Diagnosis: Music City Fever

When I woke up at 4:30 am last Saturday it wasn’t my intention to end the day sweaty, tired, and in disbelief from learning that I can bike 36 miles per hour.

It all started off when Nick and I packed up our bikes and drove to Nashville for some fun with friends. I’ve always had a soft spot for Music City, but I really fell hard this time around. We spent the whole day on bikes: in Centennial Park, seeking out food, cruising the Art Crawl, and then finally attending the Saturday Night Sprints.

I’m pretty much the least competitive person I know, but after seeing my friends and peers consistently bike upwards of 30mph, I just couldn’t leave without testing my own limits. So I signed up and soon found myself perched on a bicycle trainer, waiting to pedal as fast as I could to go absolutely nowhere.

As I waited for the sprint to start, I thought about where I was this time last year: bruised up and hobbling around the house after being hit by a truck while cycling.

That was when my anxiety about biking fast had started. I was always a cautious cyclist, but after that collision, well, let’s just say I rarely biked hard enough to even break a sweat. For the last year I have cruised around town as the slowest cyclist I know— continuously alert and perpetually trying to anticipate every terrible driver’s unpredictable move.

But here I was: alive, healthy, happy, and far away from any moving cars. I was surrounded by my best friends and finally prepared to face my fears. The countdown started and 3. . . 2. . 1! I was off! I have never moved so fast in my life! My legs burned. My chest tightened. My body was covered in sweat. But I was alive. And I was biking. And that’s all that mattered during those 18 seconds.I didn’t think about how I sat on the pavement the night I was hit, screaming about the fact that I couldn’t move my leg. Or how angry I was at the driver who turned left into me. I just looked down at my legs—  amazed with each rapid pedal stroke at how many miles they have carried me the last year. Amazed by how freeing it is to be able to depend on your body to get you where you’re going. I just pedaled my heart out, amazed by the fact that I was even alive.

I lost the race that night.

After high-fiving all my friends and drinking about a gallon of water, I climbed on my own bike and headed towards the car. I reveled in the nearly empty city streets and let the evening air cool my face as I pedaled through Nashville as fast as I wanted.

Cycling through Music City that day revived my love for bikes. I let go of my fear of going as fast as I wanted, my automatic grudge against every driver, and my resentment towards each road that wasn’t paved with bikes in mind. It all weighed too much and it was literally slowing me down. I cycled happily through the brisk night and envisioned myself actually living in Nashville someday: learning the streets by bike and navigating on my own. I fell asleep that night with a sense of peace and woke up the next day with a mega crush on Music City and a desire to just pick up and move.

Photos courtesy of Ryan Green
(view all from the sprints here)

My Sweet Secret

I’m happy to finally share that I have made some more progress on my goals list! It all happened really fast but I am now officially working at a bakery!I got a call from a local cupcake shop on a Monday about three weeks ago and set up an interview for the next morning. It went swimmingly well and I spent the rest of the day at work dreaming about what life would be like if I got the job. Then on that Thursday I was offered a position, by Friday night I had put in my two weeks notice, and on Saturday morning I started to train as a frosting & filling maker + decorator!

I have spent the last two weeks working two jobs and being in complete disbelief that I am now getting paid to do something I love. By no means was my job [fashion consultant at a jewelry boutique] terrible, but it just wasn’t something I could see myself doing longterm.

This is only my first week working solely at the bakery and things are already looking up. I am going to train this week to fill-in for one of the bakers going on maternity leave, which not only means I get to bake but I will also get to decorate even more (which is great since that is where my interests are right now!).

I’m still trying to wrap my head around how incredibly fast the last month has gone by and how many wonderful things are happening in my life! I get paid to do what I normally just do for fun! THERE IS A CUPCAKE ON MY PAYCHECK.

Not only am I happier than I have been in a long time, but I have a feeling things are only going to get even better from here on out. As cheesy as it sounds, I honestly feel like this is the closest I have ever come to starting a career. So now that there’s no place to go but up, cheers to new beginnings!

What Not to Do

On Sunday I turned 24 years old! I’m not sure why I feel kind of embarrassed to admit that. . . maybe because 24 always seemed so old in my head and I thought I would have accomplished more by now. But I’m trying to get over those feelings and I am starting with my own actions. I realized that I have been doing three terrible things since the summer ended:

1. Making excuses to push all of the things I want to do into the future instead of the now.

-Not enough time. Here’s a tip: there is always enough time. If you think you can’t do enough of the things you love, then you need to give up the things you dislike and replace them with the things you desire.

-Not enough space. This is what I have been most guilty of telling myself for the last four months, “If only I had more space to make ______ I could do so much more!” And though it is true that when I move in a few months I will have more space to work on bookmaking and sewing projects, it doesn’t mean I can’t work on things I love until then.

2. Comparing myself to others.

To most people this means looks, but not for me. I compare myself to others my age: their job, their salary, where they live. I compare myself to other cyclists: the miles they ride, the gear they use, how much they drive. I compare myself to other artists: what they make and how often they make it.

And here is the thing: this is bullshit. I mean excuse my french, but why should I care what other people my age are getting  paid to do when I would never even want to do what they are doing? I mean, I’m all for getting inspired by others and becoming a better person daily. But this is not the same thing nor is it the right way to do it. I’ve learnt that the only person you should compare yourself to is yourself. That is the only way to know how you have grown as a cyclist, artist, baker, photographer, illustrator, writer, or person.

Think about it: if I compared every poem I wrote to Rainer Maria Rilke, or every mile I ran to Chris Trager, or anything I made to my best friend Danny McClain’s work (which is being featured all up in this post!), then I would literally never get anywhere. In the last year, I have taken poetry classes, done bookbinding workshops, been hit by a truck while cycling, and you know what? I am a better writer, artist, and cyclist because of all of them (even though that last one wasn’t my fault).

Nothing I learned or improved upon in the last year came from me looking at others and getting down on myself. It came from being inspired to never stop learning, never give up, and never quit trying. And that’s what I will keep doing.

3. Not trying out of fear of failing (or fear of criticism). 

Okay, I know I literally just said “never quit trying,” and I meant it. Once I try something, I don’t mind trying again to improve it. But it’s just getting me to attempt in the first place that is the hardest. This ties into what I was talking about earlier. For example, it’s so easy for me to look at someone else’s beautifully decorated cake and then decide that I’d rather not make one at all than to try really hard and then have this super ugly cake. But worst case scenario— YOU STILL HAVE CAKE SO I MEAN WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? The point is: whoever made the beautiful cake I am drooling over— at some point— made a cake that they completely hated. You can’t get better at something you never started.

So we learn and we try and we get better. This post was supposed to be about the goals I set for myself this year, but instead this is what came out. You can’t hope to improve unless you take the time to acknowledge things holding you back. Which, in my case, is mostly myself. This post is longer and more personal than usual, so I will save my list of goals for another day, but I feel fine realizing I can achieve those goals if I just cut the nonsense and do what I really, truly, deeply want to do.

In short, I’d like to quote Yer Heart right now, “It’s so much better to mess up than to do nothing at all.”