The long road ahead
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
In 1998, two people came into my life and we would be inextricably tied to each other from that moment on. Jessica and Kimberly had just moved from North Carolina to San Diego after graduating from college where Jessica would join me working at a tiny startup named bluemountain.com. The three of us at the tender age of 22 would become fast friends that has endured a lifetime.
We were your typical young kids, footloose and fancy free as they would say through a charming southern drawl. Living in a beautiful place while approaching life with the innocence, care-fear and joyous ways any typical young adult strives for.
The Blue Mountain offices were in the Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego, known for its vibrant beach community, bars, nightlife, beautiful people and of course, many places to enjoy an active lifestyle. Jessica had taken up to living in San Diego, surfing on lunch breaks and adopting an active life that included cycling. I, on the other hand, had gravitated towards the unhealthier parts of the fancy-free living. Drinking, gallivanting around town, and smoking a pack of cigarettes a day while abusing the parts of youth that it so kindly offered. One day Jessica invited me to go biking with her after work, which I borrowed one of our co-worker's bicycle to do so. I was excited, as behind the unhealthy life I was living, I had been an athletic person as a child and teenager. I played multiple sports throughout my young age and had a love for running and cycling. It seemed that I had just taken a break from what I was naturally inclined to do. We set off on the flat roads of Pacific Beach towards La Jolla on one of the many sunny 73F days San Diego offered up regularly. And around mile 3, the life choices I was making leading up to this moment finally caught up with me… turning around to head back to the office and light up a cigarette to catch my breath was humbling, and would ultimately become a significant moment in my life. Afterwards, I threw out the remaining pack and bought myself a bike.
There are pivotal experiences that define the future us, and this was one of mine. I started getting more into cycling and running from that moment on, taking up endurance activities that would shape the remaining parts of my 20s, into my 30s, and would inevitably change the way I live in my 40s.
At the same time the three of us would become close as siblings as the days, months and years added up. And over the next 23 years, we would share many important and life defining moments together. We celebrated wonderful milestones such as weddings, families expanding and simply growing together as we inched towards the middle parts of our lives. I had moved away from San Diego some time ago, but that would not slow down the friendship. The thing about true friendship is that time and distance becomes irrelevant.
At the beginning of March this year, I landed from a flight to urgent calls and text messages, first from Kimberly and then from Jessica. I had been here before and immediately knew to embrace for impact. I have received calls and had to make similar ones between the three of us in the past. I called Jessica back, in which she began to tell me that her partner of 21 years and father to their two beautiful daughters was found unresponsive on the living room floor after coming back from a run and had passed away from an apparent heart attack at 48 years old. I flew down to San Diego the next morning to be with Jessica. Unfortunately, I knew what she was going through and had the ability to be the type of support she needed given my own experience of losing my wife, Brynn, only a short two and a half years earlier to cancer. She had more than one person she would be able to lean on during this time.
It was 13 years ago when I first experienced the realities of life that included death. I was in San Diego to run the marathon, and afterwards, I met up with Jessica, Mark, Kimberly and Sam – Kimberly's husband - for dinner. We laughed and enjoyed our time together as usual. A week after that night, I received calls and text messages to the news that Sam had died in an accident. He was 30 years old.
Here we are in March 2022, sitting at the dining room table at Jessica’s house, 23 years after we entered each other's lives, wondering how can the three of us be connected this way by the age of 45 years young? We all now were having to support one another in ways that many people our age could not comprehend. Jessica needed me to make sense of what she was experiencing, an impossible task, I might add. Confused and looking to understand how to attend the emotional cuts and bruises as I had been treating recently that left me with my own scars. The same way I leaned on Kimberly throughout my own process. At one point in the night, I turned to Kimberly and asked her if she “experienced joy anymore?” It was a strange and not sure appropriate question for the solemn moment we were living in. But I needed to know when I’m faced with the inevitable question will things be “ok?” I guess what I have been learning throughout my own process was the concept of ok changes. What we deem to be ok evolves as inputs into your life change the definition and feeling of what makes life seem “ok.” She responded that life has been slightly muted ever since. Colors slightly faded, laughter a little less loud, but nonetheless still smiling and happy to be where she was.
