A Bad Idea in the Making

“All of our days are numbered. We cannot afford to be idle. To act on a bad idea is better than to not act at all because the worth of the idea never becomes apparent until you do it. Sometimes this idea can be the smallest thing in the world. A little flame that you hunch over and cup with your hand and pray will not be extinguished by all the storm that howls around it. If you can hold on to that flame, great things can be constructed around it that are massive and powerful and world-changing… all held up by the tiniest of ideas.”
-Nick Cave, “20,000 Days on Earth”

If there is one constant in my life, it's that no matter how low you set your expectations, I will always find some way to fail to meet them. You want me to wear heels to match the other bridesmaids? I will stumble in them while walking down the aisle. You want me to be an adult? I will continuously get roped into incredibly long arguments with my two year old nephew about whose chair that is. You want me to do the menial labor I'm paid for? I will still be clueless about how to stretch thawed bread even though I have worked at this damn sandwich place for over two years.

The fact is, no matter how low you set the bar, I will trip over it. Which is perhaps why, at 29, I find myself unemployed, uninvolved, and generally uninterested in life.

Which led to a bad idea.

Instead of continuing to work for minimum wage, live with five other people in order to afford rent, and slog through another wet, cold, and dark PNW winter, dealing with another round of seasonal depression and constantly cold hands and feet, I decided to get the fuck out of Seattle.

By bike.

I decided to get the fuck out of Seattle by bike.

Why not? Riding has been a constant presence since my dad first taught me 25 years ago. The universe generally makes more sense to me when I'm on a bike. I've met all my favorite people through various cycling scenes. And I have no kids, no significant other, hell not even a pet that I'm responsible for. I have the money. Thanks to my unemployment, I sure have the time. So why not go ride my bike across the country? 

My friend Rob refers to this endeavor as my mid-life crisis. When another acquaintance scoffed at this label as how can 29 be middle age? Rob fired back, "Have you even met her? She probably isn't making it much past sixty."

He's not wrong. I'm actually somewhat surprised that I've made it this far. Hell, by most accounts I shouldn't have made it to my first birthday. My grandpa sat on me when I was just a couple days old (survived that one by sinking into the couch cushions), a few months later I rolled myself off the couch (avoiding serious injury by landing on the dog), and right after I started walking, I was run over by a car for the first time in my life (toddlers are apparently very durable.)

In the last two years alone, and I've been hit by 3 more cars, broken a rib and dislocated another, detached my retina, and have just generally had the shit knocked out of me by life. It's usually not a good sign when you're on a first name basis with the the receptionist at the E.R.

So yeah, as I approach my 30th year, I've come to the realization that my time on this earth may rapidly be coming to a middle. With that realization comes the increasing feeling that I haven't really done anything worthwhile during my rotations around the sun.

Enter my bad idea.

Get rid of everything I own, load up my steel bike, and ride the coast from Canada to Mexico. If I hit San Diego and want to keep going, turn left and head East until I run into the next ocean.

What could possibly go wrong?