Yeah, I think I’ll just skip over the crap

So the cast is off, and though I’m a little sore, I can walk pretty well. I can rollerblade (thank you, God), but I still can’t walk/hike for exercise – and I miss my morning walk with my dogs so very much. Consequently, I’m still riding the bike, more specifically, it’s an Airdyne – so the arms move and a fan blows on you. (Apparently for resistance, but I think it’s to help you feel like you’re actually riding a real bike, you know, wind in the face and all that.)

Anyway, it’s really fucking boring. I just have to put that out there. My brain fixates on the seconds as they tick by. I torture myself with games where I don’t look at the devil bike timer for random amounts of time which I’m convinced are substantial, only to finally look down and see that only 40 seconds have passed.

My salvation is my iPod. As life carries on, it’s impossible to listen to all of your music on a daily or even weekly basis. (Particularly when your three year-olds only want to listen to the Mary Poppins soundtrack.) So, as I ride that stationary bike, I listen to old albums that I haven’t heard in forever. And the time flies.

This morning, though, I decided to live dangerously. I hit ‘shuffle’ and let the fates decide.

Remember the Mary Poppins line above? Yeah, well all of our kids’ music is in our iPod, along with classical music, jazz…every CD we’ve every had. When the first bad song came on, I thought, ‘I’ll just live through this, it’ll teach me patience.’ Um, yeah right. I worked up a cheesey story in my head about how this was a metaphor for life, that just like the songs, some moments are boring, some bring you down, some are joy-filled, some are fast and wild, some are painful. Then, I got all Zen on myself, determined to let the songs fall as they may – to muscle through the drone of a lullaby while I pumped the pedals furiously…craving a little Madonna.

And then I thought, what kind of life is that? I didn’t raise myself to sit around and take whatever crap I was dealt! I’m not a just deal with it kind of girl!

As Holiday filled my ears, I took a chance and looked down at the timer. Shuffle + Zen + Madonna equals, yes, only 40 seconds.

Image credit: sebleedelisle