Shortly after this moment, I went back into my life while falling into depression I had battled from time-to-time over the past two and half years since losing Brynn. I began to question life, the harsh lessons I kept on experiencing, and the question that first appeared a short while ago: what is the point of living? People who know me well would say that I am a very logical person. But the mathematics of life were no longer adding up for me. Maybe it was never meant to be a mathematical equation, but I don’t think that is a lesson anyone can teach you. You must come to that conclusion on your own. But what I did know is that I no longer wanted to be in this fragile state anymore. Resiliency was one of my core strengths, and I wanted to stop being a victim of my life circumstances that were chipping away at my resilience and my view of the world.
The question of experiencing joy lingered around for some time. You desperately try to find a reason to keep battling; although, I was far away from the feeling of joy, I was trying to keep the desire at my sight, no matter how distant that sight was becoming.
I’ve been biking regularly for several years now ever since that smoke filled first ride in San Diego with Jessica. I have done several multi-day bike rides and had played in the triathlon world competing in a handful of Ironmans. But more importantly, biking was a trusted and dependable activity that provided me with significant joy during good times, and emotional support in more trying times. Biking always gave me a sense of freedom from the first moment I got my Diamondback BMX at the age of 5. I can still feel the excitement I had when the bike appeared on my birthday. The possibilities to go places that I never could before; moments like when the training wheels come off that signifies the removal of limitations towards those possibilities. I think everyone remembers that moment, when you’re learning to balance yourself, first with one side removed, then the other. Experiencing the joy from the first few pedal strokes on two wheels that propels you forward, leaving you with an ear-to-ear grin that you feel throughout your entirety. Joy that comes from knowing you’re going to be free to explore the world differently than you have ever imagined and will begin to imagine. And I have been riding through life literally and figuratively ever since.
Of course, given enough time, you’re inevitably going to experience a fall. In October 2019, I experienced the hardest crash of my life that left me with broken parts that are still healing to this day. But no bike crash can come close to the pain of losing love. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been slowly healing from that fall and have been pedaling myself back into life, occasional tipping over as I experienced in March. But I am continuing to regain my balance that has allowed me to charter a new path forward. Sometimes these analogies become literal expressions. And for me, it has led to the decision to take on an unrealized life goal of mine of riding my bicycle across the US. On August 12th, I will work towards realizing this goal by setting off on my cross-country journey from Maryland, riding along the Trans American route that takes me through Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado, connecting onto the Western Express route through Utah, Nevada and into California on my way back to San Francisco. 3860 miles of ups and downs through every imaginable terrain and unimaginable experiences.
After making the decision to go on this journey, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting and asking the question “what am I hoping to get out of this?" A lot of people after a big trauma, take on these types of challenges for self-discovery purposes, to find inner peace, or to simply feel alive again. I realize the past couple of years, forced into isolation due to the pandemic, also forced me to face myself… the self that was made up from pain, anger, regrets, emotional scars, and the growth I’ve had because of them, giving me glimpses of the person that would be coming out at the other end of this. Traveling has always allowed me to exercise my curiosity and inspired creativity through exploration of places, ideas, myself and the people who come into my life. There are a lot of lessons and inspiration out there when you remove context and comfort from your daily existence. And I couldn’t have picked a better travel method to go on this adventure that was well planned sitting on my comfortable, yet stylish home office chair, but is very much unknown until I am sitting on my bike seat, being uncomfortable in many ways, pedaling along with the “plan.”
I don’t really know what will come out of this. Part of me simply just wants a good story to tell as I continue on with life. But what I do know now is that I am ready to gather my momentum again with the speed and agility I once biked through life with. I am not sure the youthful athlete is on the saddle anymore. Regardless, I am finding a lot of happiness in being on one.
Joy... is not something that I believe I need to chase anymore. I just have to discover what provides me that feeling and strive to maximize my time doing it. And it is a long road ahead, so it is time to be on it.
-Troy