biking.

so a week ago, my friend invited me to go biking to the beach with some other friends. me, being the naive person I am, accepted the offer.

did I mention that I have ridden a bike exactly ONCE before this? and that was for a mere five minutes. I can't believe I learned how to ride a bike well enough to survive an 18+ mile trip in that same day. it is an incredible feeling.. self-accomplishment.

so I had to train on Wednesday with Ronni to get myself in somewhat-decent shape. then some more training this morning, before we left for the beach. so before biking an eight mile road to Seal Beach, I totaled about two hours worth of bike riding.

holy hell, I did not know that eight miles felt like that.

it wasn't physical fatigue that got to me. it was the fear. fear of crashing.. fear of falling.. fear of falling into a fifty-foot ditch full of broken glass.. fear of stumbling into a fifteen foot drop, lined with dry branches and jagged rock that, when landed on at twenty-five miles an hour, could potentially kill me.

for nearly five hours, I constantly rode with the fear of death lingering above my head. yes, I managed to avoid the precarious obstacles that lay before me.. but not completely. scars remain from the first trip that occurred through, strangely enough, the surface streets. and because of this, I have come to at least one conclusion regarding sidewalks.

sidewalks are way too fucking small.

in an area where many people ride bikes, there is a sidewalk about the size of 4/5 a car lane's. and in the middle of this sidewalk there is a one-foot-in-diameter pole sticking out, and a clusterfuck of plants and vines next to it, protruding by one foot.

let us do the math, shall we? if we estimate a typical car lane to be about five feet wide, that leaves about four feet for the sidewalk. but wait! the obstacle in the middle forces one to veer either left or right from it, with about two feet to spare on each side. when I approached this obstacle, guess where I went?

straight into the branches.

ain't no fuckin' way I'm risking biking into traffic. that's just silly! but I guess getting fifteen scratches/scars in one shot is also pretty damn stupid. oh well.. it was still fun. though, now I am covered in band-aids. and my legs feel the burn after so many miles of biking, scratching, and falling.

the beach was quite fun. making moats and sand castles and getting buried and tickled like crazy. the beach was probably the single most enjoyable part. second time I've been there.. but this was the first in which I had fun. it's an indescribable experience; to wade in the water, to look at the shimmering sand, to have a force of nature bear itself upon you, crash after crash. to be swept away, pushed by an unnaturally strong force; to be one with the sea.. the sheer joy of jumping in the waves took me, but it's so enjoyable. too bad I have an awful sunburn on my entire back (stupid me, didn't apply there because I couldn't reach it).

but damn, that path was freaking small. I was so scared.. every single time a cycler would pass by, I freaked out. I couldn't control myself, and narrowly avoided death many, many times. I'm glad my friends waited for me so much.. I was so slow going the first time around, because I was so scared. I really thought, "today.. is this the last thing I'm going to do?"

I can't describe that anxiety. the constant feeling that death is watching you, that death is waiting for that one lapse in judgment in order to seize your life..

please don't let that day be soon.. I have too much at stake.

why does death have to be an everlasting aspect of my life? I feared for it when a family member of mine grew suicidal within hours. I feared for it when my brother didn't return from the hospital four years ago. I feared for it yesterday when someone around me went crazy and physically abused me for no reason. I feared for it today when I rode through treacherous paths, clumsily and unsteadily.

fear possesses the soul and refuses to take it back. death is always present; whether it be in popular media, or society, or myself, there is only one thing that truly matters to myself. control over myself, regardless of the situation.

fear threatens to conquer me. my fear of my love for people, my fear of my ambitions, my fear of people seeing the "real me". I have repulsed the one person in my life who has done everything in their power to help me when they are one of the few capable of doing so. they are capable of so much; a true jack-of-all trades. and yet my own fears prevent me from loving them. a fear that conquers my soul, dictating what I do.

I don't want to fall into this cycle again.. can you please help me? I didn't say "oh, I'm dying, please help me!". or, "look at me, I CAN'T do it because I'm ME". I was trying to explain that, my god, there was a chance that today could have been the last day of my life... that you might have never seen me again... that I truly would have died.

and yet, you see it as a plea for help, a whining on my part. defying your logic, your standards, yet again.

I want your friendship. do you truly wish to maintain this strong opinion of your's that I am no longer capable of happiness? that I am unable to be helped? I cannot do this on my alone, yes. but I am definitely trying. and I am definitely doing SOMETHING that is making progress. and yet, I cannot talk about the good things to you. I do not allow myself to, because you said that you could no longer see my achievements.. so now it is a waste of time for me to tell you. so why bother anymore? you said yourself that what 'progress' I've made is invisible to you.

I wish so badly that this can be reparable. but I'm afraid that, given our circumstances, it won't be.

(ugh, I started writing this last night at 11PM, felt too sleepy by 12AM to finish it, then just finished it at 11AM this morning.. I didn't even know I wrote some of the things in here, it just kinda went on automatic.)