When the kids were little we took them on one of our many family fossil hunting vacations to Kemmerer, Wyoming. They have never let us forget this trip as there was no running water in the “campground” at the Quarry. While we dug for fossils the kids were left alone to play in the dirt by the camper. Being the great parents that we were we took them to the city pool to swim and shower off the dirt from the quarry. We thought this was a great idea along with eating cereal out of a box for breakfast. The kids didn’t seem that impressed with this trip after having spent the week before at Rocky Mountain National Park earning their Junior Park Ranger badges.
I’d never hunted for fossil fish before this trip and the quarry was loaded with them. I remember becoming quickly obsessed with just cracking one more plate in hopes that a complete fish fossil would be in it. Sometimes I was rewarded and there would be a complete fish. Most of the time it would be part of a fish or nothing at all. The main driving force was the hope that something wonderful was in the next plate and if I just tried one more rock that a full fish fossil would be there.
Treasure hunting took on a whole new life at the quarry that day and I then understood why Brian loved it. The promise of unearthing the past and finding life that had been encased in rock and hidden below ground for years was exciting and addictive. Everywhere I looked there was the possibility of finding a rare treasure. It was hard work and took patience and hours of chipping away to get the plate to open without ruining the fossil inside. We were covered in dust, dirt and exhausted but content and happily digging away.
The last few years of triathlon training and racing have been a lot like that trip to Kemmerer, Wyoming. Most of the time I feel alone out in the middle of a quarry with no water, dirty and full of hope along with disappointment. Training and racing can be really lonely, frustrating and also rewarding depending on the moment. Just like the fossil trip I’m continually chipping away in hopes that the treasure that I am seeking is in the next workout or race. I’ve come to see how the process of unearthing my potential has also stripped me down in a lot of other areas. In that process I became more vulnerable and unsure of who I was as a person and an athlete. There were times that just like a mislabeled fossil I assumed an identity that wasn’t mine because I’d come to believe that was who I was. The assumptions didn’t fit the evidence that I knew to be true and there was a huge disconnect. I struggled with feeling inadequate because I was unconsciously sabotaging everything that came my way because of this mislabeled identity. This then turned into a negative spiral that has been difficult to break out of. There was always the quiet knowledge this isn’t who I was fighting with what I’d come to believe was the truth when it really wasn’t.
Just like a fossil, I’m old and haven’t changed much over the years. I may have evolved in some areas but basically I am the same person that I’ve always been. My goals and dreams are the same things that they have always been. For an extrovert, I’m pretty private. My family and close friends know me better than anyone else. Since my accident they’ve been openly voicing their opinions about this mislabeled identity and asking when the real Rene was going to come back. During all of the hours alone training and going through journals and emails, I’ve revisited my purpose, my why and have started to take control again.
You may be wondering what was this mislabeled identity? At this point it really doesn’t matter any more. What is more important is reclaiming my truth and not letting anything take that away from me. The last few years that truth has been tucked away sitting in a box like a misidentified forgotten fossil. It has taken a lot of hard work, patience, and belief to chip away the matrix from the fossil and expose and name the treasure that was there waiting to be unearthed.
fitnfeistygirl 