I have to admit I miss riding in the rain. Yesterday would have been a perfect ride in the rain. Not too cold, and steady light rain, never letting up to the extent that it would have been simply messy and not a “real” rain ride.

I had that feeling, Wednesday night, what it was like to anticipate heading out into the elements when everyone else would be inside, nice & warm & dry. Having an excuse for not riding fast. Having different reasons to think you’re suffering than just lungs that don’t work. Not thinking about how fast or even how far, but just… how long. The importance of keeping things steady so you don’t run out of gas and get cold.

In a saner state of mind, I decided not to get the rain bikes ready for action this year, thinking I’d be spending any wet and really cold day on a trainer. That’s the problem with letting a saner state of mind dictate your future. I allowed that saner state of mind to literally lock out the opportunities for being stupid.

I might have do a bit of refiguring things, because I’m not sure my current electrically-heated gloves are up to the task. They’ll likely soak through and might short out, and that would be a really bad thing. But I’ve got to get away from fear of really bad things and instead embrace and prepare for them. That’s what makes life interesting. Evolution, this idea that as you get older you learn and adapt to better ways of doing things, is seriously over-rated and limits your potential. It leads to a downward spiral with less exploration, less wonder at amazing things that a saner person would think beyond their grasp.

How, at nearly 69, do you escape such thinking? My hands are really the single biggest issue. That and a bit of what might be described as inherited mortality, thinking about my wife’s Stage 4 cancer and the limitations is places on her and the adaptations needed. I may have allowed that to legitimize that sort of thinking for myself. It’s 100% appropriate for my wife. It’s 100% appropriate (and acceptable) for most people. But accepting limitations, for me, may be the equivalent of death by a thousand paper cuts. Each little choice seems reasonable at the time, but they add up to the death of adventure, spirit, out-of-the-box thinking.

I accept that my normal (past) way of viewing things, like riding in the rain, would have been considered seriously out-of-the-box for most people, and they, likely, think I’ve finally grown and joined them. I’m going to try and keep that from happening. If I ever retire, or even work fewer hours, there should be more opportunities to knock off ridiculous things, bucket-list opportunities, and I’m becoming increasingly aware of what I’m willing to give up to make that happen. The idea of retirement is no longer something I’m trying to avoid. I need to work, hard, to make that happen so I can continue to be doing those stupid irrational things that keep my spirit alive. Within the confines of spending as much time with my wife as possible.

Crossed another threshold (or is it milestone?) Friday. Got fitted for my first set of hearing aids. I’d previously tried out the hearing aid feature built into the Air Pod2, and saw that there was something to it, but it’s not the sort of thing you can wear around customers because it looks like you’re being rude and listening to music.

It wasn’t my intention to get hearing aids right now, but my mom died what, about 6 weeks ago?, and she’d been fitted with very nice (Oticon Intent 2) hearing aids just 5 months before that. It made sense to make use of them, and Kaiser, where she’d gotten them, was willing to kinda reassign them to me, as if I were the original purchaser… giving me access to their services in programming and fitting them. If you’re not aware, if can run literally thousands of dollars for an audiologist to “adopt” a hearing aid purchased elsewhere (such as, for example, Costco).

Getting used to them takes time! Just trying to put the tiny at the end into my ear is quite a struggle. It fits WAY in there, feeling like it’s almost directly up against my ear drum. Maybe it is! But trying to figure which way to wiggle it in is really, really tough. Especially the right side, which could be made worse by the arthritis in that hand. I’m supposed to wear them pretty much every waking moment, to get used to them, to retrain my brain for a different way of hearing, but on the bike, have to admit that so far, the Air Pod2 with its adaptive hearing mode is much, much better. Main problem with Air Pod 2 and me is they don’t seem to like the shape of my ears so I had to get these little accessory thingees that create a “hook” that snags one of the “crannies” in your ear.

Hmm. I said I “see” old people. OK there’s another issue, the eyes. I can see clearly close, I can see clearly far, but trying to change focus between the two is another thing entirely. Doesn’t affect me when riding, but at work, it’s a nightmare. Switching between talking with a customer, working on a bike and looking at a computer screen is challenging! Getting the eyes checked out Thursday morning and hope they find something that can be corrected.

I’m beginning to understand where the cranky old guy comes from.