Wow, what a weekend! My family and Jennifer’s family came to our house for Thanksgiving dinners on consecutive days. Everyone got together, caught up and ate lots of food, especially pumpkin pie. I figured I would burn some serious calories on my cycling adventures, but I had a family issue to tend to which cut out my long Sunday ride. I did get in a couple of short rides over the weekend and tested out some new winter cycling gear that I will talk about, but first I have a tangent to take you on and an explanation for the loss of my choice Sunday ride and pictures.
I am sure everyone does, but I get caught up in what I am doing. For me it has been the development of the Adventure Monkey. I am working on posting new fine art photography on my Etsy store, expanding a network of resources for Adventure Monkey’s social network, ordering a new bike, looking at events for next year, and investigating resources for a clothing line featuring the cute Adventure Monkey logo, along with other business tasks that will allow the Adventure Monkey to start growing into something more than this blog.
Things happen in life that bring everything to a crashing halt. Sometimes these events are tragic, sometimes glorious but they get us to stop and reevaluate our priorities. That’s pretty much what happened to my family this weekend. Thank God, we didn’t have a tragedy, but we could have.
I have a teenager in the house. As a child, he was one of those kids that other parents wished they had. He was never any trouble. He would play by himself for hours at a time. He would come to the photo studio with me and help get the babies to smile, help clean up or just keep me company. He was and is still good at everything he tries, from sports to academics to music. We were very close. We giggled at stupid stuff including reciting the Dumb and Dumber dialogue at appropriate moments. As a kid, my father-son relationship was strained to say the least, so I felt very blessed by the relationship I had with my son.
As he grew into a teenager friends, girlfriends, school activities, social activities, music and other things took the place of the usual family time we had when he was a kid. Nothing seemed too out of control. He got in a little bit of trouble here and there. We grew apart and that was hard, but I figured that is what happens as kids grow up. Seems pretty normal as I think back on my growing years.
Last weekend, the feeling of something not quite right had me up at around three in the morning. I got out of bed to check the usual things around the house. Everything looked secure until I checked in my son’s room. It was empty. I had already confirmed the status of the windows and doors in the house. There was only one other place I hadn’t checked. As I opened the door to the garage, I was greeted by the cool outside air and a missing car. In that instant I knew things had to change.
The feelings of anger, rage, disappointment, fear, sadness, more anger, and confusion all swirled around in my head. How did we get to this point?
Last Sunday, instead of riding, was spent making changes in the house. Many of these are physical changes to the living arrangements. I refuse to give up on my son and let him continue on this destructive path. He is a good kid caught up and heading in the wrong direction. I feel if I don’t take action now in changing his direction I will lose him. Instead of a priority changing event, I will have a tragedy on my hands. I will have failed in my most important job – being a father. No other job I have comes close to the importance of being a dad. The sad thing is, we hold a job that makes money in high regard compared to being a husband and father. Because of this we let our duties as a father and husband lack while we try to be “successful.” That, to say the least, is messed up. You will hear more in the weeks and months to come. I have to put more effort into this relationship. He will be riding more with me. I have a job to do. I still have a dream of riding across the USA with this son of mine before he begins his journey on his own. I pray we can make it to that point and experience an awesome, life changing ride together.
My next post will cover my experience, a review if you will, with the Pearl Izumi AmFIB bib tights and Kodiak long sleeve jersey with pictures. Just didn’t seem appropriate to cover now.
Love, Peace and Happy Monkeys
–Eric
show hide 5 comments