Boys and Bikes

I wrote this five years ago. Since then, my boundaries have become stellar, I get to admit. Finding my mind enthralled by the “pedaling for pithy perceptions” mindset while riding my bikes has helped me establish those stellar boundaries. I now have my bikes AND a boy who I married a year ago. Sometimes boys and bikes go hand in hand. It has to be the right boy. And it has to be the right bike. You’ll know.

Boys and bikes. One of my most profound life challenges has been mastering the art of boundaries. Ok, mastering anything is a lot to expect of ourselves. How about just having healthy boundaries. Like having that thought when a trigger smacks you sideways, “I am not giving THAT any attention. It doesn’t enrich my spirit and it certainly isn’t going to dance me through the day.” If only it were that easy. I harp. I ruminate. I doubt. I doubt my intuition and I am the most intuitive person I know. Oh dearest Irony, who do you think you are? To propose a calculation, I’d say that 95% of the time my hunch about a situation and the person involved is spot on, and for whatever karmic reason self-doubt and the inability to trust my intuition lurks in the hub of my conscience, I have no idea. But I get the gist of it, and now, ready for this? The art to live it emphatically.

So, I suspect it’s kind of like this. When you’re riding in a peleton of 40 people and your legs are feeling spritely, a thought may arise such as, “Today’s my day. I can break away.” So you assess the field, assess your legs and notice the synchronicity between your pedal stroke and breathing. And the glorious rhythm is your ticket to attack and you go for it. Pedal propulsion ensues based on pure trust from the gut. Even when your gut starts to burn, you keep pedaling because your fiery gut knows today is your day. And you have no doubt. You create the boundary between you and the peleton and it gets wider, enlightening the gaping truth that today is indeed your day.

So what’s the difference between creating boundaries with the boys and the bikes? Really it’s the same. It’s about trust and the keen observation of assessing your evidence so you know how and when to break away, and to say, “See ya, we’ve had our time together, and with love and compassion, I’m outta here. And it’ll be best for everyone involved because I’m listening to my truth and to my inner knowing. Listening to how it feels in my heart, head, legs, lungs to propel onward in honor of my evolution.”

Right? Is that what it’s about? Collecting and assessing the evidence, creating the boundaries and rolling onward? I think so. But deeper than that, I think it’s also about time. At 45 years old, wisdom sneaks up on me sometimes and whispers, “What do you have time for? And no lying to yourself. You’re too smart for that old-habit, fabricating-and-agenda-izing-life-because-you’re-scared nonsense.”

I know I don’t have time for dwelling in the self-doubt anymore. Its prankster ways used to pseudo-fuel my sense of worth, like, “I’ll soak up all the juices of enlightenment if I sit in this miserably mucky place and think about this ad nauseum.” No. No. No. That’s like riding your bicycle on the windtrainer in the dead of winter. Around and around your legs go. Around and around your head goes, and although it may have been a good fitness workout, your head feels like it was stuck in the hub of your rear wheel, dizzy from the incessant spin with no way out, no momentum forward.

Yeah, time. I only have time to trust now. To give my own intuition a luscious smooch on the lips so that I break away from the binding-boys, from the peleton that feels too sluggish to hang with today, and from my old tendencies to grip and grind the gears of “I don’t know.” But you do know! Oh the art of boundaries: on a sunny 80 degree day, would I choose to ride the windtrainer or opt for fresh air and smooth pavement?

My head doesn’t spin as much when both wheels are free to roll! That I do know. And there is no way you have time to pin your rear wheel to a windtrainer and convince yourself you’re going somewhere. No lying to yourself, remember. Where do you want to go and how are you going to get there? The boundaries will present themselves and you’ll trust them without trying so hard. Trust, roll and there you go!

Thanks for reading, and for considering a clicked heart, comment, Pledge and Tip if you so choose. See more of my writing and info about me here: Jessica Amber Barnum