These days, this “bike blog” seems to be more of a soapbox of unpleasantness and moaning sprinkled with some photos. The only reason I continue to do it is out of habit and that it gives me something to occupy my time. Sort of how masturbation and overeating (not at the same time, at least that I remember) got me through my teen years. The following contains a bit more of all that (the unpleasantness and moaning, not the masturbation).
This is a post that did not need to be written. At all. Yet here it is, go figure.
You’ve been warned.
Management
“It’s hell getting old.” – Grandma Helen
I remember when I hit the age of 30. “What’s the big deal? I thought. I was thinner than I had ever been in my life, happily married, riding my bike lots, and I was getting the itch to do some racing. In other words, I was having a good time and felt five years younger than my thirty years.
My middle thirties had me in the best shape of my life, I was so thin people would ask if I was ill, and I was having fun crappily racing my bike and pushing myself physically.
Then I hit my late thirties, and things seemed to go downhill fast. By 37 I got my first DVT, followed by briefly losing hearing in my left ear, that, with the help of some steroid meds, came back to about 75% along with some annoying tinnitus. By 40 I had my 2nd DVT, and my lifelong flirtation with depression was now in the heavy petting stage and increasingly less flaccid. That was when I finally fully committed to getting some help and Daddy’s Little Helper.
“Try to forget that nothing lasts forever” – Help the Aged, by Pulp
As I’ve mentioned here a few times through 2018, my 40s, thus far, have continued to be anything but kind to me in the aging department: a few years ago I had my third DVT, I’m on blood thinners for life, and I’ve gained about 50 pounds since my racing days. My lower back is fucked, my shoulder hurts when the weather changes, my knees crackle and pop, I eat way too much, drink too much beer, and I can’t stand the sight of myself in the mirror for more reasons than I have time to write.
“Want me to throw a little more fuel on this dumpster fire?” – Unknown Trump Whitehouse employee
My eye doctor warned me it was coming, and I poo-pooed him, but this week I had to pick up reading glasses. Shit. It’s like one day I could read normally and the next day—BOOM! Blurry A.F.
I’ve worn contacts since the 9th grade, and I can’t see shit without them. I can’t wear bifocal contacts because of severe astigmatism, so that means glasses. I HATE wearing glasses and plan to go kicking and screaming (or screaming and not seeing) as long as I can before caving.
I have a great wife, a great kid, and a cute dog. I live in a nice house, in a good neighborhood, we pay our bills and have fun. So, in the grand scheme of things, putting on a crap pair of $6.00 reading glasses is nothing, I know that. It’s just between the aches, pains, clots, pills, pounds, self-loathing, therapy, lack of a (creative) career, and feeling like my 20+ year love affair with riding my bike is about to end in an expensive backyard bonfire, having to put on a pair of shitty reading glasses to look at Twitter on my phone felt like another kick in my aged, low hanging man-junk.
However, like the 3 to 9 dumps I take each morning, this too shall pass. And like the indigestion I get after almost every meal, I will return.
Later.