Off to the Wild Blue Yonder

by Melissa
(Vancouver, BC)

I am angry. I don’t mean that I am a little miffed or that I am having a little bit of a temper tantrum. I mean that I am angry. When I am like this, it is best if everyone just leaves me the hell alone. I get on my bike and head out a particular stretch of highway, the pavement there so new it looks almost blue in the distance. I am reminded of the song that pilots sing about the wild blue yonder when I hit that stretch and think yet again how close to flying being on my bike really feels. When I finally come back, I am not angry anymore, or at least, I much calmer and able to think straighter. Crisis averted.

I am sad. It is any number of things that has come bubbling up to the surface, hitting me with an almost physical force. I don’t want to sit here and cry, to wallow in the rawness of these emotions, this feeling of vulnerability. I get on my bike and, fighting back the stinging knot in the back of my throat, I head out to that pretty stretch of road and ride. My mind whirls in a million different directions and then suddenly the peace washes over me. I am no longer miserable; it is only me and the feeling of the road beneath me. I come back much more at peace.

I am lonely. My friends have all married now, off doing things with their husbands and their children. They include me in a number of their events, but they cannot include me in everything and even if they did, I would not go. After all, I don’t always want to feel like the pathetic single in their married world. I do what I can to stay active, always looking for a new event to go to or a charity to take part in, but there are many times when there is simply nothing to do and no one around. I go to my bike, the friend I will always have no matter what, and we race off.

I am happy. I got a promotion. I met a guy. I won five bucks on a lotto scratcher. It doesn’t matter why I am happy; it is just good that I am. I am on my bike, feeling the wind on my face and the pure joy that is coursing through me. I ride because I am happy; I ride because I am sad, or mad or lonely. I ride no matter what. Sometimes I ride alone, trailing along the blue of the road, and sometimes I ride with friends or my club mates. I ride to clear my head or to help me think. I ride to stop thinking about stuff. I live for the moment I can get out on my bike and mope for the moments that I cannot. I feel a moment coming on right now. Don’t text me, don’t call me - I am off to the wild blue yonder.