Just Pedal

This is the story of me getting unstuck. Getting on the bike and pedalling, but also laying in the grass and being. Not either giving up on life or pretending problems aren't real, not becoming the loser despite many invitations to see myself that way. Also not flogging myself or working constantly to the breaking point.

I am very, very stuck. I have great deluges of tears daily about money problems, relationships on the verge of annihilation or reincarnation, self loathing. I am nearly 50, in utter financial chaos for several years. I have a law license, a commercial lobstering license, an Ed Tech III certificate and many other reasons to succeed. I'm not a drug or gambling or shopping addict and yet I have failed financially and career-wise.

There is an enormous divide between my deep sense of self worth and my external circumstances. I am failing. At everything. And busting my ass in the process. If I'm going to suck this bad, don't I at least get to sit on the couch in sweatpants and really work that role? I am in very good physical and intellectual condition. I take good care of myself. I love myself. Why then, is everything going so terribly wrong? I need more money, yes. I need to pay my bills. That is in my character. I am unable to do so right now and it hurts every single minute of every day. My character and worth are reflected in the world as an absent, exhausted father and past due notices, deadbeat happy-grams.

As I had left my children on another island with their mother yesterday, I had an hour and a half boatride to think about and cry about my situation. I have responded to stress by making lists of tasks to get me out of whatever set of problems there was at the time. Strange thing is, as good as I am at the list organizing and the execution of the listed tasks, I am still frantic, depressed and feeling desperate. Seems like maybe such list making is not helping.

Then I get on the bicycle and for no reason at all, the overload, panic and desperation aren't any more. I'm a 10 year old boy. It's school vacation. I'm just riding. I head down South Road past the one room school, the former one room school and now town office, the fishing workshop with the stereo early-summer loud, the engine block that's been dragged to the road for recycling, to the harbor road, past Wanda working on her flower garden, up the crest and down the hill to shingled shops of the harbor. As bad as everything has become- money, marriage, separation from children, feeling like an idiot learning the lobster fishing business, disconnection notices, overdue mortgage payment- all of it eases when I jump on a bicycle and pedal down these twisting dirt roads surrounded by sea.

I ache terribly for my family. I am fearful for our desperate financial situation. I'm coping by deep cleaning the house, going through years of debris, selecting and saving the special things and sorting and disposing of all the clutter generated by years of being busy with three kids and nineteen jobs between Lisa and myself. It feels good to find special bits of art, writing, photos and know that now these things are not lost to the mounds of crap.

Since I'm alone, I'm also using the time to start to quantify and make financial discipline plans. The monster is smaller when I open the envelopes and write down the numbers and dates.

Still ache for family. For  this reason, the phone company bill is going to be a priority.

On today's list is to write the story of my comeback as a way on visualizing and writing my own good story.

Probably ought to start with how I got stuck. Funny thing is, I got stuck in this situation by getting unstuck from another.

Next: Microwave Popcorn is an Evil, Life Draining Thing.