I will the machine.

Tag: Blog

  • My Power Grows

    I can’t keep up.

    I am presently living rent-free in a house that I will have to leave next month. I am waiting for new wheels for my van that are on backorder, and currently have to air up a brand-new tire with my bike pump every morning if I want to drive. I did this all last week because I rely on my bike and body to solve problems pretty often, and after three weeks of that, it said stop. So, ten minutes of pushing air into that tire it was.

    Yesterday, I had my 90-day review at work. It shook me that it was already here for two reasons; one, I love this place and time roared by.

    And two, it marked three months since I had to get out of another abusive environment where I at least had a little bit of logistical stability, and traded it for freedom that meant everything else was going to be very, very hard again.

    I expected some critique from this review. I got it.

    I also got an effective-immediately cut to part-time hours only. Despite consistent praise from my coworkers and the woman I was a direct assistant to, for not only catching on fast but also riding 80-mile days to work to keep showing up reliably (Strava for proof), I wasn’t measuring up.

    It had nothing at all to do with the consistent conversations in the hall that major account holders had paused orders and that we had become “unusually slow.” I’d never consider that this place would blind-side me with some performance deficit on my part to conceal a cost-cutting maneuver. Maybe one of the many other places I had worked that operated under a deceptive status-quo would handle it that way, but certainly not this place that I was looking forward to staying loyal to, finally.

    I cried in the conference room, while I drove home, late into last night, as I slithered out of bed, and pumped up that tire to get coffee this morning.

    I’m back to writing this afternoon. I am coming back here more often as the pressure builds, and pausing bigger pieces to “we interrupt this program,” again. The three pillars of support, housing security, gas-guzzling vintage metal toaster vehicle, and now my already meager income, are all broken. I’m leaning heavily on the scaffolding now.

    I have a brand-new Patreon to work in tandem with this blog, so subscribers who want to support my stability while I swing this sword at multiple problems at once can support me monetarily. Don’t worry- my blog posts will ALWAYS be free to read, regardless of whether or not you choose to subscribe. I can’t in good faith put writing that people have told me helps them behind a pay wall, but supporters can help me stay upright enough to keep spending time on it. My Venmo is also linked in the Support tab above this post, if you’d prefer a one-time donation. If you want to help, I am finally letting you. As Aaro puts it, “I shouldn’t take that option away from people.”

    _____

    I want to get back to riding for ambition. Summer just started, and it’s already slipping through my fingers. I have to ride for utility even more now that I’ll still have to be at work five days a week (while I look for other, closer opportunities; I won’t be defeated) for significantly less money (I am dramatically more fuel-efficient).

    I am not a “look at the bright side” person. I am a “look at the reality of this situation, even if it’s through tears” person. The reality right now is… the shit sandwich has just been served with a side of fries. My history of “if I am not enough, I am not safe,” means blows like this amplify this terrible hiss in the back of my mind that says I am not allowed to succeed. I was at my limit weeks ago; it just got deeper. I have the resourcefulness to solve it all, but time is not on my side and money is even less so. It’s a downward spiral on a staircase of crumbling sandstone steps.

    Meanwhile, the sound of clanging metal ascends.

  • A Foundation of Sand

    This post is edited for errors, but not for anything else. I’m writing straight through this night, no stops.

    This past Wednesday I gave a condensed version of everything I post here to a room of about 30 people to promote a small tour I am doing at summer’s end. I’m garnering looks with the extremes of my experiences on a bike to draw interest to the rural communities I’ll be visiting and staying in and telling their stories like I do mine. I wrote my script exactly how I write these posts- a little messy, but very honest. At the end, one man said “have you considered being a motivational speaker? Because you had this whole room glued to you.” One woman came up to me in the parking lot before I left to tell me how alone I was not, and she gave me a tearful hug. Twice. One represented a tangible reward for my reflectivity; the other gave me a spiritual one.

    The critics in mine own mind are sourced from the people who moved through their lives with harshness. Endless criticism for what I wasn’t doing right, and relative silence for what I was. They shouted “I can’t help you, do it yourself.” Over time I realized that not only was that spray unfair and venomous to a teenager who was blockaded from normal development, but was also just not a characteristic of a family system that could stand on anything even distantly resembling love. None of them could exemplify anything that I wanted, so I never listened, but the scribe was still behind his pen. As I’ve said in past writing, I learned gentleness from its absence, but the sharp ridicule of generational abuses persists while I try to separate its fiery breath from my own. I heard so much automatic vocal feedback while I delivered my presentation that I intentionally paused after the heaviest lines to see if those moments singed them to any degree that they had me, because those past voices still gaslight me even though their owners are no longer in my orbit. They did. And so my speech was not just the retelling of a story- it was an active soldier in my internal defense. I learned that my experiences are unfortunately common, but still abnormal. And that paradox is what I’m currently chewing on while I go even deeper into my inner world because expressing its contents outwardly is not only what I feel purpose in doing, but is an act of combat when so many people haven’t yet felt capable of fronting theirs. Though, they will apparently come inside my fight with me without even flinching.

    And so, I draw my sword again.

    The power steering pump in my van sprung a heavy leak a little over two weeks ago. I kept the fluid topped off and was assured it would get me by in the meantime while I worked on the complicated logistics of getting a vehicle you live out of worked on with little time, little money, and few fail safes. I’ve had access to a vacant house to allow me some reprieve from all of the other complications of vanlife, but have been doing an excessive amount of driving between it and a new job. I’ve been moving so fast despite a breakup and residual move-out, and a PTSD attack during a huge race that resulted in bailing out, that the next part invites those voices to call back and say, “these are the consequences of your poor choices. This is what you deserve.”

    Yesterday, I took the van to a garage to address the leak and form a plan. Four minutes after I pulled in, the return line on my power steering pump broke at a connection by just the touch of a finger. It had at some point, before I ever owned the vehicle, been sealed with JB Weld instead of being repaired properly. It held for six years at least, and I never knew. So here I am, now grounded in front of a bay, with no replacement pumps available locally until the middle of next week. I’m 20 minutes from work, and an hour from the house.

    This saint of a mechanic, Jeremy, engineers a temporary hose connection with industrial-strength glue and a dream. He sends me on my way with a cautious optimism that it would get me through until a new pump arrived, and sent me on my way.

    20-minutes later, my steering bricks up as I’m turning into the next town. I muscle it to the gas station down the road and again to my job just down the street (thanks for that at least, universe), but that location unfortunately leaves me no access to a shower at the very minimum. So I call for a ride back to the house, despite the cobra in my throat hissing that I am an inconvenience, a disaster, and that I need to get my act together. For the second time in a few weeks I go almost deadpan as my friend Aaro picks up, but the siege, and that cobra, descend on the base of the castle that has already been cracking and tumbling since time immemorial.

    The ground keeps moving. The snake moves beneath black dunes and I am immobile with my blade across my chest. I bring you to ground zero as it plays out because I can’t afford one more bad step after all of these recent hits. I haven’t made a plan. I don’t know how I’m even getting to work, 40-minutes away, on Tuesday, let alone the days after that. All of my silver has been spent on the sword, and I’m so profoundly tired of holding it.

    And the cobra is well fed today.

    ~

    This is another interrupter. Trying to accomplish more than the basics when I keep bottoming out creates this dichotomy- an intense and automatic drive juxtaposed with the smell of smoke of another impending fight. If I’m going to have to keep doing that (I will), then I’m also going to continue weaponizing my awareness before I ever even reach the end. And I won’t reach the end, until I can no longer speak.

    Part two of this post, ‘The Edge,’ is on the way. But I have to let its contents happen first, I fear.