Need I Say More?

Can a bike do that?

Breaking Through

Yesterday I went on a trikke ride, the first in a week. I went as far as my last trikke-trip. I still wanted to go farther, but I thought I had better not push it, so I stopped. Today I feel fine and ready to go again. My neck is pushed up against that glass ceiling.

Will it be today I break through my self imposed limitations? I keep bumping up against that imaginary limit and thinking that is all I'm good for. I have a new perspective today. I need to keep bumping up against that ceiling and I will eventually find a crack. After all, I am not trapped under water hoping to break through a wall of ice. It's just another goal.

I think trikking is a barometer into what is going on with my everyday life. Some days I can't get on the trikke, and then there are days like today when I can't wait to get out there and on that. I am aiming for the pier. It's about six miles round trip. Watch out for falling glass...

Sidelined

My knee started whining again last week. I don't know what I did, I was just innocently trikking. When I stepped off the Trikke I stepped into pain. It went from my knee, up to my hip and back down to my knee. I had to walk home on it, 6 blocks. It was hard to breathe my leg hurt so badly.

What happened? I have no clue. I didn't fall off my Trikke, didn't step on or off incorrectly. I have no idea what I did. But it sidelined me for a week, just when I was getting stronger and was pushing through to the next level.

I have been suspicious about this next level and how I fit into it. I seem to revisit the top of my highest level and am never able to break through to the next. Something happens and I find myself starting over, again and again.

I've recognized this pattern in other aspects of my life. I feel good, no, I feel great, and then I catch a cold. I'm down for a week and have to restart my fitness gains over again. It happened in my professional life way, way, back when I had one. I never broke my own glass ceiling. And especially in previous dieting attempts, I get down to a certain number or average and then I trip myself up, gain all the weight back, get frustrated, eat like a bear before hibernation and then hibernate. I hide until I get my fight back, and then the whole cycle starts again.

Stop! Stop I say! I want to do things differently this time. I know I can do things differently this time. I will do things differently this time. Admitting the problem is the first step, right? And so I plan on trikking later today. It has been only 7 days off the Trikke so I should be able to step back into the level I was at during my last ride. Right... ?

Look...

The Dreaded Question

It is easy reconnecting with people from my past with the latest technology. Thanks to Facebook, it is not just the alumni association that can keep up with me after years of being a ghost.

I get a thrill from finding a long lost pal. I also get a thrill out of discovering what they have done with their lives. Unfortunately the dreaded question follows, "what have you been up to?" They want to know the same about me.

The path I chose is far from traditional, even when the lack of marriage and kids is off the table. I remember that one decision that would forever change the direction of my future. In 1993, I called in sick and never worked again in my chosen profession. I was stripped of my executive status and for a year or so worked temp jobs where office skills weren't so important. From account executive to advertising director to answering phones.

It was a pesky major depressive episode. They don't call them nervous breakdowns anymore. It was the reason I called in sick that fateful day. Next was the nine years it took to get the meds right, then the next six years trying to get my fight back. We are talking 15 years of focusing on myself. Most don't choose that path, I was plunked down right in the middle of it.

I couldn't help myself one day, on Facebook. I looked up an old friend. I was taken by her success. I just had to comment on how happy I was for her. Her reply to me was "what have you been up to?" Innocent enough and yet how do I answer a question like that on Facebook, the Xmas newsletter of everyday living?

My "why trikkers are older" Theory

On the TrikkeTalk site I get a lot of info about trikkers including a survey of the ages of Trikkers. Most of them are in their 40s, 50s, even a 75 year-old trikker (bless her)! It makes me wonder why this "tri-bike" of the 21st century has not caught on with all ages.

My first thought is that trikkers are extra intelligent. It takes years to become as wise as we are. This makes us open to new ideas, willing to try new things. We are the baby boomer generation and getting older has a new face.

We want to stay active, so we work hard and play harder. Now there are powerful pills to keep us moving, when arthritis might have sidelined a previous generation. We also consider "play" to be important, a 21st century idea.

We are concerned about our health like no other generation. Trying to recapture our youth, or just trying to feel our best, is big business. We are concerned about quality of life. And we are not resigned to spending our senior years in front of the TV.

I think cost also plays a role. Many 20-something future trikkers just don't have the money to spring for a $500 fun machine like we can. But hey, it's five times the fun of a traditional bike, that 20th century idea of recreation and transport.

Trikkers are older because we are the forward thinking adults of the 21st century and we have the drive to try something new. We value our health and want to keep moving until we die. We are showing everyone that we can't be written off so easily.

I Picture

I Picture
my seduction
in slow motion.
I want to prolong your kiss,
I don't want to miss your tousle with my bra.
We'll tumble into bed
arms knotted, lips tied, tongues entwined.
I meant to say "no"
until you unzipped my dress.
Then I threw my "no" out the window
like a brick.

Even though we tear down clothing
we aren't really naked.
Like carpenters who work together
yet build separately
we move people in between us
like walls.

Doug

Doug buys our drinks at the Rex
after an eight-year absence.
He still wears topsiders and
drinks Chivas on the rocks.
The only difference --
his wife drinks with him.

We sat in the parking lot after work,
windows fogged, just talking.
I was 18 pretending to be 21,
and he was entering law school.

Doug comes over to tell me
how beautiful I am at 26,
and that he can't use his law degree.
His wife buys our second round and
tells him it's time to go home.
She looks at me as if I would steal her purse.