Steve Tilford

I’m not sure the title of this post is accurate. It has definitely been a strange year, especially the last couple months, but nothing that is really that far out of sync with what I’ve done my whole life. I am pretty surprised to still even be alive. I don’t mean from fracturing my skull, but just from the way I live. If you would have asked me 20 years ago if I was going to live another 20 years, I would have said probably not.

I’d say the same thing now. I hope I am wrong, like I was 20 years ago, but in worldly terms, it doesn’t really matter.

Not much good, at least so far, has come from whacking my head a couple months ago. One thing is I know how many true friends I have. That isn’t even counting the people I don’t know, but would like to. I know a bunch of people that really care for me, which is super important. I think I might have missed this without the injury. I know it now and appreciate it more.

A couple years ago I wrote a list of New Year’s resolutions. I guess it is just of list of things that I thought I should do to be more like who I’d like to be. The things on the list still need attention. At least from me. So I guess I’ll just repost it and hope that this next year I’ll be more mindful and attentive to accomplishing them. Here it is –

I’m not much into making resolutions. I try to live life without resolutions and try to solve issues and make decisions on a daily basis, thus no need for making promises to myself on the first day of the year. But, I’m going to try to come up with a list of things anyway, not necessarily promises, but things I’d like to address or do this year that I think will make my life more significant and happy.

1) Try not to be shallow or have preconceived notions about others.

2) Spend less time on a computer or looking at any screen for that matter.

3) Practice mindfulness: state of active, open attention on the present. I think this applies to above.

4) Race new races and travel to new places to race my bike, even though my results will suffer because of it.

5) Try to read more, books, not online.

6) Make a bucket list. (I doubt I’ll do this one, since I like I said above, I live my life in such a way that I cross things off the “imaginary” bucket list before I know I want to put them there.)

7) Ride my bike or walk more to do errands.

8) Address health issues even if it “interferes” with bike racing.

9) Listen to more live music.

10) Sleep more.

Have a safe New Year’s Eve and a Happy New Year!

Brian and I rode to Red Rocks yesterday.

I’m not in very good shape yet. It was pretty windy coming back and I was beat.

Trudi and Parker skiing up in Cable.

Tucker and Hawkeye excited about walking in the woods.

Dennis on his new fatbike.

Today is the start of a new year. Funny how us humans think that is important. At least some of us humans. There are for sure places in the world where today is just another day. People trying to subsist.

Not us Americans. We celebrate the start of a new year like it is going to reset all our problems, at least give us a chance to address them better. I wonder why that is?

Anyway, today is a good day really. I’ve just been doggin’. Walking Nic and Jack is always fun. More for them than me. Even though for me it is pretty enjoyable. It is nearly impossible to match a dog’s exuberance when they think they are going out to romp.

I have some toilet repair to do still, so the day isn’t a complete write off. It is going to be in the 40’s today, so I’m going to go for a ride too. I’m kind of setting around a 2 hour limit to rides now. I doubt that I’ll adhere to that if I was somewhere warmer. Actually, I have no intention to do that.

It is the start of a new year, which is something. Sort of special. For the dogs, it is just another day. The dogs are just doing their normal dog thing, much like the humans in less fortunate countries. If one thing, we should all understand how lucky we are. I am.