Shelby Manning (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shelbycobra) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nexus_crossings2021-01-15 01:11 pm
shelbycobra) wrote in nexus_crossings2021-01-15 01:11 pm
Growing up is hard to do
Shelby re-enters the Nexus in a sort of fugue state; clearly distracted, or maybe it's just mopey given the day's news.
She'd found out in the afternoon that one of her longtime competitors, who also happened to be one of her childhood friends, was stepping away from full-time racing. It was news that broke Shelby's heart. She had known Marco since both were small kids running around the paddock, and the two of them had grown up together. He and his family had always been supportive of her career. Though it was his choice, knowing that he wouldn't be part of her daily life anymore hurt.
And then, of course, it reignited her insecurities about getting older and being the last girl left at the dance. Shelby would be 35 in three more months, and the people she had raced alongside were starting to get older too. Her other childhood friend was married now and his wife had just given birth to their first child. Her father had retired from the league five years ago. She was unmarried, had found out in the fall that she'd be lucky to ever have kids, and she was scared that eventually all the people she loved would be gone.
Or that she'd end up being left out in the cold...again.
With that on her mind, it's no wonder the door showed up again soon after she got back from paying Marco a visit at his house. She walks through it, thinking maybe she'll find a bar and get a drink, or maybe stop holding back the tears she'd been hiding when talking to him. Not wanting to get too emotional over something that didn't actually have much to do with her.
"What do you do when you start feeling too old?" she asks.
She'd found out in the afternoon that one of her longtime competitors, who also happened to be one of her childhood friends, was stepping away from full-time racing. It was news that broke Shelby's heart. She had known Marco since both were small kids running around the paddock, and the two of them had grown up together. He and his family had always been supportive of her career. Though it was his choice, knowing that he wouldn't be part of her daily life anymore hurt.
And then, of course, it reignited her insecurities about getting older and being the last girl left at the dance. Shelby would be 35 in three more months, and the people she had raced alongside were starting to get older too. Her other childhood friend was married now and his wife had just given birth to their first child. Her father had retired from the league five years ago. She was unmarried, had found out in the fall that she'd be lucky to ever have kids, and she was scared that eventually all the people she loved would be gone.
Or that she'd end up being left out in the cold...again.
With that on her mind, it's no wonder the door showed up again soon after she got back from paying Marco a visit at his house. She walks through it, thinking maybe she'll find a bar and get a drink, or maybe stop holding back the tears she'd been hiding when talking to him. Not wanting to get too emotional over something that didn't actually have much to do with her.
"What do you do when you start feeling too old?" she asks.
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“Probably the same thing I do now, but take it up a notch.” He shrugged happily. “I mean, they’re always saying ‘with age comes experience.’ Right? Why not put it to use!”
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Right now, she was only guaranteed four more seasons of racing under her current contract. And that presumed that she delivered results and that she stayed in one piece.
"How's the view from up there?" she quipped.
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He kicked his feet over the ledge, sitting up a bit. The bar was only a single story building, so it didn’t tower over the plaza the way some of the other complexes did. But Minoru still had to admit it was a pretty good view. That, and you could really see the almost-obscene number of chairs kept in that plaza space.
“You wanna see for yourself?” He asked. “If you’re good at straight vertical, the signpost is a cinch. There’s also a fire escape on the back side of the third building that way... but you’d have to jump between the roofs.”
He said all of that as though it were as normal as any other set of directions.
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So she shoves her hands into the pockets of her jeans.
"I'm realizing I'm almost 15 years older than some of the people around me," she says. "I'm a little closer to that plan for my future than I'd like to be."
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So Minoru hopped up on the ledge, jumped over to the signpost, and slid down the pole. (Athletics wasn't his day job, but it honestly could have been.)
"What difference does a number make anyway?" he asked as he hopped off the pole and onto the sidewalk. He gave a slight bow along with a polite introduction. "I'm Minoru, by the way. Pleased to meet you."
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She sighed. "It's just weird to see the people I grew up spending my life around are now moving on to other things. Makes me wonder if I'm going to be the last one left, or when it's going to be my time to step away. Because I really don't want to." If she'd wanted to be less active in her career, she would have taken the much cushier job that had been offered to her a few months ago, and focused on starting her family. Instead she'd prioritized her career over any kind of happily ever after.
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Of course, he was interested in learning what sport, and maybe even watching her in action. He did listen intently, though, as she described her situation. If most people retired because their skills were declining or they wanted to pursue other things, then it sounded like neither of those things had happened to her yet. But she was worried that they would, and when (not if) it would happen.
“I think the weird part is how much of that time you’re wasting trying to figure out when it’ll end instead of enjoying what you enjoy.”
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Shelby never spoke about it - none of them did - but everyone knew that they were one moment away from career disaster. Friends had lost their lives in races. Others had been injured to the point where they couldn't continue. She needed to be prepared for the afterward because it could happen at any time when you were hurtling down a racetrack at near 200 miles an hour. Hopefully she wouldn't need it, but she also couldn't be caught unprepared.
"I love what I do, and I'm happy to do it," she continued, "but this is just one of those times when it's hard not to get nostalgic. I've grown up with this friend of mine, been to his wedding, had dinner at his family's house, and now he's not going to be out there with me every weekend. I doubt he'll be far, but...it's still a change I didn't see coming. There have been a couple of those recently."
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“Well... do you have a plan?” He asked, honestly.
While living in the moment didn’t tend to bother Minoru, he’d been around his brother Isamu long enough to know that just having a plan alleviated a lot anxiety in most people.
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And an unspoken agreement with her best friend that he would help her start a family, but she wasn't going to say something that personal to somebody she'd just met. As if he'd want to hear about her health issues anyway. Shelby chuckles and shakes her head with a chagrined smile.
"Anyway. Don't mind me. I'm just nostalgically moping. It's too easy to remember when we were a bunch of teenagers just dreaming about doing what we do and now it's almost over. It's a weird time to be me. How are you?"
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For Minoru, a lot of that involved climbing on things. And then jumping off them. In very creative ways. (Which was actually not his day job. But it certainly was his passion.)
“I’m gonna try out for American Ninja Warrior this year! Isamu made me a submission reel and it got accepted. If I can make it through the city qualifiers back home, I’ll get to take on the course in Vegas!”
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Shelby chuckled. It didn't happen often, but sometimes IndyCar drivers got to participate in different opportunities outside of the sport. She had been content to cheerlead for her friends because she was not going to take that challenge on. She'd much rather have been part of The Amazing Race or something.
"If all goes according to plan, my career will be over in five more seasons. Then I'll go into coaching. I was supposed to be married by now and thinking of starting a family, but that...is way further off than I expected it would be."
Her career had trumped her personal life by a wide margin.
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A few tips from those who’d attempted it, even if second hand, could easily make a difference. This was one of his biggest dreams, and he wanted to do his very best out there.
“As if anyone’s really ‘supposed’ to be doing anything.”
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But at his question she paused. "Well, I didn't ask them a lot about it but it was pretty tough. My friend Tony, like I said, he runs some Ironman triathlons and is in incredible shape and it was a challenge for him. I couldn't pull that off. I have some mixed martial arts training, but that's on a whole other level."
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“Hey, if it wasn’t hard, it wouldn’t be such a big deal to finish it.” He nodded. Indeed, he’d watched the show enough times to know the odds were stacked against literally everyone. Especially as a rookie.