A different perspective

My wife rode her bike to work yesterday, and she had a few thoughts that I thought I would post for a new perspective, and because it's a biking blog and it needs a little biking. I have added my comment in italics.

Being FGLB's wife, I have had the first experience of what it feels like to be in his shoes. Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of riding my bike to work every day. Instead, I load the kids in the car, rush to the daycare, drop the kids off and then rush to work. Never enjoying the smell of fresh air or feeling the wind on my face. (In my defense, I work late right now which will be changing next week and then we are already set to switch off on the bike riding.)

I hurry to work like most Americans. I get out of my car, go to my office and sit on my hinny all day. I am conscious of my sedimentary lifestyle so I take my allotted 15 minute breaks and walk around the area. My office is set amongst other businesses, but also residential areas. Until today, I did not realize how BORING walking is.
I only live a mile from work, so I never get the true feeling of what it is like to really ride your bike. And when we go with the kids, I am busy making sure that they are safe and having fun. (Funny, I don't worry about that...) But today. Today was different. I decided for my allotted 15 minute break I was going to ride my bike to the local pharmacy and pick up a prescription. So, I get on my bike and I am off. Zoom, zoom.

I never realized how much time you have to think about things and really think about yourself. As I am being passed by cars, I think about what must have been like years ago. Before the invention of cars, before factories with smoke producing chimneys, before anything that polluted the precious air we breathe. I bet breathing that air was a completely different feeling than that of today. Clean air. Air that makes your lungs breathe deeply. The kind of air that my lungs and the generation's after me will never know.

Then my thoughts move on. I think about all the other pathetic stressed out people like me that go to jobs and sit all day behind a computer and go home to take care of loved ones and do nothing for themselves. We are stuck in this mundane schedule that we call life. When you are on the bike, the stresses of the world seem to slip away and it is just you, the wind and the road. Your heart is pumping, your blood is flowing and the stress just lifts from your body. You feel ALIVE!!!!

Then I come to a stoplight. My thoughts are concentrated on crossing the busy intersection without looking like a squashed bug on a car windshield. (Who hasn't felt like that before??)
Cross the road I do, and ironically go through the drive thru at the pharmacy. I get my meds and am headed back to work. (I guess they don't have a problem with people riding bikes through the drive through.)

Thoughts linger back to how much happier we would be if we could all just get away for 15 minutes to ride, feel the blood moving, wake up with the wind on our face and breathe the fresh (or not so fresh) air. Cars race by me like they are in this huge hurry. "Take a second for yourself and get on a bike" is what I am telling myself. Rid yourself of all your worries and get out there and LIVE!!!! Thoughts of FGLB blog come in my mind and I realize now, finally, I know what it is like to RIDE!!!!

(Me thinks it will be less difficult to get an OK nod when I want a bike related item now...)

FGLB and FGLB's wife.