Dear Lance Armstrong,

You’ve been quoted recently saying you’ve had a bit of a rough week.  I’ll say.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to add to it.  Am I glad all the doping in the cycling world is coming to light?  Yes, yes I am.  I love the sport of cycling and I look forward to the day when I can love it for its purity.

I’ve read a lot of articles on you this week, Lance, and a singular thought keeps rising to the surface: Thank God I’m not famous.  I’m profoundly grateful I don’t live a life where my mistakes are broadcast to the world, where the publicity of those mistakes negates any good I’ve done.

Whether you doped or not, whether you lied about it or not, whether or not you deserve your Tour de France wins or not-frankly I’m not interested in being the judge on any of those fronts.  Judgement doesn’t birth healing.  Truth does.  I can’t attest to what the truth is in any of those situations, but this is a truth I know: LiveStrong has helped many of my loved ones who have battled the beast of cancer.  For that I’ll always be grateful.

It appears that you’ve hit bottom, although you said yourself last week that you’ve had worse days.  So perhaps this isn’t rock bottom, but I think it may be close.

I like what Anne LaMott has to say about grace and mercy.  “Mercy is that we don’t get what we deserve. Grace is that we get what we so don’t deserve.”  I wish you measures of mercy and grace this week because if I were in your shoes, mercy and grace are the things that would make me take a step in the right direction.

You’ve got a great opportunity to decide what’s next in your life and, frankly, I hope you’re looking up because watching you climb has always been exhilarating.

Kind regards,

Alicia