Year of the Ox

It has been too long.

Just because I stopped writing does not mean that I stopped riding...It is just that life got crazy, and than it got insane, and then it got horrible, and then it did not get better for a long long time. But maybe that is all starting to change now, we shall see.

We all know what happened in March of 2020 and we all have a shared grief over the 18 months or so that followed. I lost a friend to COVID. He left behind three kids and a wife...

It feels weird to put this out there on the internet, because it is so personal. I can assuage my anxiety a bit by thinking to myself "Who is going to read this? Probably not that many people. So, what can it hurt?" My mother, Yvonne Tait, killed herself on October 26, 2020.Just when I thought 2020 could not get any worse it got much much worse.

My dad, my mom, and me - when I was one and we were living in Fallbrook, CA

So, yea life got shitty and then it got horribly f*$#ed a million miles past shitty. Odd thing is that the night my mom took her life I was out for a ride on my gravel bike. I was screaming down "CP Buffalo Hill" in the fading light when my front wheel hit a huge obstacle that I never saw. There was a horrendous bang and I thought for sure my wheel was jacked. I believe it was at that exact moment that my mom pulled the trigger. Her life ended and I kept riding, my bike and myself okay, oblivious to the carnage my mother had just caused...

The rage, anger, and despair I felt when I got the news was paralyzing. I ripped a door off its hinges and threw it against the wall. I walked out into the street and collapsed. I cried in my sleep. I drank a lot of whiskey. I got on a group call with my five siblings and we screamed and cried on speaker phone until the wee hours of the morning.

Back in 2015 I lost a friend to suicide, she was in high school. She was bright, a joy to be around, friendly, compassionate, and the world was her oyster. But I guess she did not see it that way. Suicide leaves a gapping hole and a lifetime of "whys" that will never be answered. One day I believe Jesus will answer those whys and heal those gapping wounds. But until then I will just keep moving one foot in front of the other - just like an ox pulling a heavy load...