You know that phrase your mum said to you when you were little? Something along the lines of pull a face like that and if the wind changes it'll get stuck like it? Might have accidentally done this in a weird way.
*HEALTH WARNING* really really contrived metaphor. Those of a squeamish nature with views on use of such contrivances please walk on by.
Being a proactive type and all about the change and the navel gazing, kind of decided at some point this year to try to get rid of the prickly shell I hang onto, horse chestnut style (you've been warned). I mean, horse chestnuts are pretty sturdy beasts anyway without the shell, so why not just let the prickly bit go, vanish, let folk see the shiny conker (this is dreadful isn't it?). So I did it. Left myself open. But inside the prickly cover there wasn't a conker, there was a smartie. Soft and sweet with a shell that could be cracked by a very determined guinea pig (even I'm hating this direction now ...). And somehow, having let the shell go, and revealed my inner smartie (sigh) the wind must have changed because it's now part of who I am; it's got stuck like it. Which actually I'm mostly OK with. I mean yes, I'm vulnerable to gentle hammer action but it's OK because there are plenty of smarties in the tube (ick).
So what has this got to do with anything active, you may hear yourself ask? Well, it's something that now pervades my entire sense of me, and with an unfortunate side effect of making my confidence knockable. Which isn't really the proper me. I am confident, maybe not always competent but I have a steadfast inner core who knows who I am, what I can do, and isn't afraid of being me and being clear about who that me is. Yet somehow my bike confidence has taken a huge bloody knock over the last month.
The trouble here is that I really do like to ride with other people, I like being part of a group, I like rapport, jokes, gentle teasing, and mickey taking for those inevitable stupid trail moments. I like the shared talking over a cup of tea afterwards, the feeling of a shared experience, of belonging, being a part of a collective, even if it's for the fleeting time of a day. I like reminiscing with other people over great days out, indifferent days out, and sodding awful days out. It's a part of the joy of the bike for me. Yet my confidence has taken an immense battering. I have gone out of my way to try to increase the pool of people I ride with, and the result seems to have been a feeling of inadequacy courtesy of having shifted that prickly conker exterior. I am slow. This is not modesty. I am slow. And although not a testosterone rich bloke who has a problem with being at the back, I do have a problem with feeling that I'm taking away some of the joy from other people who are having to wait or worse still babysit me. I don't want to be that sucker of living souls. I'd rather ride alone.
Don't get me wrong, I also love to ride alone. There's a massive joy to doing things at exactly your own pace, a freedom to do whatever you want to do, the challenge of attempting things which you maybe wouldn't with an audience just to experience and to experiment. I am too shy to try these in company. Again ... don't want to slow anyone down.
Anyway, where's this leading? It's leading to the fact that I'm now nervous of even trying to find new riding folk. I have probably three people now who ride at my pace, and as they are all particularly brilliant people to get along with, then frankly what on the earth am I fussing about?
And because I am an exceptionally old burd, I leave you with the Fun Boy Three Tunnel of Love circa god only knows when.
"consequences altered cases
broken noses altered faces
my ego altered altered egos
wherever i go so does me go"
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