Im not sure where this is headed, it may be long, and it may not be long. My head is full at the point.
“How come you’re still single?”
Well, the long and the short of it is that, I am picky. What I would like is a woman that skis or ride’s a bike. But she must do one or both, some what confidently. It’s not that I won’t teach them, because I will. I have. But each time I have, I’ve gotten burned out in the long run. It puts to much stress on trouble-free outings.
History. A little History.
In mid 2005 I started hanging out with a wonderful girl, she rode, and she rode a lot. After a few months of riding together and teaching her the finer points of railing a turn on a bike, line selection and a bike mechanics 101, she let me use her couch after I was kicked out of my new digs after just 4 days. Shortly there after we started dating, but is was nothing official. It was a big step and it wasn’t at the same time, for both of us.
Fast forward to Jan 14th 2006:
I had a seizure, while we were at the movies. This was earth shattering for me, I guess in a way it still is, I lost my driving privileges for 6 months. I’ve changed and people have taking notice. But I will get back to that later.
She with out me even asking took care of me for the next 6 months. I would crash at her place a few days a week and she would take me to work and pick me to go ride, drop me off at the ski hill so I could ski. You name it; she most likely did it for me. I was grateful for her and thankful that she was there. Things moved along nicely for the 6months, I guess as smooth as things can go for a after a seizure.
Fast forward June 2006:
Then one day out of the blue, she said we can’t do this anymore. This being the nothing official 8 month relationship. She had met someone else and would like to see where things went.
Fine.
We talked about our feelings, the feelings we had for one and other, our feelings about the past 8 months. Nothing negative was said, she just wanted something new. To be honest I was crushed. You start to get some pretty deep feelings for someone after they take care of you for 6 months both mentally and physically. Well, I did at least.
Well at least I can drive now.
We made a deal that we would still try to remain friends, ride, and go out to dinner on occasion, just in general hang out. This didn’t last more than a month , maybe two. I would call she would not call back for a few days. I would send her an email. I would get nothing in return. After two months I gave up, I was having trouble with post-seizure life as it was, and I didn’t need the added stress. At this point, as most people that know me in the bike world would say, I vanished form the face of the earth.
As the months went by, I got back on my bike at started to ride a little. But the stress of every thing had already taken its toll on my body and mind. I couldn’t ride with the speed and grace that I once had. I lost my edge.
Over the coming months I would see her at a few cross race, I always made it a point to say Hi and ask how she was doing. She would answer then just sort of drift away, not asking how I was doing, nothing. I was done.
The seizure beta:
After 40 hours of testing, full nights rest, sleep deprived 8 hours, 6 hours, and 4hours. Stress testing, EEG, MRI, Cat Scans the whole gamete. Around $90,000 dollars in testing. So after all of that, they can tell me nothing. They “think” that the nerve ending in my heart misfired and caused me to black out and have seizure. If that’s not reassuring I don’t know what is.
Post-seizure:
Life for me post seizure for me is hard. I really don’t like to be alone, on my bike, in the kitchen, skiing… basically I don’t like to be alone if I am doing something that I can do bodily damage to my self or others if something happens. But shit happens; I have to drive to work every day. I need to cook food. I need to ride my bike. I need to ski. I need to live my life.
So in an effort to keep this from happing again I sold my Downhill rig. The sport loved and competed in for 5 years, is now out of reach for me. For bikes, I now race endurance stuff on a SS and CX in the fall. My skiing hasn’t changed much; I still jump off things and ski fast.
Every day life has changed too; my memory has gone to hell, I’m always freezing, no matter how hot it is out side. I have trouble staying focused on even the most simple of tasks, even the smallest daily tasks are a huge chore now.
It’s funny how you block things out of your thoughts only to have them coming flooding back to in to your cerebral some time down the road.
I guess that’s it for now.
