Hellofawaytostart

5 Aug 2016

Carrot.  An orange rooty vegetable thought to be healthy for the eyesight and a favorite of that rascally rabbit Bugs Bunny.  A carrot combined with a string and a stick becomes an idiom which has until recently been the theme of my personal reality.  I know this is not unique to me.  We all chase carrots. Some of us, despite the odds, actually manage to snatch the carrot, and then discover that that particular carrot was not nearly as satisfying as it looked dangling on a string just out of reach, we cast it aside, and then we trudge off after another carrot that surely must taste better than the first.

I’ve had some amazing carrots dangled in front of my nose over the last few years.  Some promised great money, some promised the ocean, some even promised the security of a traditional job, but the American dreaminess of that particular carrot turned out to be poisonous for me.  The drudgery of 9 to 5 boredom brought about the inevitable bout of depression and self-sabotage that has been my lifelong curse.   The other carrots proved unattainable, with the stars nearly aligning over and over, only to fall to chaos once again.  I decided my only solution was to make my own Carrot and name it Happiness.  Wisdom tells us that happiness is not a destination, not some random future event that will result in happiness.  “I will be happy when I get this job.”  “I will be happy when I move.”  “I will be happy when I am done with school.”  This is nothing new.  We all know that “things” don’t make us happy either, not for long anyway.  There is always a new “Thing” better than the old and we are force fed by our consumer culture to know we cannot possibly be happy with the old “Thing” when the new is so much “better”.   Once again, this is nothing new, but not everyone realizes right away, some never do.  I realized it in my 40s – I never claimed to be that bright.  Realization, of course is not the same as action.  It has taken me years just to begin the action of creating my own happiness.  Wisdom tells us just to “be happy” and that happiness comes from within.  This is true.  This is also a massive struggle when everything you see and hear tells you the world is going to shit.

So how can anyone possibly be happy when the sky is falling and we all know it?  The answer for me has been in front of my nose this whole time just beyond all the false fucking carrots, but I was too busy focusing on that orange piece of crap.  I don’t even really like carrots.  After a massive amount of introspection to figure out what was “wrong” with me, my only answer was that I was not meant to chase carrots.  Not very helpful.  I still had no idea what I was meant to do, if anything.  Was it possible this world had no use for my skill set?  Was I doomed to move from crappy job to crappy job with no hope of retirement, owning a home, or ever amounting to anything?  How could I possibly be happy in a world that had no use for me?  Then it happened.  Really.  I discovered the power of positivity and everything changed, sort of.  Well, I changed.  I began by posting and sharing only positive comments on Facebook.  It is a little thing, but try it for a week and see what happens.  The positive energy I got back gave me hope.  I also started to practice meditation with positive visualization.  I said positive things about myself even when I didn’t believe them.  You know what happened?  I started to believe them.  Was it possible that just being positive could attract the same?  Self-doubt and other unhelpful thoughts began to recede and I finally felt like happiness was coming from within.  No, I was not walking around like a smiling fool all the time, I got upset, frustrated, but the usual despair that I used to nurture like a baby no longer lingered.  I had gained the ability to let go of that which did not serve me, I still work on this daily.  The power of positivity was like magic and it seemed the more I gave, the more I received. But I still had no real direction for all this energy, and even though I was feeling 100 times better, I had not figured out how to pay the rent with good vibes.

I have worked all my life at jobs that bore me.  Make what you love your work they say, but the things that I love to do are not money makers, or I was never good enough at them for people to want to pay me.  One thing I love to do is race my bike, and we all know that is expensive.  Thankfully, most race promoters need volunteers and will trade racing for help with course set up or other tasks.  This spring I approached Total Body Fitness about volunteering for race credit and ended up assisting at a beginner mountain bike skills clinic where two women in the group asked me if I gave private lessons.  A lightbulb literally exploded in my head.  I have always loved to teach and had been told by many people that I was excellent at helping others master skills very quickly.  It filled my heart to help people succeed.  Why I never pursued it in the past I can’t tell you, but I knew in that moment that this could be my calling.    From then on, it was all I could think about.  I wanted to empower women in the best way I knew how – on a bike!  This was how I could counter the negativity in the world in my own little way.  I could literally spread happiness like Johnny Fucking Appleseed!   I did all I could to refine my skills, picked the brains of others in the same profession, researched how to get certified as a coach, began to create a web site (and decided I hate that part of it) and put all my ducks in a row to get my certification and pursue my new direction with everything I had.   My Facebook page “Bad Ass Bitches on Bicycles” snowballed and we made t-shirts, riding kits and stickers that proved to be more popular than I ever imagined.  A good tax return and weak Canadian dollar made possible a trip to Whistler for Summer Gravity Camp, and a skills coaching certification course through the prestigious PMBIA back to back!  It was true!!!  My massive effort to put forth positive energy into the universe had caused the stars to align and Karma was finally shining her light on me.  Or so it seemed.

Rewind 5 years nearly to the day.

August 2nd, 2011 was a day that set in motion a series of events that profoundly changed the direction of my life.  I was riding bikes at Whistler mountain bike park, my favorite place on earth.  It was our second day at Summer Gravity Camp, right after lunch.  I wish I could tell you I broke my femur in a flurry of epicness on a double black trail, but no, it was just a freak accident on a green traverse.  A PVC pole delineating the skills area from the main trail had been bent over into the line everyone took to set up for the double jump into A-line.  I had been riding this line all morning, so it must have occurred while we were at lunch.  In a moment of terrible luck, my bars clipped this post and threw me violently to the ground. 

My knee pads saved my knee, but my femur, caught helplessly in between my saddle and the sideways force of my full weight hitting the ground, snapped into 4 pieces.  I don’t remember much of the pain, for that I am thankful.  I do remember the absolute boredom of recovery, and the overwhelming desire to get back on the bike and to one day return to Whistler.  It would be a long road back.

It was our second day at Summer Gravity Camp in Whistler.   So much had changed in my life since the last time I was there.  I had leapt from a life of relative comfortable certainty into a great unknown, the details of which matter only to those very close to me.   I will say that nothing has been easy since I broke my femur there 5 years ago.  But by lunch time, I felt my downhill skills were coming back, I was high on my newfound direction and filled with hope for the future.  After all, this was my comeback!  And the icing on the cake was to be the next step towards my dream of becoming an official mountain bike coach – my PMBIA certification at the end of the week!  Then it happened.  We were on the last run before lunch when the unthinkable occurred.  I was approaching a slower rider with too much speed, so I tapped my brakes.  I am not sure what happened except that it caused my bike to change direction just enough the clip my bars on a tree just off the trail.  I hit the ground so fast and hard I didn’t have time to tuck or roll or do anything else that would have prevented my pelvis from fracturing. http://gph.is/2ay53RI

No, I don’t have weak bones.  This crash would have broken just about anyone.  What I have is incurable bad luck.  Right now, it is all I can do to stay positive, and I am failing.  The irony is literally sickening.  As I sit here waiting, which is all I can do, it is difficult for me not to question my direction.  My best friend told me it was ok to have a pity party, and that is what I am going to do.  It has to happen so I can move on.  All I can really say at the moment is “WTF Universe, seriously???”  I know I will get through this, I know I will move forward with my dream, I also know it will never be easy because I am me, but God dammit, not this, not anything in this fucking world will stop me!

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