Apparently I have to drink a full cup of coffee to get enough juices going in the morning to get a post up. That whole, just drink enough to feel awake is not cutting it. I need the jitters, I can barely hold my cup type of a buzz to type when my body is still asleep and my eyes want to close back in on themselves…
Are you tired? You ask. Why, yes I am.
Jumping in the way back machine and turning the dial to 2002, there was a time that Sir Prattipus and myself rode the Monkey every Tuesday. Riding Monkeys on Tuesday was a lot of fun. Until I went and did something stupid. This time of saddling up on primates coincided with the time that I was working full time at the shop, going to school full time and just for fun, I worked a full time night job as well.
Who cares? Well, you see I quickly found that the more sleep deprived I was, the easier it was to get my sorry excuse for a freerider ass to jump off of stuff. As Prattipus put it, “All we had to do is point, and he would jump off of it.”
I’ve experienced moving walls without drugs. Yup, been down the road of sleep deprivation induced hallucinations. It’s a strange feeling to dream while you are awake.
So we were riding monkeys, right, yup that’s where I got derailed. I loved to ride the Monkey, until the day when I hit the giant double at the bottom of the trail. The Flying Monkey, at the time I haven’t been out there in ages, ended at Bender’s Jump Park. Yup, that Bender. Part of this jump park consisted of a road gap that came off of a steep run in and would give you enough speed, if you didn’t scrub before the drop, to hit a double. And by a double, I mean the launch was as tall as I am and the landing was 38 feet away. Prattipus measured it.
During this sleep deprived time, I started hitting this. After a while, just thinking about riding the Monkey and my hands would start to sweat while my heart beat went through the roof. My anxiety began to overtake the fun that I was having.
Luckily, I had an easy out. I just sold all my bikes and moved to the other side of the world.
Currently, my anxiety levels have been a little high. I haven’t had a good night’s rest all week. Apparently somewhere in the last 24 months I have developed a serious fear of heights. Which seems strange seeing that I have no problem rappelling or climbing or hiking or sitting on the edge of cliffs. It’s all when I am thinking about the cliff that my anxiety goes over that edge and I am falling. It’s bad enough that my stomach will actually drop when I am wide awake and think about rapping off of an edge. When I am asleep, I have constant nightmares of falling off the ledge. Over and over and over and over again. Ridiculous.
Well, I guess I need an out. All my bikes are now for sale, all I have to do is determine which side of the world to move to…
Out.