Personal Journal

I live for this shit

It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn

I went for a bike ride today. Let me get to that later, because as is always the case, bike riding isn't about exercise, it's about going to church, thinking about the meaning of my life, listening to what god is saying about where the formerly "Pathless1" should be going.

On the way to my start point in the truck, I saw another fox. I saw one Thursday too. Foxes, everywhere I turn. I haven't seen this many foxes in the entire 10 years I've lived here as I have in the last 3 weeks.

This is what I realized:

In the year 2000, I quit smoking. I dedicated my life to trying to get healthy. That included cigarettes, trying to find a way to get out of my marriage, I started bike riding that year, I tried to teach myself how to move toward being both the person I wanted to be, and a better person that I had ever been before.

In the year 2001, I devoted myself to the bicycle. Those were my most intense days of riding up to that point. Five days a week, never two days off in a row, ride as hard and as fast as I could, and get better at the trails that were forcing me to crash.

In the year 2002, in February, I hurt my back. I dedicated my life, albeit insincerely, to trying to get better with my back. I had to stop riding. My marriage disolved, for which I was thankful, and I started reading the journal of an amazing woman called Free Association at FOD. The latter half of that year, I dedicated my life to trying to bring this amazing woman into my life, and succeeded.

In the year 2003, I dedicated my life to trying to make my life with Jean as successful as possible. I was digging holes in the backyard in April, 5 months after my back surgery. We planted things, we decorated. I tried to show her how all of my life was open for her to touch, to influence, to grow with and into.

In 2004, we all know what I dedicated my life to. Again, that wonderful woman. Who was dying. I'd rather not summarize that anymore.

It's 2005. It's been 4 months since I was able to let go of the awesome pressure I was under while trying to be Jean's caregiver, lover, and whatever else I might have managed to do.

I've been walking and hiking since late January, maybe mid. I've been on my bike perhaps 10 times, not even that many, this year.

My back is all but recovered. Seemingly overnight. Last year, I tried to ride maybe 3 times, and the sciatic nerve pain was not worth the effort. Today, no pain. Almost none, certainly nothing that will keep me off the bike again later this week.

Today the weather was 65 degrees at the apex of my ride. Today I rode like a stallion galloping across an endless field. With strength, with confidence, with power, with endurance, with joy in my heart and peace in my mind. Thirty-five miles in three hours, and the child in my heart was gleeful.

I drove home after the ride and I remembered:
I live for this shit.
It is everything I need out of life in one act. I pedal, I breathe, I dig deep inside my body for strength that generally comes easily there.
I came into the neighborhood, and I thought to myself, "I could not be happier."

And then I remembered Jean. I could be happier if I had Jean to come home to, to tell this wonderful story about today's ride.

Then I hear the voice inside my head say "Silly! I already know about it. I was there with you. Every mile. Every hill. Every breeze, I was there, and I too am overjoyed."

I don't believe that my back is SO much better just because. I improved after surgery, yes, but that was 2 years ago. I could not ride in the 2 years since. Until Jean died.

I know that she follows my life, and I know that she takes care of me. And I know that she is responsible for the absence of pain when I ride now. No one could ever tell me differently.

She wants me to be happy, and she knew that if I could ride again, I would be. She made it so.