Honestly, I have no idea. I’ve never managed to figure it out.
I went for a mountain bike ride this morning, which on the one hand could suggest a certain resistance to getting my work done, but on the other could be seen as an action of #expansion. I prefer the latter but worry about how much it’s the former. How can I be sure?
Up one climb my mind turned to my life and the way I have tended to describe it to myself, a long sad tale in which I’ve allowed my adulthood to get lost, in which I have little to nothing to show for all those years. And then, through some impulsive spontaneous protest against my self-negation, I began to tally up the victories of my adult life, and I found them myriad. One of them: even having the choice to go mountain biking on a temperate, just-sunny-enough Tuesday morning in late May, the first day on my bike in a couple of months, endless rains having closed most of trails in the area. Just having the choice is a victory and choosing to ride is a victory and those few spots on the descent on the Benjamin Loop (yes, that’s it’s actual name, and yes, it was nice of them to name the trail after me) when my hands ignored the brakes as I swooped through the esses where the trees get sparse and the view of the valley expansive–do I even need to declare victory? Isn’t it obvious?
In many ways my life is little different than it was nine, ten months ago. I write, beholden only to myself. I go to the gym or ski or play soccer or mountain bike. I have filled many days of my life with exactly these things.
But. The same and yet not the same. I am building something here. As I bring this project to fruition I am building a future that excites me. As I daily live and feel my challenge to myself as I never have before, I am building a present that thrills me. And this morning, as I pedaled up the hill, panting my breaths, mildly irritated and distracted at my inability to get the derailleur adjusted properly, the bike sometimes unbidden jumping up a gear, as I listed my triumphs, finding something in every year, it seems I am finally building my past.