Like a ghost in my own body.
Sitting in a cafe in Bloomington, Illinois, I’m hunting and pecking on my computer for what might be the last time for a number of days. I made it as far as Madison, Wisconsin which was really the final confirmed spot I’d plotted on this journey. Leaving early on Thursday morning, my heart weighed a million tons, as I pointed my whip southward and put my foot in it.
Thankfully, at some point between the last time I looked at my computer and today, Matt sent an email about love, and loss, and life, and ever maintaining forward momentum, and while that is all well and good with the written word, internalizing it to the core of ourselves, and learning to balance what we want, what we can have, and what, ultimately the universe will present to us is a different matter entirely.
I type these words with tears in my eyes, and potentially judgmental gazes surrounding me, but I don’t particularly care. As I replied to Matt, every page of this journey has been so intense that I feel almost as if I’ve been an outside observer to the entire thing. Like I’m watching a movie featuring someone else’s reality. The only thing I’m absolutely sure of is that I love the soundtrack.
Like the hammer, and it’s relationship with the nail, love and loss are forever inextricably linked.
In amidst all of these thoughts, I saw the following;
I’m a willing participant in this story whose role is ever-evolving. The only thing I’m marginally sure of is that (though sometimes it may not feel so), no matter what, as long as I live and breathe, it’s my hope that I’ll not vanish from it entirely.
Aug 17 Double Ferrari Athens Ga just do it
Beautiful read.
And now that I’ve just cried and ruined my blue eyeliner …
I’ve known I needed to get back on my bike, and soon. told myself today- next day off u need to get on the trail or will punch self in the face.
Now in fact I will most definitely get on that trail to push the reset button …and I dedicate that ride to u. Lots of love ?
Nice post. Glad you’re not vanishing any time soon.
Coincidentally, it was 21 years ago today that I was almost wiped out by an SUV while riding my bike (I mentioned the event when we traded battle stories that first/last time we met). I was just reminiscing with my mom—actually, she reminisced because I don’t remember anything from that fateful day (or the following month, or year, for that matter). She said that she admired my courage through the ordeal; I said, “It really wasn’t courage—it was mostly the brain damage, and partially the drugs. I just couldn’t grasp what happened.” She said, “Oh. Well, it’s good you couldn’t think about things too much, so you could just heal.”
Very true—thoughts are pretty destructive sometimes. I don’t recommend totally wiping your hard drive like I did—but I do highly recommend not thinking too much. Almost anything works better if you turn it off, then back on again. And of course, appropriate chemical intervention (PM me about that).
Sending no thoughts or prayers,
Wendy
I have a small piece of asphalt in North Carolina you are welcome to hug.
It’s neat that you can appreciate (and document) ( and share with people who care about you) the beautiful things that you come across, even when you’re in the midst of a miserable stretch.
Thanks for doing that. And thanks for having us along on this ride you’re on. I wish I could help.
<3 -DaveYeti
I like you.