Many days have passed since we started this quarantine; for me, the voluntary confinement, its not new at all, I have been like this for many years now, so the quarantine only brought noice from the neighbors and because of that my self confinement became torture. I am of course exaggerating but actually, how could I define this sudden and invasive change to my solitude?
I started biking when I was around 7-8 years old. Since kindergarten I have discovered that life on two wheels was my thing. I had a plastic motor bike, a toy of course, because Power Wheels weren’t yet invented or they weren’t available in Mexico or they just went under my radar, and the first race I participated was organized by the kindergarten people. For some reason I’ve always had in my head that I won but apparently it wasn’t so. Anyways, I found something that since then has given me countless adventures.
I cannot remember if the first bike I hoped in had training wheels or it’s just a trick of my imagination – so many times my imagination tricks me with things from the past – but what I do remember clearly was that once I learnt how to ride that’s all I wanted to do. First time I tried with no training wheels was at home, at the back yard. I was alone at home and so I took the opportunity to venture my self and try not put my feet down for about 10 meters with a slight slope. After 3-5 successful attempts I decided it was time to try outside.
The bike I started at home was 16″ or 18″ and the one I took outside was 24″. Of course I ignored the order to stay inside the house because I was alone. By the way, I’ve never listened the don’ts. It was so much the happiness I was having that when my family came back I didn’t care they saw me outside and I guess they didn’t either because no one yelled at me to go back inside, I wasn’t scolded either. Maybe they knew it was worthless, it wasn’t the first time that I was said to not leave the house and yet they had found me out.
The bike has always been, and probably it will always be, my way of running away. I guess I run away of my own frustrations and foolishness. We all have those two things and some times we have that so grown into our lives that it’s quite hard get rid of them. Personally my foolishness have prevented me from achieving some foals and my frustrations are like my brain that reminds me about how fool I’ve been. So going out and ride it’s my CTRL + ALT + DELETE that at the end helps me to move forward just a bit.
One of my current frustrations, and that does not go away when I ride, is that I can’t jump like I used to do a few(many actually) years ago. Since I knew the real reason of my lower back pain the list of activities have become really narrow and to be honest with me it has hurt and depressed me in the inside.
Around a month ago I tried to jump like the old days and I felt a compression in my lower back that I’ve never had felt before, that reminded me of my herniated disc and that time I didn’t had my reset, just a long breath and an even longer silence. Bad habits, my hard head that never wanted to listen the don’t do it finally caught me and they just’ve said: we told you so.
So this quarantine, the time that I’ll consider as the voluntary confinement with unwanted company, I have fought with my self like never before. A daily struggle in which I haven’t won any single day, and there have been days where I don’t even move a finger for my self to fight back my own mental issues. But.
There is my bike, Conchita, my space ship, telling me that everything will be fine, that I have to take baby steps, go to my own pace, one two, big cog and well hydrated to avoid cramps and eventually I’ll be able to ride like before and that I may not jump like before but I need to remember that you don’t have to be jumping around every time to enjoy the ride, because riding in it self it’s the real candy. Just like in life, living it is the essential and the rest is just vanity.
