Losing My Motorcycle, Losing Myself

What makes you who you are? Is it what you do? Is it your hobbies? Is it your friends, family?

Sometimes I feel like this disease is slowly chipping away at who I am.

First, it was my health. Then my work. Luckily both of those are healing right now.

Then it was my friends (simply because I couldn’t hang out. Now I have some of them back). Then it was my family, my partner, my home.

I realized family are those around me. I realized I take my home with me.

Now, today, I realized I’m losing my motorcycle.

It really shouldn’t come as a shock. I haven’t really ridden for a long time. It started slow. First my riding gear was difficult to get on. Taking off my boots just hurt. I didn’t think anything of it.

Then I started falling. I had ridden around Europe off road, and Arizona’s mountains were kicking my butt. I thought it was just harder terrain. Maybe it was because my bike wasn’t lowered.

The reason started to matter less and less. I started to dread riding. Something I use to live for.

And then I got sick and was distracted.

I started to feel so good when I first got out of the hospital. I think I was still numb from my new medication. Whatever was going on, I couldn’t wait to ride.

It never happened though. I found reasons, excuses. And as weeks passed I started to realize that I still have Fibromyalgia.

I still get major stomach issues if I eat somethings that doesn’t agree with me. (I only eat plants now). When it gets cold, I ache more. If I have a very emotional day, most likely the next day is not going to be a good one pain wise.

The idea of falling again doesn’t sound pleasant at all. When I first realized I didn’t want to ride, I thought, well, maybe I can wrench on bikes. Get an old fixer-up and love bikes in different ways.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be able to work on my bike with the help of an old friend. It was fun, like old times. Except my fingers did not feel good afterwards. Now even working on motorcycles seems out of the picture too.

Here I am. My first business was a motorcycle rental business. I’ve owned more motorcycles than cars, and have driven more motorcycle miles than cars. I’ve basically done “The Long Way Round” in 3 week chunks without a backup crew, in a foreign language.

Now even the thought of holding the throttle all day makes my hand ache.

The last two men I fell in love with, we fell in love, because of our love for dual sport motorcycles and traveling dirt roads. That was what made my life so cool.

And now I can’t. I feel like I lost myself, my mood, my mind, and I lost the man who I was sure I was going to spend the rest of my life with. How much more can I lose?

I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I want to do in my life. I don’t know what I can do.

Ok. That is ok. Let’s look at what I can do.

I can explore. I can create. Hey, I can brew beer. I can even manage to have one once a week.

Do my hobbies define me? Not necessarily. Are they who I am? Maybe. That is changing. It normally changes with the flow of life.

I have some new friends and some old ones. Everyone that I lost, I lost because I lost myself.

Now it is time to rediscover who I am and what I am up to in my amazing life.

The rest? I will discover with time.