Demons

"Nothing holds you back more than your own insecurities."

I saw this today and it really hit home.  

Recently,  I have heard some very hurtful things...

"Hey fatty..."

"Get off the road fat ass."

"Make room for REAL bike riders."

"Hey fatso, you're gonna break that bike"

I realized  I have been waiting for this, expecting it, dreading it. 

Someone yelling something hurtful at me as I ride.   I heard it so very clearly. I heard it so very loudly.

I almost turned around and went home.

Ten more pedal strokes and I realized something more.

No one else had said those things to me.  

It was the voices in my head.   My demons, as my wife defined it.

The voices that have been around for most of my entire life. The voices that always crop up and tell me I can't do it.  Whatever the "it" is.  

Twenty more pedal strokes and I pushed past it.  The voices tried to crop up over and over again.  Usually at the bottom of a hill.  

Two more rides this week and I still hear it.  I have heard it all my life, so the voices aren't going to shut off.  

But I have done two more rides.

I made it up two hills I had been having trouble with, and even, intentionally, added another hill.  That I made it up the first time.  To be sure it's not easy and the hills aren't really all that significant in the grand scheme of the hills this town offers, but they're my hills and I am conquering them.

I rode further in one ride than ever before.  5 miles isn't much, but it's my 5 miles.

My number is still 245.  To be honest, it was 246 earlier this week.  Maybe I need a new scale.  Or maybe I just need to keep trying. 

I am sharing here for no one but me.  I have to put it down so that I can see.  So I can see what I have done.    I am trying to get to the raw.  That harsh reality that goes on inside my head.   I suspect that in order for it to live there, the nastiness in my head needs the darkness and the quiet. I am hoping if I expose it to light, lay it bare for all to see, that maybe some of the evil that lives there will whither away and I will be left with a improved reality.