I have to admit I miss riding in the rain. Yesterday would have been a perfect ride in the rain. Not too cold, and steady light rain, never letting up to the extent that it would have been simply messy and not a “real” rain ride.
I had that feeling, Wednesday night, what it was like to anticipate heading out into the elements when everyone else would be inside, nice & warm & dry. Having an excuse for not riding fast. Having different reasons to think you’re suffering than just lungs that don’t work. Not thinking about how fast or even how far, but just… how long. The importance of keeping things steady so you don’t run out of gas and get cold.
In a saner state of mind, I decided not to get the rain bikes ready for action this year, thinking I’d be spending any wet and really cold day on a trainer. That’s the problem with letting a saner state of mind dictate your future. I allowed that saner state of mind to literally lock out the opportunities for being stupid.
I might have do a bit of refiguring things, because I’m not sure my current electrically-heated gloves are up to the task. They’ll likely soak through and might short out, and that would be a really bad thing. But I’ve got to get away from fear of really bad things and instead embrace and prepare for them. That’s what makes life interesting. Evolution, this idea that as you get older you learn and adapt to better ways of doing things, is seriously over-rated and limits your potential. It leads to a downward spiral with less exploration, less wonder at amazing things that a saner person would think beyond their grasp.
How, at nearly 69, do you escape such thinking? My hands are really the single biggest issue. That and a bit of what might be described as inherited mortality, thinking about my wife’s Stage 4 cancer and the limitations is places on her and the adaptations needed. I may have allowed that to legitimize that sort of thinking for myself. It’s 100% appropriate for my wife. It’s 100% appropriate (and acceptable) for most people. But accepting limitations, for me, may be the equivalent of death by a thousand paper cuts. Each little choice seems reasonable at the time, but they add up to the death of adventure, spirit, out-of-the-box thinking.
I accept that my normal (past) way of viewing things, like riding in the rain, would have been considered seriously out-of-the-box for most people, and they, likely, think I’ve finally grown and joined them. I’m going to try and keep that from happening. If I ever retire, or even work fewer hours, there should be more opportunities to knock off ridiculous things, bucket-list opportunities, and I’m becoming increasingly aware of what I’m willing to give up to make that happen. The idea of retirement is no longer something I’m trying to avoid. I need to work, hard, to make that happen so I can continue to be doing those stupid irrational things that keep my spirit alive. Within the confines of spending as much time with my wife as possible.
