Switching Gears In Life

The question I have on my mind these days is when do you let go of a good thing to pursue something better without fully knowing what that better thing looks like? You know there is another passion within you that is tugging at your soul, but how to get to it? How do you let go of your current passion, something that defines a large part of you, something that is comfortable, something that you love? At what point do you stop growing because you arent being challenged enough in that current state? At what point do you let go? You could be missing the next phase in your life...when and how do you make the change? These are certainly not easy questions.

These are the questions I face as I look beyond my career as a skeleton athlete. I am lucky to have a passion that I love just as much as my sport and that is wine. There is a special place in the world of wine that holds my soul and it is Barolo Italy. This is a truly special place in the world of wine that combines a unique combination of people, food, wine and passion that I have never seen duplicated in all of my travels. This is a place I MUST live for a portion of my life. When I choose to let go of sliding I will be headed to Italy to start a life that I know very little about, except that I will be doing what I love in a place that I love. For now my abilities and passion lie with sliding as an athlete, but as time continues I see a part of myself growing, and it is growing quickly, that yearns for something new. A new place, new people, new stimuli, new life. Every day my spare time is filled with reading about wine and teaching myself italian. I guess thats all we can do. PREPARE. Not just for what is in front of us now but for the other directions that we feel ourselves being pulled. If we are not preparing ahead of time for the next stage we might just miss it. HONEST introspection is critical. It will take faith, risk and planning. Follow your heart. Easier said than done.

My competitive nature and love for the sport of skeleton will make my eventual departure from the sport difficult, but paying attention to my heart will tell me when the time comes to switch gears. When I make this decision there will come a time every year when the feelings and scents of the cold air that usher on the sliding season will undoubtedly stir my emotions. And as the vines sleep I will feel a nostalgia for what was the last chapter of my life....and if im lucky it will signal a time to return to that world and coach other skeleton athletes to pass on the knowledge that I gained over the years. For even if you make a drastic change in direction in life you take with you what you left, whether you remain a part of that world or not. It is a part of you and will remain so forever.