Each year, I seem to lose more than I gain. Hobbies fall by the wayside as new obsessions take their place. Friends slip away into the ever-increasing complexity of their own lives. M is moving away to work at a startup. Weekly standing appointments with S became chance meetings if we happened to be in the same part of town. He’s also working on a startup. Ambition is a value I prioritize in friendships, so what am I supposed to do, who am I to blame, when it takes them away from me? I meet fewer people each year that goes by and I lose touch with more. I still talk to two people out of the seven that I befriended last year. Am I, the common thread, not to blame? I ran way, after all. Using my wrist injury as an excuse, I ran away from the piano. “I don’t have any design inspiration these days,” I say as I avoid the planks of wood I’ve left to decay in the studio. And if I die on the motorcycle, it is because I ran away from being responsible for my own life. My cowardice disgusts me. Too guilty to throw away my life in pursuit of grandeur yet petrified by failure and mediocrity, thus left with a collection of half-lived experiences not worth writing about. Nevertheless I cling on to each day, afraid that this might be the last 75º, partly-cloudy Sunday afternoon I experience. Perhaps it should.

No, no that’s not how this goes. There is no easy way out. There is no option besides winning.

I’ve been experiencing anxiety attacks recently. It feels as if all I have is the motorcycle. They say to celebrate the small wins, like cooking dinner or going to the gym, but can one really delude oneself into gratitude, or happiness for that matter? At least I find it more natural to celebrate safely making it home from a ride. I tell others that I bought a motorcycle because I’ve always wanted one. That’s not entirely a lie. In my childhood notebooks there are pages upon pages of sketches of concept cars, other fast-looking things, and the number 9999. My favorite toys were Hot Wheels, and my Legos sets all became cars, motorcycles, or “other fast-looking things” despite instructions. But really, in all likelihood, I could have lived my life without ever buying a bike. I bought one to prove something to myself: Do I truly value freedom above all else? There is no feeling like going for a ride at 2 AM. On the bike you lose everything. Whatever was bothering you at work, how lonely you feel because you’ve been the one initiating plans for months now, that feeling that you should’ve gotten farther in life by twenty-five and that dear god there’s another ten years of this? lucky if it’s only ten, it’s probably twenty for most people. and by the twenty-five year mark what will you have to show, will you be proud of yourself or continue dismissing your parents’ smiles because you can not smile at yourself in the mirror; it all melts away. Even the hum of the engine takes a back seat to the roar of the wind.

I saw, on some self-help Instagram page, a while ago, that in order to receive new experiences, new blessings, in life, one must make space for them. The forest can not grow without fire, but each one might be the last. I’m waiting on the good times now.