Happy 14th Re-Birthday to Me!

Happy 14th Re-Birthday to Me! 

Fourteen years ago, I decided to go off-script. Instead of following the playbook, I started ad-libbing. I said "no thanks" to what was expected of me and began embracing whatever moved me. 

While I sometimes have no idea how my story will unfold in the moment, looking back, it all seems to fall into nice, orderly, entirely sensical chapters. 

After leaving the work world came the nomad chapter.  I assumed it would have a tidy ending and that I'd move fairly quickly into whatever came next. Alas, I spent a good chunk of time in a liminal, who-am-I-now space. Looking back at my re-birthday posts over the last few years, there's been a recurring theme: "I don't know what's happening next." And while I suppose that's always the case, I now seem to have found my purpose. At least for this chapter of life. 

In last year's post, I mentioned I was excited to start my own biking endeavor. Within a few months, I'd fully severed ties with my previous biking affiliations. While that was sad at the time, hindsight has given me a healthy dose of gratitude for those endings. They've allowed me to pour my energy into creating something of my own. Little did I know that would mean starting not one, but two biking endeavors. [Gulp.]

Life per Gallon

Yesterday I went for a bike ride. At one point, I was pedaling up McLeod Road, inching my way up the hill, when I caught up with a man on the adjacent sidewalk. He was wearing a yellow Pearl Izumi vest — ah, perhaps a cyclist? — and walking with a cane.

I looked over, smiled, and said, "You want to race to the top?"

We both paused in our climb and introduced ourselves.

"Hi, I'm Fred." 

"Hi, I'm Sarah." 

Fred reached into his belt bag and said he had a book for me. 

I was confused. A book? For me? 

He handed it to me. 

I looked at the cover. "Life per Gallon." There was a photograph of a cyclist touring down a road, and beneath it: "Writings of Frederick Su." 

Ah, Fred was giving me a book he had written.