You can talk all day about your bigshot deals made over sushi and how you schooled those bureaucrats down at headquarters, but none of those accomplishments mean a thing when you are unloading your bike from your vehicle down at the trailhead and you bump into a friend lean as a piece of rebar. Sure, he has regrets too, or one hopes so, but being slow will never be one of them. That is your regret alone today, or at least in this parking lot. So you rationalize your choices, and you chuck yourself on the arm for keeping that blood pressure down. You take a moment to count your thousands of blessings–your beautiful partner, your apricot poodle, getting that damned deck pressure-washed and sealed, reconciling all of those receipts, nephews and nieces, a rock-solid van, and moving that blog to WordPress. You kick ass buddy!
But- those are all just the saccharin song mewling voices of weakness uniting in a choir of shame while your buddy, and Lord knows he ain’t perfect, but there he sits a few hundred miles of riding into his month while you try to catch a quick 7.5. He maintains eye contact, no telltale glances to the midriff and why won’t he? Just one reason to hate his guts. To literally hate his glossy-entrailed, sinewy guts for his sneering pride would be so helpful, but there is nothing but love there, and you manage to laugh together, all three of you, as your other buddy contemplates his own status, mercifully and safely in the mean on this equation. Ha ha ha! We laugh about riding bikes and not riding bikes, and everyone knows the score here. Bikes. We like them. So off he goes on a road rocket while you galumph into the woods like a bear at hibernation weight, your over psi tires sagging into the sand. During your brief and painful ride you have some epiphanies- about commuting, more big deals over sushi, and how you don’t work for things, you work for the mission man, and that doesn’t ever need to change. So pivot bro, make the necessary adjustments, ride somewhere and write something that will let you show your pixelized face to Reverend Dick and the rest of your circus friends.
Juancho
The tide goes out the tide comes in. Last year
Was a good crop, this year, too much rain.
I have been on both sides of this perspective.
You will make a decision, and get back to fight
form.
Your pen still works.
The Rev is near the upper end of a spectrum I’ll never achieve and don’t care to,lonely *up* there. The man you speak of might be on the other end and I probably have been there.. but perhaps he is really somewhere around the middle? Mediocre? No. Committed? Yes, what you said, “…. you work for the mission man”. And for me that puts you at the high end of the other spectrum….the Big world spectrum. And…. like Terry said , you write good shit!
Ahh, there’s always someone faster, and someone slower. Someone 25 who can do contortionist yoga poses and and stand on his head. Someone to hate even though we love him. Unless you’re the eldest sibling, and then you don’t notice any of those others.
If you were also a few hundred miles of riding into your month, then your deck would be rotting and your beautiful partner would be living along with less you. There is much to be said for building blessings and balancing life. The fatter I get, the better I rationalize.
My deck is rotten and my wife makes the most of the ride report. Relish your illusion and the season of courage it offers, even if it never quite covers the bill.