Reveal the Path

I watched the cheesiest cycling movie last night and cried.  Ha ha.  WHO AM I?

I'm there.  For the first time in my life I have less words and more to do.

"If we open ourselves up to the path we can experience so many more things.  Sometimes we are overtaken in our lives with the target ... Let's just be in this moment, let's just experience each other and you know, grow from that. "
                                                           - Some old Scottish guy with a cycling cap on

Year in Review

2012 was a bumpy rocky stretch of time peppered with tiny but mighty rays of light throughout.  I lost a lot this year, but, at the risk of sounding cheezmo, I gained so much.  As my most important relationship to date came to a close I chose to explore my self in ways I never really could before.  Sometimes I wasn't very happy with those explorations, but they all led me to somewhere new.  I learned a lot about sucking it up and just doing it (whatever IT is) this year.

I met some people who really inspired me to change my life and who changed my life by just allowing me into their world.  I took trips! I made tough decisions!  I was present when I didn't really want to be.  I said no, which for me is one of the hardest things to do.  I also, said yes, which is only slightly easier (haha).  I hope to keep up my spirit for adventure.

I'm not under the impression that 2013 will be easy, but as a result of the rigors of 2012, I believe I'm better equipped to handle whatever is thrown my way.  I'm poised for more change and discovery.  I don't think I'd change much about 2012, except for all the people that left me too soon.  Well, maybe my car hood flying off and depleting my savings, but there are lessons in that too, ha ha. I feel like a new woman.

I would like to give cycling and the great people and challenges that go with it an honorable mention.  I'm not so sure I would have come through the tail end of this tough year nearly as content without my bike. Cycling is a deep well I am only beginning to dip into.  As a thanks my top new years resolution is to ride every single day in 2013.  My other resolutions?

1) Prioritize.  I have always sucked at this.
2) Make more, consume less.
3) Give yourself the credit you deserve.
4) Do things with more intention. (this one is so vague but it means a lot to me)
5) FINISH NURSING SCHOOL!

Christmas Part Deux

My family is notorious for not really caring about the holidays.  I've always set my standards pretty low so I won't get disappointed (I should stop that habit, but that's a whole 'nother post).  My holidays are usually supplemented by my boyfriend's and my best friend's family which more than fill my holiday quota.  This year's Christmas was super weird and I tried to be all cool and not care, but truth be told I was a little bummed this year.  No boyfriend, so no boyfriend's family to make me feel all warm and loved.  No sister, cause she's mid life crisis(ing).  Work on Christmas day so no best friend family to stuff me full of food and ask me medical questions.  I think the highlight of my holiday was probably falling asleep with my lil sis in her bed watching Garden State.  We were bummed together and talked about the forward momentum of time and how things are always changing so you really have to just enjoy it while it's happening and try not to dwell on the change.  I'm getting better about this.  But sometimes I don't want to.  I got to stop acting like a brick when I'm really just a cushy pillow.

Luckily last night A. brought over pheasants he hunted that morning (wut) and we had an impromptu Victorian Christmas that unexpectedly turned into a party full of people that made me feel all warm and fuzzy and full of good vibes.  I hope it's an indicator of NYE and the year ahead.

First Snow

“The greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses; people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. ‘Good for you’. Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few friends these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms, she rewards passionately.”    The Rider Tim Krabbe 

Me, like the cold?  

The Weight

Comically unsteady riding through Chicago with 30lbs of groceries on my back somehow helped me feel lighter.  Funks are a funny thing.

I also got a surprise text from B: I'll be in town late tonight.  Well that's just great.  Good food in my belly and good friends in my presence.  What do I have to funk around about?



Also, I could listen to this song fifty times in a row and not get tired of it.  Have an awesome day.

Once you take away the blood and guts, what have you got?

That's right, a pile of firing synapses and a rickety skeleton.  Now that my brain isn't filled to capacity with memorizing the procedural points on chemo efficacy and theories on death and dying I'm left with a grand chasm.  I'm trying to think of nothing and everything and it's making me feel, well, weird.  Laying awake at night I feel overwhelmed.  I'm trying my best to be the river and my thoughts the debris passing through my sheds, but we all know how that goes.  I'd like to send my brain to the central department for orderly processing, or maybe I just need some sunshine.  Counting down the days till west coast adventures.

A Tale of Two Pockets

I hate when internal struggles manifest themselves physically.  What I'm saying is, I hate when I get all noodly.

Woman of Leisure, Sort Of...

I wish I was always on holiday break.  This is just too good.

Children and Grief - An excerpt

5-9 Years: Children in this age group may hide their feelings to avoid appearing babyish, to protect others from feeling sad, or if they are unable to tolerate the pain of grief.  Death is seen as possible, but the child continues to see themselves as invincible.  These children often seek out very concrete information about the death, although they also have a strong fantasy life that they use to make everything as it was before the death.  Symptoms include regression, crying, anxiety, headaches, stomachaches, denial of death, hostility toward the deceased, inability to concentrate, and bad dreams.

SC said when her and her fiance called it off she just had to pretend he died and deal with it that way.  And what if you run into him?  Would it be like seeing a ghost?

Contemplating grief while in a good mood on a dreary winter afternoon while listening to Tonstartssbandht (happy sad music).

My earliest memory of grief and death was about my cockatiel Buddy dying.  I don't remember much about the process except making myself as small as possible and lodging myself between the wall and my bunk bed.  I must've stayed there crying for hours, finally my Ma found me and told me I was being ridiculous.  It was just a bird honey.  Grief is an out of body experience for me, I always just want to lodge myself between a wall or an armpit for fear of expanding into nothingness.  I don't know.  I certainly couldn't handle being a pediatric nurse, ha ha.  I suppose either way in my line of work I should get used to the grief process.  When L dies I don't want to go to her funeral.  I will, because that's what you do, but funerals are for the living not the dead.  Of course it's the living people that make dealing with grief such a heartbreaking work.  This is your life with a hole in it.  This is your life without me, deal with it, cause you don't have a choice.  And you just carry on and not let your grief become complicated and drawn out, but when that happens you think of the person or thing you loved less and less until you don't really think of it at all and if you are lucky you can fill that hole with something in its stead.

Loop Conducting Ya'll

Cheesy, but interesting video about triggering traffic lights on your bike.  I always thought the triggers were a myth! Myth busted.  Also, Richmond seems like an all right place to live.