Pedal Softly

The Man was / is an avid bicyclist, and for this reason I began biking occasionally with him while we were together. I have never really been into biking, so he would coach me about different gears I should be in for various terrains we might be riding over.

When biking I generally would leave the bike on a more difficult gear (high? low? I don’t know) so with less revolutions of the wheel I would go further. The Man would always correct me, telling me to “Pedal Softly”, using less energy yet getting to the same place, going the same distance with less effort spent.

I have found that I also need to learn how to “Pedal Softly” in my life. Hot Momma told me one time, “OCG, there is Warp Speed and OCG Speed. You make Warp Speed look slow.”

As aware of this as I am, I still get caught up in my own typhoon periodically. I become unsure of how to control it and how to slow it down. It’s what I know, it’s familiar and it’s a fucking pain in the neck due to the fact that as quickly as it begins, it often ends. I might not be able to reduce the momentum of OCG Speed, but I often find the E brake and pull it.

I do this with everything in my life, often sucking those around me into my whirlwind.

I do it with fleeting interests. For example, I thought about a business I wanted to start last spring. I researched it, found out all of the information I needed to begin it, had business cards designed, a rough draft of a business plan drawn up, contacted a lawyer and began the patent process. After about a month, I was over it, and now everything sits on a shelf in my room.

I do this with best friends. If I like you and we have fun together, you are in. We will hang out all the time, talk on the phone continuously and be inseparable for a few months. Then life will happen, and as much as we still love one another, we just don’t hang as much as we once did. By that time I’m probably inseparable from someone else, again not that I don’t love you as much, just things have changed.

I do this in ‘relationships’. I hate this one the most, because more emotion is invested than in the other two. Grandiose ideas as to what this “is” begin to become random thoughts fleeting through my mind. I dwell… and let’s face it, at my job I have nothing but time to dwell (and blog and email and chat… all often contributing to the dwelling).

The biggest problem with this is that I end up sucking or attempting to suck those on the other end of “this” into Hurricane OCG. If you allow me to suck you in, I will most likely get over “it” sooner than later. I’m bored, because I won. If you don’t get sucked into this then I, oddly, take it personally. Yes I know how nuts all of this is, I truly do... I have to live it daily.

And yet all of this OCG Speed is bullshit, none of it really matters.


So this entire blah blah blah is derived from an hour and a half car ride home last night I spent in silence. Silence and patience are virtues, but for some reason lately I have chosen vices over virtues. Recently I have felt the need to be continually going going going… mostly blanketed in frivolity.

I have felt the need to be constantly ‘connected’ to people. I am regularly on the phone, emailing or texting, sometimes all three at once. My ear piece on my phone broke the other day, and I was completely frustrated that I couldn’t talk on the phone and text simultaneously. This month, so far, I have been on the phone 92 hours. This is nuts, especially because I’ll be hanging out with some friends while on the phone with others.

I began looking at my life last night. Near my birthday I normally will evaluate my life, looking what I’ve done, where I’ve been and what I’ve learned in the previous year. I came to the sad conclusion (sad only because it’s taken this long)… its time to grow up.

Its time to take a deep breath and just be. Its time to surround myself with people that don’t always give me my way and let me do whatever I want. Its time to have people who hold me accountable in my life and theirs. Its time to stop dwelling on the unimportant things (like boys) in my life, and time to deal with the shit I ignore.

So these are my conclusions. I am unsure how I will learn to contain the force that is OCG, but I’m going to try.

I’m going to finally try and learn to Pedal Softly.