“The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.” –George Bernard Shaw

For the last two years of my life I have dealt with a crazy series of ups and downs in all facets of my life (relationships, family, health, work, etc). However, no matter what was going on in my life, the one constant that always brought me solace and peace was cycling. It didn’t matter what up or down I was going through, the road was my sanctuary and free from anything external. It was as if, for the most part, the emotions of my everyday life just had no place out on the rides with me. Cycling truly was my heaven on Earth, until recently that is…

For the last week I have been dealing with something in my personal life that made me feel as if the air was sucked out of me. I am not even 100% sure why this situation hit me so hard but it did and my heart feels like it is quite literally broken into tiny pieces. I have racked my brain to try and process what made this hit me the way it did and I haven’t come up with much of an answer. I kept thinking that, if I keep riding, at least that time would be free from the emotional pain that has lodged itself deep into my being. I was wrong; boy was I ever wrong… The pain and the heartache have followed me right on to the road and infiltrated my safe place in a big way.

It is such a disheartening feeling to wake up on ride days and not want to get up and ride… Cycling was the one thing out of everything in my life that I always woke up looking forward to doing. I still make myself get up (earlier than usual) and I have been making myself ride further even on weekdays hoping that something will click into place but it hasn’t. There is this terror inside of me that the joy that I felt on my bike is gone. I can’t bring myself to believe that it’s gone; actually I won’t allow myself to believe that. My whole 30 mile ride this morning was full of a blankness of feeling of some sort, not the good kind of peaceful blankness but a sort of confused and lost blankness.

Those who know me know that I don’t do well with not knowing things but, unfortunately, that is all that I am left with. I keep hoping that it was all a nightmare that I will soon wake from and that I will go back to feeling good and happy but I know that isn’t the case. I find myself praying a whole lot more these days too… There is a constant repetition of Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” in my head. Logically I know that I have overcome so many bigger things and so much emotional pain to rise above but the emotions I feel now are fresh and the wounds are wide open and trying to tell myself logical things doesn’t help heal/close up those wounds any quicker. Apparently, not even riding can do that right now…

But still I ride… I ride in hopes that I will feel better or that I will feel anything other than lost and confused really. I ride continuing to hope that eventually clarity will strike or that eventually the pain will lift off my heart and once again allow me to be free, to be the me I had come to be. I ride to be one with the thing that had become my passion, my soul’s savior. Instinctively I know that the storm does not last forever and that eventually the rainbow will appear in the sky but, for right now, only clouds are visible in the distance. I may have lost my mojo for a moment but I know that it is not gone forever and that I will overcome and persevere as I have always done in life.