I don’t think I’d be the same if I didn’t cycle.
Objectively, it’s been a relatively constant and reliable form of transport for me since I was a kid. It’s gotten me to school, my first job, home from parties, across the country, through cities and to nearly everything I guess. It’s never really let me down? I’ve been hurt cycling of course, I don’t have a purely positive memory of it. Crashed a few times. Had my heart broken. Been soaked to the skin. Have wished I was doing literally anything else. I’d say it’s been the transport through literally every emotion I’ve ever had and probably most physical states too. There’s a list of good things of course but none of these are really the point. The act itself I associate with nearly everything that’s happened to me.
I’m absolutely terrified of forgetting about things and it’s probably my biggest fear, maybe because it feels so invetiable. A large part of how I spiritually connect to the world, and feel okay about living, is by thinking about things that have happened to me (or that I’ve done) in the past. Sometimes this is merely just wanting to feel something, good or bad. Obviously, I don’t think it’d really be healthy to remember everything that’s ever happened to you in a photographic kind of way. For me, at least, I’d find that overwhelming instead of comforting. A friend told me about a theory of how your body ‘keeps score’ of all the bad things that happen to you, taking a toll physically and mentally on you, sometimes without you realising it. Intended or not, it seems like a defence mechanism as we just can’t handle all those thoughts. But, the effect of all those things is still there. The other side of that is how I try to keep myself sane, I think your body remembers all the good things too. I know I can’t remember all the things that have made me who I am, but I can at least see the shadow of those things. Forgetting feels like stagnation and a lack of growth. Thinking about it this way, we’re all still changing even if we don’t feel like it. At least I tell myself this, I find it comforting. I like being a product of what came before, as maybe that means I’m still going in the right direction. Being an edgy atheist, when you’re younger, doesn’t help with coming to peace with the world around you and with yourself. I think, unknowingly it took a lot of my hope for the world away.
This type of wishful, optimistic thought is what I’ve come to understand as having faith in something. I’m here, living, right now, and I want to be optimistic about the future. I don’t see that I have choice in this. So, I like to put ink in my skin to remind myself of these sorts of affirmations. I know I’m going to forget them. Writing this, I know I can’t recall of every helpful way of thinking about the world and that does make me sad. Sad that forgetting will mean I’ll stagnate as person, maybe I’ll keep falling ever downwards. I know I’ll get depressed at some point and that fog will come over me. Reflection has been the only thing I’ve found that helps me get out of these slumps. The ink and notes to myself are helpful catalysts. Cycling is another. If I stumble out of bed in the morning, with a killer hangover, and cycle up the road, maybe it won’t make me feel better but I do understand more about how I feel. By accident, it’s one of the best ways I’ve found, of being mindful, of giving myself the space to think and feel. Being vulnerable and thinking about the past, present and future, with a bicycle underneath me, maybe a nice view and somewhere to go, helps me make peace with how I’m feeling. It’ll all work out if I keep doing that.