2018 was my last truly great year. At the beginning of September I'd completed the now-seemingly-impossible Cent Cols, a 10-day ride around the Pyrenees that left me jubilant and exhausted. Especially as I was (only) the 77th rider to ever complete it.
The year had been a busy cycling one, up to then it turned into my 3rd longest distance-wise, and probably the pick of the bunch in terms of quality and scenery. Lots of friends, lots of fun, and lots of frolics. Even the football had been reasonable with plenty of trips up to London to watch it with my brother and junior.
All good.
I'd done some really satisfying work in a job I loved and was good at, including a great trip to deliver an international programme in Hamburg, defying all kinds of weather Gods to to get there, and where I saw the Beatles. My team was short-listed for an award for a project we'd delivered the previous year, which I was immensely proud of, and though we didn't win (robbed, natch), we had a great time celebrating.
To top it all, the Mendip Rouleur family had been on a wonderful holiday, a cruise around the eastern Mediterranean on a ship full of extroverts, and yet we still managed to have a terrific time. We celebrated the official adulthood of Junior, as he entered his last year at school.
Then there was the Autumn. At first everything seemed to be going just fine, I passed my 54th Birthday, before picking up the pieces of the annual programmes at work, and welcoming new members into my growing team.
Then at the end of the month I dropped into the O2 to see U2. It was a bit disappointing, even more so than the previous year's contractually-obligated Joshua Tree go-through-the-motions trip to a blazing Twickenham. That night in London they seemed turgid, tired, a bit off colour. Then a couple of weeks later we all flew to Dublin, met my brother, saw the (almost) end-of-tour-homecoming show at The Point, and all seemed right with the world again. They rocked the house, the building and the city.
I thought things were looking up again. When I flew from Dublin to Madrid to deliver another international programme for work, it felt like I was almost invincible.
But then, came the crash. In slow motion. Gradually. Outside forces were at play. A boss who didn't really rate me, and didn't really want me. I don't know why. It doesn't matter, but I was not feeling the love. It was Winter again, cold and dark. Wet and windy. After a euphoric achievement in France, it is hard to maintain that psychological or even physical momentum. What could top that? I've since learned that this kind of comedown is quite common, especially in those people always trying to foolishly prove something to themselves by achieving externalised goals.
Life was pale. I felt bleak.
I was vulnerable and open to suggestions from very well-meaning friends. I thought the problems were outside me, that new things would fix it. In the words of the man, I was tempted by a gold guitar. Ironic really, I have always advised people not to be, but there I was falling for the very trick I constantly cautioned people against. Taking the gold, the status, the title in exchange for a promise that would fix everything. A pawn in someone else's stupid game too, although I only found that out years later.
My cycling volume dropped off a cliff as well, as the year spluttered to a conclusion, and then into the new year spluttered even more as I caught whooping cough, and had to spend extended periods recovering whilst I struggled to breathe. The Winter continued and life was taking a turn for the worse. I took the job offer, and started in July of 2019, but knew it was a mistake. It was a trap I used to fall into as a child, especially when self-harming and struggling to feel anything.
My physical health recovered, and the Spring came, but it was a pale one that merely presaged a few tough years that I have written about elsewhere. The next few years were not good. But in all that time I was still unconsciously repeating a lot of the same unhealthy patterns. Looking for answers away from myself, achievements, goals, accomplishments and excuses. Does everyone do this, or is it just me?
And it seemed like U2 were doing a similar thing as well. Churning out a dreadful rehash of their greatest hits, "reimagined". What a horrible expression, and an equally horrible album and mini-tour (which I of course went to and bought all the add-ons for the "collection"). Devoid of creativity it seemed they were trading on past glories for the sake of keeping going and boosting the pension fund. Umm.
My football team promised much by winning a trophy, but seemed to lose their soul and then their "elite" status by getting themselves relegated to the second tier. That seemed apt and very reflective for an over-active imagination. Even though logically it isn't a parallel at all.
Mark Cavendish defied the doubters, then crashed, then sailed off into the sponsored sunset after one last, 35th hurrah. The Tour has been all the paler without him, despite the sunflowers and the more aggressive racing.
It's ironic that it took a Covid pandemic, a severe illness and recovery, and redundancy from the Gold Guitar, a new job with a lovely and talented bunch of people to foster some kind of rejuvenation. Trips to France resumed with some lovely spells in the Ariege, as well as this year at Base-Velo in the Corbieres, and I am hoping for more of the same in the years to come. It keeps the dream alive, the idea that I am in fact a competent cyclist, no matter what my declining statistics might say.
Even this year, I am chasing my biggest annual total of distance cycled, to surpass the bonkers year of 2015 when I completed so many Audaxes as well as all kinds of other events. What am I trying to prove, and who am I trying to prove this to? You might be expecting this to be some kind of Eureka realisation, the moment when I confessionally declare that this is the end of such mad compulsion.
But even as I type these words I can feel within my very being a feeling so strong that it will be disappointing to "give up", or "let go", knowing the effort it has already taken, and how close I might be, despite feeling physically and mentally exhausted from the ongoing and continuing effort. And the pointlessness of it all. I can not help myself.
So what is to be done here? That was not a rhetorical question? How do I change the habits of such a long-embedded lifetime without doing something dramatic. I can do drama, but believe me, I am very tired of that too.
I need help and if a friend is someone who lets you, then trust me, I am willing to be yours.
Of course, there has been a glimmer. It may be a false dawn. But it is pensive, ironic and has made me think about all this stuff today. When you are in your 60s you can not be cutting edge. You can't even be cool or the zeitgeist. But you can be right. And you can be authentically and recognisably you. Or U2. Just new.
Maybe, just maybe, this can be the end of something, perhaps even a glorious one, even if it's not the start. They have been the soundtrack to my life really, so I hope this return is different. If not a reinvention, perhaps a fork in the road has been reached, and we will all take a road we have not travelled before. Me and them both.
Time will tell.
No comments:
Post a Comment