The last couple days I accomplished something I was never able to do as a kid, even though most kids learn to do it: it's like swimming, or jumping off a diving board, or going on a roller coaster: pretty daunting at first, but after you master it, feels like no sweat at all and most people can do it like it's nothing. I'm talking about riding a bicycle with no hands. I never summoned up the courage as a kid, but also never as a teen, a young adult, nor even a 30-year-old adult to try to ride with no hands. I always had pretty bad balance, so I tipped over pretty quickly when trying to balance sitting on a bike with just my butt, but the more important thing was: I was just afraid. For that split second when I lose control of the wheels and I feel like my body is going to be driven right into the ground, I feel that familiar grip of fear taking control and the natural survival instinct telling me to grab onto the handlebars at all costs, even though I'm literally inches above the ground and falling down would only create a skid or a scratch, AND I'm wearing a helmet. But the last 2 days, I just went for it, let my hands completely off the handlebars, let the legs do the talking, and went for more than 20 seconds without hands before it got tiring. I don't see what the big deal is; riding with no hands is actually slower because the hands aren't there to create more leverage on the bike and allow the legs to drive the bike forward, so I feel my legs getting sore pretty quickly without even moving much, and also it's definitely a little harder with a strong wind; the wind can veer my body in a certain direction and make it tricky to keep moving forward, which is the key: legs just have to keep moving forward, otherwise stopping at a standstill makes the bike tilt to one side and crash. Even in my old age, I was able to accomplish something; it's never too late.
I wish I could say the same thing about 2 more significant accomplishments in life I've been trying to attain: getting on TV and babymaking. After being a little disappointed each time MJ's cycle ended without a pregancy but thinking maybe it was a blessing in disguise and allowing us more time to experience our lives, I'm now a bit in panic mode and something MJ kept urging me not to be: desperate. It doesn't help that seemingly everywhere I go nowadays I see baby pictures or real live babies. Facebook page, seemingly all my Facebook friends are bragging about their summer vacation holidays with.......the baby (or babies). Random Korean TV shows I watch have cute kids of parents who support them. I walk to the library and out come a mom with an infant baby and a 3-year-old walking along beside her. Is it possible for a man's (instead of a woman's) biological clock to be ticking?
The story of riding a bike with no hands should be a moral about not being scared to try and trying everything, but unfortunately for someone like me it's apparently just not cut out to try. In my youth (probably influenced my American TV) I thought I could be on a reality TV show or something, and fame was in my future, but after multiple failures of sending in audition tapes and going to casting calls without hearing anything back (looking back, going to a Big Brother casting call, waiting in line for 3 hours only to get to say 1 sentence in front of a casting director before being led out to the back and released should have made me realize the TV business is not like riding a bike and going in with no hands could really do damage to my ego/psyche), but I tried out for a game show recently, was invited to audition, went to the studio with high hopes, turned in my phone dutifully as per the rules........and sat in the contestant room all day without ever getting picked to play, only being told at the end of the day that I was an alternate and would not be getting chance. One of the more devastating days of my life, even though it wasn't all that bad from an outsider's perspective: I hung out for a day with other game show hopefuls, I got a free lunch, I did a once-in-a-lifetime thing. The problem was that it dashed my dreams mercilessly and made me feel really small. Psychologically, it was worse than falling from my bike and landing flat on my face: just the realization that the TV business does not need people who look like me, that no matter how much energy I try to muster in the auditions and make jokes and do funny dances and bring what I think is "game show energy," I can never how I look, and my look is not the look that American TV wants. It's a business; TV shows need to use whatever will help their bottom line and do what's best for them, and it leaves me in a lurch. I keep trying to tell myself not to think about it, but there's really no band-aid big enough to hide the scar that the experience had on me; I had a purpose and a drive to be on trivia shows, and now I feel the bubble is burst, and I'm just in a rut of wallow and self-pity; on back to back days I forgot routine things like attening a homeowners' association meeting and to attend a blood donation that I had signed up for. The pain is real.
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