I have been absent from the blog for a few weeks now. I’ve been grieving the loss of our bicycling adventures! This is the second such episode of grief after a bike tour. The first occurred in 2010 after our coast-to-coast “honeymoon tour.” Thankfully, we arrived home this summer from our Atlantic Coast tour the day before school started, so I didn’t have a complete breakdown….there was no time for that! But, in all seriousness, I did feel a loss after the trip was over: no more being outside in the sunshine all day, no more 24/7 with my husband, no more exercise for five to eight hours a day, no more going out for dinner every night, no more eating LOTS of calories and NOT gaining weight, and no more easy decisions on what to wear with only two choices on board.
Being on a bike trip for several weeks is not reality, however. Sometimes, I have a hard time with reality, but it does have its benefits. Everyday life, with its dirty dishes and laundry, allows for better conversations with my husband. While riding, we couldn’t hear one another well due to the traffic and the wind. Reality gets me back to work and a regular routine. Reality gets me back to connecting with friends and realizing just how much I missed them. Reality invites me back to the grocery store on a regular basis, where the wide selection of foods and other items reminds me that variety enhances life. Reality returns us to a more consistent work schedule on thehopeline.com–and that is a sobering reality, a powerful reminder that we are here to help and serve. While we were certainly blessed with our adventure–a memory-making challenge of our physical, emotional, and spiritual strength—we realize that our life needs to be more than simply bicycle touring.
Both reality and bike tours enrich our lives. How are you doing with reality? What experiences do you have that enrich your life? A relationship with God is a life-enriching theme that is second to none. Perhaps Acts 17: 28 says it best: “we live and move and have our being in Him.” To me, that is the best reality of all!