BLOG POST

They say that it’s not the strongest or the smartest that survive, but rather those most capable of adapting to their environment. This has been a challenge for me over the last ten years. The differences between my native east coast environment and my current midwestern one are remarkable. I could go on for pages over all the differences, but the one that’s most relevant here is pacing. Things move slower here. Overall, this is probably good for me. I’m in a season of life where it’s no longer appropriate to keep running full throttle. I don’t have the reserves for it, physically or emotionally, and there’s one very special human counting on me keeping it all together.
It feels like months ago when a string of texts with W brought about the inspiration for all of this. Maybe I’m exaggerating the time in my mind, the pandemic absolutely wrecked my internal clock and time has not moved the same way since. Still, it’s had to have been a while. In that span of time, from deciding to do this until now, I have done exactly zero wrenching. I’ve ridden the CB a bunch over the summer, but it’s currently sitting under a cover with a snapped throttle cable. There’s no sense fixing that one issue when I know the whole thing is going to get stripped down. While I’m anxious to get started on it, I know it’s not the time quite yet.
School has just begun and we’re both still adjusting to our new routines. While this is the time I’ve been waiting for, while I’ve been spending the past four years building the foundations of this life, there’s still more groundwork to be done. This past week has seen forward movement though. A dumpster was delivered last Monday and we’ve gotten it filled. This opens up the physical space for me to start wrenching. It’ll probably take at least a few more weeks to get that space set up to a point where I’m ready to start stripping the bike.
Days upon days, weeks upon weeks, months upon months. This is the pace of things. The last time I made the decision to start building something kind of like this, it took less than a month to quit my trucking job, move out of my apartment, move into my friend’s basement and start driving a taxi. One month, and I was out there with the rubber on the road. That whole thing grew incredibly fast. Before I could even check in with myself and take an honest inventory of all that was happening, life had so radically transformed. After two years of that, it had grown so far out of control that I had to tear it all down and start fresh again.
As much as I’d love to see some radical transformations in life, that pace of change is not desirable or feasible. There’s too much goodness in life, like at its core for me. The change now requires more precision and deliberation. There’s no destroying the old wholesale to create the new. It’s now much more a matter of refining and reshaping, strengthening and adding to the layers of what already is. We’re getting there, we’re moving in the right direction, and if I pause long enough and step back far enough, there’s no reason not to be satisfied right now. Thank you for visiting, I’ll talk to you soon.