Katrina Garsten

For the entirety of my adult life, I have not planned anything in my personal life more than 6 months ahead of time. Things change too rapidly, IME, to actually consider things happening beyond that window.

About two years ago I had two really disappointing things happen that further reinforced the idea in my head that everything is extremely fragile can go wrong even when (especially when?) you think you're doing everything (as much as you can?) right.

I think this put a hard cap on the amount of enthusiasm or happiness I have for anything for the past two years. It's a combination of questioning my own judgment and also soberly recognizing that there are a huge number of things that I have no control over.

Last year I had another disappointment - not as crushing as the ones from the previous year, but pretty upsetting - and it just reinforced it more. I think the only specific things I was looking forward to in 2020 were a number of organized bike events I could train for.