Pushing My Limits

I have been struggling with high pain for going on 20 years now. I can barely walk to the back of a store to pick up milk and eggs. I can ride a bike. So I have come up with a crazy or maybe insane plan to test myself and my limits. I am jumping on my bike next week and heading South from the Golden Gate Bridge. If I make it to San Diego then I will head East. I will just go as far as I am able to. I may only make it one day or one week or one month or maybe I will keep riding for the rest of my life. I do love being on the road and seeing the world go by. I plan on stopping to smell the roses so to speak.

I had planned on going to the Golden Gate last week for a different reason. As I mulled the circular thoughts over and over in my mind a stray current swept over me and I just decided to take off instead. Maybe if I have a goal I will keep going until I reach that goal. That is how I survived as long as I have with all my other crazy insane things I have done like climbing mountains, walking across Africa, and traveling through scores of war zones from Africa and Asia to Central and South America. I need goals in my life. Bucket lists are all the rage since the movie brought the subject up but I have been making and finishing bucket lists for my entire life. For the last three years or so I have not had a goal in my life, something to live for. Pain rewires the brain and can make life unbearable to endure. I need this goal to wire my brain on my terms not my pains terms. Sometimes the rewards of living seem so small compared to the price of pain. My only reward will be my own self satisfaction.

I don't care if I make it to the Atlantic or not because that is not the point of this stupid plan. The point is to push myself to a new limit. If my bike breaks down I am not able to walk to the next town to get it repaired. I will need to trust that the general public will help me if I am in need. So far in my wandering around the world people have been overwhelmingly generous to me giving me shelter and protection when I needed it and also the warmth of a fellow human.

I have some mountains to cross. Some of them are real like the Sierra Nevada and the Rockies but some of the mountains are more symbolic like pushing myself on despite my pain deranged brain telling me to quit. I have read lots of inspiring books about humans pushing their physical and mental limits to climb mountains like Everest or to get to the North or South Poles. Crawling on hands and knees snow blinded and frost bitten but pushing on to make it to the top and back again through shear determination is not about getting to the top of the mountain. It is something else. Sure there are people that start out to be the first to do this or that because they want the publicity but the vast majority of those types either turn around or die because they lack that inner strength. I have been missing inner strength lately. Basically I hit empty last week. I need to refill my tank of inner strength.

I will be posting my progress as I go along. I am posting it for myself though not for the "glory" or to impress anyone. I don't care if I get a big fat zero readers. It is good in my struggle with my own brain to put thoughts on paper so that I can look at it and keep a perspective on where I stand in my war to overcome pain and depression. I am sure a lot of my recent posts (since I quit posting about my travels well over a year ago) have been hard to read and understand by some of my followers. I have been depressed and angry as well as struggling with pain and lack of mobility. I don't like to grovel for medical care or shelter or food or anything else for that matter. I have given up on those struggles for now. I am focused on my new goal and I prefer that.

During my ride, I am going to try to survive on my $900 social security so I will need help from people as I go. I will be looking for places to spend the night and some wifi to keep in contact with my family and friends. If anyone along my route wants to help me out send me a note. I have a credit card and I am sure it will fill up quickly what with my bike costs and the inevitable shelter expenses along the way. I will not consider it a failure if I don't make it to Florida, after all I can't walk a block and I am thinking about riding a bicycle over 4000 miles by myself. The only failure is if I don't start the journey, because then I will take a journey from the Golden Gate that is only about 250 feet and there will be nothing to post about that journey.