Swollen and Sore

Yesterday morning I got in the worst bike accident yet.

I'm not going into details but suffice it to say I destroyed my bicycle and I now know what it's like to bounce off the hood of a car (and roll around on the cold, wet sidewalk for a good hour.)

I somehow managed to not break anything (to my knowledge - I know, I should have gone to the hospital.)

Now I am sans a road bike and am basically sitting around shopping ebay to replace my Raleigh that I already miss so hard.
I'm also incredibly sore and bruised up. I honestly have no idea how I landed or what happened really. In my head it's a series of quick flashes and the driver left while I was still moaning and in shock.

After a week of drinking every night and having a really hard time with life, it's like the cosmic universe threw this at me to say "HEY, YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD BE GLAD TO BE ALIVE" but really, now I'm just more depressed because I have to spend a bunch of money I had planned for other things and I doubt I will be able to join a bicycle racing team.

But then I read this blog entry from Street Boners and TV Carnage.

Now, I've never done any drugs.
I refuse to.
It's why I drink so much.
I figure, "drinking is legal and nobody in my family died from it, unlike smoking, so why not?"
And now I just have a potbelly instead of emphysema.

But the end of that blog entry made me think.
Our 20's are a certain time period and you know what, they kind of do suck.
I mean, there are tons of fun times but they are usually stemming from sex, drugs, or rock and roll (or all three.)
It's a shallow, self-destructive time when we can't imagine our future so many of us waste our minds in the present.

But even as a child, I always was looking forward.
When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be in high school.
When I was in high school, I wanted to be in college.
When I was in college, I wanted to be out of college.
And now that I'm out of college, I want to travel the world.

So for someone to write out their "next phase" in life, involving marriage, kids, and inside jokes, makes me hopeful.
It let's me know that I will hopefully figure this out.
I will hopefully one day be comfortable and happy and not using alcohol to escape the fact that my future is currently a void.

I don't know if this bike accident was meant to teach me a lesson.
I don't know why I am learning lessons from a blog that has the word "boners" in it.
But I do know that while I may be hopeful, I can't rely on the future to "make me happy."
Yet I don't know how to make myself happy in the present either.

But at least if I do ever get married and have a child, I can tell them what it's like to get hit by a car.