Lament of a MAP
There is a point to my rambling. Be patient.
It dawned upon me when I wrote on this site a while back that not only are we too old to die young, but we are too old to have a mid-life crisis.
I was joking at the time, but it sent me into a deep and profoundly introspective melencholy, and I realized: it's true. We are too old to have a mid-life crisis. At least most of us.
When you have a mid-life crisis you do stupid things like have affairs, wear Speedos on the beach, wear shorts that show most of your manly and muscular thighs, buy red sports cars, and think that the McDonalds girl at the window who gives you your order and smiles at you thinks you are really good looking.
Then you wake up one day and realize it's all crap. All of it.
Some might call it maturity, but I call it fatigue. I'm too tired for an affair, too poor for a sports car, have no muscular thighs to show off, and get turned off by the nose and eyebrow rings that the McDonalds girls are sporting.
In this moment of insight I also realized: I can't be bothered to be an OCP.
Yes, there are elements of it: an affection for bikes far better than you need (if in fact there can be such a thing), a desire to be color-coordinated to some extent, a Garmin-fetish. Many of the signs are there.
But frankly, I like wearing clashing clothes because I really don't care. Which is to say because my wife hadn't washed them. Which is to say I'm too lazy to wash them myself. "And so it goes".
So I'm not an OCP. I'm a middle-aged poser, an MAP if you will.
Now that I got that off my chest, this is the problem MAPers have: fatigue.
I ride two or three times a week. The mid-week ride is either a 15-25 miler, or a mountain bike ride of one to two hours.
My weekend ride is either an LSD ride or, this weekend, a hammerfest.
I was beyond exhausted all day yesterday, and pretty wasted today. I anticipate being pretty tired until Wednesday, at which time I'll do it all over again.
Is there any hope for a MAP? Will there be a time that I can cruise with DnvrFox or hammer like jppe and not feel like the very essence of life has been sucked out of my body?
And will it involve self-discipline, so I'll have to cut back on pie, ice cream, and things that make life worth living?
Just wondering.