When I am out on my bike I always think “I want to go home and write about how good this feels” and then I basically never find the time/space/impetus to follow through. Walking through my front door means my family needs me to transition to their needs basically instantly.

I love being on my bike as my form of transportation. I know that if we had a car the lazy default would be there and I would probably embrace there being less of a process for getting places therefore I am super glad I don’t have a car. I feel strong and free and confident and happy out on my bike. People wave and greet me. I get to be out in all the weather and feel in my body what it means that there is no bad weather only bad clothing. (I would argue that there is no safe way for me to bicycle on ice.) Hail? Meh, ok.

I love my battery assisted bike. Am I cheating? Fuck you with a two by four. Sell your fucking car before you fucking call me a cheater. It makes it possible for me to pull 60-80lbs up a fairly massive hill on a regular basis. It means that I can decide how much strain my legs can handle on a day by day or even minute by minute basis and adjust based on my own feelings of strength or weakness. When I start the day out I rarely use much assist and when I come home tired I can use a lot. It’s great. It doesn’t make me go a lot faster it just makes it a lot easier to go as fast as I want to go. I’m not a fast rider and I don’t try to be.

I think I could get the kids on board with liking bikes more if the pandemic weren’t making life hard. I don’t know that I will ever get Noah to feel ok with riding the bike and I worry a lot about the strife that will cause in the long run. (Not an invitation to debate that here, Noah.)

Things are going okay in general in the house. Two is a rough age. I have cut the oldest kids off from the screen because they were being really unpleasant. You know what happened? They fight less (they do still fight…). They play together more. They are reading more. They are doing more projects. They do more chores. In general I like living with them more. This is complicated. On one hand I feel like they need to learn how to have balance about these sorts of things on their own. On the other hand… they are still children and they need to be parented. I am very clear over and over that the screens are owned by adults and the children are allowed to use them at our discretion. It’s not like their stuff in their room. To me that feels like an important distinction but maybe I’m just being a hypocrite.

Parenting continues to be hard and demanding and draining. I don’t find myself with a lot left to give to any other aspect of myself. And with being in a lot of pain my capacity is seriously diminished right now. Ah well. I stumble through.

Maybe I can sleep now.