I got up at 5:30 am this morning and it was cold and dark outside and I thought, “What the fuck am I doing? It’s cold and dark outside.”
But by the time I was cognizant enough to realize how stupid this was, I’d already taken my adjusted Lantus dose, and half an hour later, my adjusted Novolog dose, so ready or not, I was biking to work.
It took less than an hour to get up there this morning, because there was no headwind. The weather wasn’t bad at all and I thought: yeah, hey, I can do this!
Coming home was a different story.
My ass hurt all day from this morning’s biking and the biking I did last night, and getting on the bike again tonight wasn’t exactly something I was looking forward to. I somehow got lost looking for the cross-street that would get me back onto the lake path. I ended up spending more time on the street. The headwind was a bitch.
It was really fucking cold.
It was so cold along the lakefront that I stopped and pulled out my insulin from my bag and tugged it inside my double layer of coats because I was worried it was going to freeze.
The wind sent up waves along the bike path, and yea, all that displaced water froze. There were battered ice chunks all over the place, and it started to get dark around 6ish and I still had at least three miles to go.
I was tired. The headwind was bad. I blame that fucking headwind.
I was so tired, and I kept going. I just kept going, and that’s what I told myself, though my legs wobbled and it hurt to breathe in the cold air: I just have to keep going. And it reminded me of this post, and then I thought, how weird is it when your own life reminds you of your own life? I mean, I’m not chugging down the lakefront thinking, “This is just like that one episode of Buffy!” I’m thinking, “fuck, yea, I’ve been through this before. And I did OK that time. I can do it again.”
Maybe this is what it’s like to be old.
I don’t mind it, really.
Because I kept going. I just kept going. The last six or eights months have been like that. Just keep going. Just keep going. It’ll be OK. It’ll be OK. You can do this. It will get better.
For somebody that doesn’t put any trust in any God, who doesn’t believe in much of anything at all, I sure do run a lot on blind faith.
I had to walk the bike the last four blocks or so, after I came off the lakefront, because I didn’t trust myself to be able to navigate those last few blocks on the street without getting hit by a car. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else and my toes were numb.
I carried my bike up three flights of steps and then sank into a hot bath.
I’m saving $80 a month in transit costs. I’m saving at least 6.5 units of insulin a day.
Someday, it will be spring, and I will not be fighting a frozen headwind coming in off the lake, throwing ice in my face.
Someday.
Until then…. yeah.
Keep going.
