact that I just don't know. I've finally seemed to grow comfortable with the idea of not knowing and just adapting to the situation ahead of me. With respect to Jiu Jitsu, I used to be ironclad in my resolve that I'd get my purple belt this year, I'd get back to the competitive scene, fight my way through the next couple years and walk away with a black belt. This is all very ambitious and nothing wrong with it, however, my focus has shifted on the fact that if I can do the hobbies I would like to do, then that is a victory. If I am a forever blue belt hobbyist in Jiu Jitsu, I'm happy. I've learned that the community built within Jiu Jitsu is enough to keep me happy as opposed to achieving belts that only mean something to other practitioners. Will I be back to Jiu Jitsu? I do hope so. When? I have no idea. My body will dictate that. My recovery will dictate that.
Yet, this hiatus has caused a different problem in my extra curricular life. I am not the kind of person to sit still and just watch movies or play video games. Don't get me wrong, I do those things, but they do not make up the bulk of my time. I need to keep busy but also need my hobbies so that I can recoup from work and my PhD. This means that I have to adapt. Previously, when I couldn't go to Jiu Jitsu, I became like a caged dog. I'd be angry, overly energetic, and just miserable to be around. I realize this is because Jiu Jitsu was my sole outlet and that was a problem. I was not adaptable to my circumstances. Recognizing this, I've been able to pick up a few more hobbies. I've always had music as an outlet, but the lack of physical exertion made it subpar to me. Emotionally, yes it is excellent, but I still have all this built up energy. I recently got into Warhammer 30k. Where you paint miniature armies and play against someone in a form of what I view a 3D chess. Again, very mentally stimulating and relaxing, but the physical exertion is not there. So where has that left me?
Well, I have that bodybuilding journey I have previously spoken about. That has kept me quite busy the last eight to nine weeks. I am progressing well and really enjoying it. I am seeing results and will have more to discuss on this in the near future (including one of those new experiment-based articles I spoke about last week - I'm really excited about this). But there's more. I was finally able to get back to airsoft. It was something I was hesitant to do. Go out into a forest with a bunch of other people and play pretend war for hours on end with limited access to a washroom. It sounds like a complete nightmare to someone with IBD. However, I am at a point where I am confident in my recovery. Last weekend I attempted airsoft.... And it was okay. It was actually fun. Being able to run through the forest, to strategize and adapt to situations evolving around you. It was like Jiu Jitsu in a team setting and I'm hooked. It's a blast and while it doesn't necessary simulate Jiu Jitsu or the things that draw me to Jiu Jitsu directly, it fills that void. I plan on continuing to play airsoft and, hopefully, I will start to reincorporate Jiu Jitsu as I recover more.
All this to say that the athletics in Athletics for Life isn't going anywhere. I believe physical activity, fitness and sport is essential to health and there needs to be some component of it in your life, especially if you are battling a chronic disease. There may be a bunch of sports or activities that you cannot do, but you need to find what works for you in the moment. You need to be adaptable as things change. Having different outlets, different ways to stay active, and different pathways to accomplish your goals. If you don't have these things, if you are not adaptable, your disease will find a way to win. At the end of the day, you are fighting a war against your disease. It is essential to adapt and overcome. And I, for one, will not be letting my disease win any time soon. I might have setbacks, I may have a small defeat here and there, but I will win the war.
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