mental health day

The thing about cycling is that at some level I can stop thinking. There’s a poem I love by Mary Oliver, which I’ve probably quoted here before, that sums up something like this: walking in the snow changes nothing but makes everything better. (Yes, it was better how she wrote it.)

I took the rest of the day off after my appointment…felt totally wrung out and drained. I even slept for a couple of hours, which felt wonderful, going totally oblivious to the world. Then I rode out to the credit union to get my vanpool check, which was due today, dropped it off and rode back.

When I’m riding and either there’s some challenge to the terrain, or I’ve just been riding for a while, I can zone out and be totally in the space of hurtling down the road, feeling myself more in the wheels than in my head. I can’t quite express how much of a relief that is. This head of mine feels like it’s been a burden for too long.

I don’t know if I wrote this yesterday, but yesterday I wrote out a timeline of sadness, essentially, and there’s way too many years there. I’ve given away too much of myself to this.

I feel just a little hopeful. She reminds me of Stella from when I was at UPS, which is totally a good thing. (IIRC, Stella was the one who made me do the crayoned relationship chart, which I still have, because now it kinda cracks me up, even if at the time it was entirely too stressful.)

I also feel as if I’m dancing on some edge writing about all this here. After all, if you look for my name, this is what comes up: not just to old friends like Kermit and Heather (yes, Heather; maybe I’ll write about that tomorrow), but family (including the inlaws, who I love, but still) and colleagues. But I feel more right than wrong doing it, so for now, I’m going to keep at it.