Unconditionality

There's a lingering melancholy on the last few days of a training camp.

Conversation around dinner markedly slows down, all tired from the cumulative fatigue of the past week and a half. The remaining rides to be ticked off the training plan, adding up to another couple hundred of training kilometres, seem like an insurmountable obstacle, so clearly all are already longing for home. And even if by no means as cold as back in the continent, the days, not as warm as when we first landed, contribute to more introspective moments under the blankets or with a hot beverage by the couch. The hours drag by.

- - -

They hugged and said goodbye, he walked to the next tube station, she continued on to her hotel - both had flights to catch the next day. He could barely sleep that night. Watching the sunrise the next morning, it dawned upon him that which, carried away as they strolled around Leicester Square enjoying a gelato, he had perhaps not even noticed: he really had no choice.

- - -

Flying home, one can look back and realise, hard and long and tiring as they were, all it took to accomplish whatever goals were set was a certain drive, perhaps motivated by the reassurance that such journeys are, in the end, always worth undertaking. In this case, leading one to get out of bed in the morning, fuel up, and, throwing a leg over the saddle, ride off onto the distance. "To meet one's destiny", however filled with drama, doesn't quite convey all there is to is: accepting, and resolutely carrying through with that which must be ultimately done: life is much simpler once certain alternatives are removed, whether forcefully or voluntarily, from its intricate equations.

- - -

2017 starts now. There's a lot of excitement from plans and unknowns, but also - the other side of this concept, physically cast as irreversibility: thermodynamics always has the upper hand - a feeling that time, slowly but surely, is steadily ticking away.

Here's to making the best of it, no matter what: unconditionally.