As the first winter of the pandemic approached, I bought a spin bike. I knew that without the gym, I would become a certified blob, and despondent to boot. One day, a neighbor strolled by and we got to talking. Turns out she had just bought a Peloton bike and was loving it. It further turned out that she could add me to her account as a family/friend member. She offered, I accepted, and I quickly became besotted.
I’ve always loved spinning. Spinning studios? Not so much. Who needs to be in a small room where a person yells at you as you grow deaf in the too-loud music? But on my sweet little iPad, the Peloton instructor is just the right size, and I get to choose the volume.
My favorite instructor is Christine D’Ercole, AKA CDE. She’s a national and international Masters-level gold medalist in track cycling. Needless to say, the woman knows about bicycling. When she leads a class, she’s actually coaching. I really really like that.
CDE is all about positive thinking. I poo-poo all that stuff, then find myself drawing on the little sayings or thoughts from class. Go figure. One thing she said resonated with me: choose a user name that will be “fire under your ass.” I chose mine, ID0n’tQuit, before all the lung stuff started.
Today I think that my new user name could be 1LungWonder.
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The bike has been a touchstone to sanity. It’s been how I, a genuine introvert, could cocoon apart from the rest of the household. It’s been music and movement and a boost on dreary days. Now it seems to be the place where I become conscious of the fact that I might have cancer. Where, locked into the pedals, I can’t outrun what’s coming. I can’t will the process, whatever it will be, to go faster. I have few choices about going through it– by that I mean, since I want to keep living, I will have to do some gnarly stuff. I might be able to choose which flavor of gnarly I experience, but it will not be a picnic.
The bike is the place where I have wept.
Today on the bike, Christine urged us to set a hard gear– almost harder than we thought we could manage. What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever faced? It struck me that whatever is coming may well be one of the hardest things I’ve faced. I am really not sure I can do it. I’m very sure that I don’t want to. But I have to go through whatever it is. The growth comes in these moments she said.
Having the appointment yanked from under me two days ago was miserable. Now I think it’s exactly what I needed. By diving in, getting things figured out, decided, scheduled, I could still be in control of my life. But it doesn’t work that way when things grow in your body where they shouldn’t.
It doesn’t work that way at all.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay