And so it goes…

I just took a week off my bike.  Yes, please hold your applause.  Hold your gasps of shock and disbelief.  I just did it.  I don’t know how I did it, but I did it.  Wholeheartedly and completely.  Disbarring a broken pelvis, I couldn’t tell you the last time I have done that, if ever.  Or, if I have, I have tried to block it from my mind.  It is traumatizing to spend a week off of your bicycle.

I needed it.  My body told me I needed it a month ago. This was the first time I have ever felt that desperation to throw my bike (although I love her dearly) aside, and just focus on me.  Focus on the parts of me that don’t pedal a bicycle.  Unfortunately, a month ago was not the time to do this brash move.  I had Nationals and NVGP.  Things to do, and pain to feel.  Unfinished business.

This past week, I never had to question what “normal” people did off of their bikes for a week.  I was actually too busy.  I was too busy, trying to regroup, refresh, and re-energize.  It was my time to return phone calls, to think, to process, and to avoid all of that as well.  I could just sit.  Just work.  Just be. I could write incessantly, and then delete everything I just wrote.  I could think and stew, and then zone out.  I could avoid it all, or face it all head on.  It was my time, and my time only.  Granted, I do have a day job for a mobile development company, and I was able to work quite a bit this week and clock some hours…but there was still plenty of time in the day for everything else.  Beaches.  Hammocks.  Frozen yogurt.  Mobile MiFi is genius.

Happy 4th of July.  On this 4th of July, I will be able to ride my bike.  I will do this as an Independence Day of sorts.  I will let myself be free.  Ride my bike.  Ease back into the rest of the year, the rest of the season, and the rest of my life.  It is that time.

Every once in awhile it takes an adventure to sort things out.  And other instances, it just takes time.  If time is of the essence, then why not cherish it.  Take this holiday weekend and be with your friends and family.  Return that phone call or e-mail.  Or don’t.  While you can process all that you need to be doing, or not doing, I will be on my bicycle, for the first time since Nationals.  I will have a smile on my face and the warmth of the sun on my skin and the beauty of God’s creation flying by me.  It will be a good day.  It has been an adventure of a year so far, and I can’t wait for the rest.  But it will come when it does.  For now, it is about building and channeling what I have left.  Big things to come.

Happy 4th of July.  Happy first half of the season done…and boy, was that an adventure.

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