It’s May 23rd.  I haven’t posted anything in over a week.  I guess not much happened except to say my pool league and I will not be going to Vegas after all.

I can spin it into a long drawn out tail, but it doesn’t change the fact that we lost.  We lost by one measly point.  We were down to the wire, almost mid-night, I was up against a 5 or a 6 level player – I’m only a level 2.  Everyone from both teams stood still in silent anticipation as they watched my opponent and I duke it out.

I scored a point, and needed one more to win.  The rest of my team had shit luck so it all came down to me.  I was the last man on deck when usually I’m the first to shoot.

Truth is, I could’ve beaten him if I hadn’t drank so much but I was nervous as hell.  I kept him on the rails all night though, he took me seriously and brought his A game.  Everyone was getting so tired, our game lasted forever and everyone knew I had a fair shot at winning it.  We were all on edge.

So anyways, that happened.

Something else happened too.  We had such a good Mother’s Day turn out with selling gift certificates, so good in fact that I can buy an electric bicycle and ride it up to Bar Harbor Maine this year.  I can’t ride it across the whole goddamned country like I originally planned, but I can make it to Bar Harbor and back.  It’s 800 miles and will take me at least 17 days to complete.  800 miles there and back I mean.

While I was brushing over the possibility in my head, I went on Adventure cycling.com to check for any updates regarding their GPS technology.  Last time I checked, two years ago, there weren’t any straight forward GPS apps.  Just paper maps and zip files.

Serious bicycle tourists would spend upwards of $400 for a special waterproof GPS unit that can be strapped to their handlebars.  The cyclist can then download zip files of maps into that special GPS unit.  It sounds all very complicated and pricey to me.

But two years later and well….yeah, there’s an app for that.  Adventure cycling partnered with Google Maps and now we have turn-by-turn navigation.  It even shows you where all the campsites and Bike shops are.  It’s incredible to say the least.

But the ebike I want costs $4000…….I can’t afford $4000.  I can’t go on this trip even with the easy nav app they got now.

I went online to check out the latest electric bicycles and found a really good one for a mere $2500.  The battery on the $2500 bike is even better than the one on the $4000 bike.  The bike is from Electric Bike Company who manufactures their bicycles in California.

My dream of riding a bicycle all the way to Bar Harbor became a little more possible after discovering this bike.  And with the new GPS app, making it nearly impossible to get lost…..well, it was the feather that pushed me over.

And that’s where I’m at right now.  I’m looking at the ebike and looking at my bank account.  It’ll be tight.  Very tight.  Especially with having to pay my lawyer another 5 grand any day now.  If I don’t do anything, if I don’t buy an ebike, I’ll not have to worry about money for a while but it’s like I purposely do this to myself.

I forgot when this plan all came together.  Having the money, finding a better, less expensive bike, the easy navigation app – it’s been at least a week.  And in this past week, I’ve been having trouble sleeping because I’m excited.  This always happens when I’m excited.  I can’t sleep.

During one of these sleepless nights, I found myself on YouTube watching solo campers camping in the rain.  It was so very peaceful to hear the pitter-patter of the rain on the tent and a guy relaxing inside talking into the camera and eating beef jerky or cooking his soup on his little oven.

One guy cooked up some lamb chops in the rain and savagely ate them as he chatted into his camera.  Talking about not much of anything.  And I loved seeing him cook his meal and listening to his idle chatter.

I bought myself an ultralight camp stove and frying pan.  So I can cook meat and savagely eat it in the outdoors too.

I also bought an ultralight tent.  It’s an MSR Hubba NX.  And I bought a Big Agnes ultralight air mattress.

Walking across Spain, twice now, can’t compare to anything like true camping.  The first time I went to Spain, I did it to be alone and to rough it, to toughen myself up.  The second time I went was to lose weight because I knew the “roughing it” and being alone part wasn’t going to happen.

But riding a bike to Maine will provide me with sufficient alone time plus the added bonus of being able to camp out.  It’s a trip that I truly want to take and I’ll get to do it in my own country!  Not that it’s any safer.  It’s less safe actually.  But there’s no airfare, jet lag, foreign languages…etc.

I just need to hop on over to that website and buy my bike.  I should do it right now.  But then the Fear will set in.  The fear of not having enough.  I hate that fear more than anything.

Ugh, I can’t win.  I really can’t.  I just want some peace and quiet.

But if I get this bike, I can also ride it to work.  I’ll get to exercise a bit and god knows I need exercise.

I don’t know what to do.

Okay, I figured out what to do.  I’ll sell my old scooter first.  That’ll free up space in the shed and give me an extra $300.  Then I’ll start depositing the cash my business makes into my personal account.  Once I have $3000 in my personal account, I’ll buy the bike.  Right now I only have $150 in that account.  I rarely deposit cash.  People pay mostly with credit cards. It’ll take a while, but I have time and by doing it this way, I’ll not have to deal with that crazy-ass fear.  I hate the fear.

My trip will have to wait but at least now I have a solid plan that doesn’t involve me entering the fear.  It’s probably one of the top five fears to face in life, it’s my personal number one fear but I’m sure others experienced worse.

It’s odd that so much can happen in the span of one week and yet, nothing changes at the same time.  It’s like, all this is happening inside my head, you know?  It’s all mental.  And even with all these changes that happen mentally each week, I’m still the same person.  I’m still me but only with a different focal point.

It’s sad that I lost focus on my blog over the years.  I used to obsess over it.  It was Christmas everyday because of my blog.  But back then I didn’t have the fear like I do now.  It’s crippling.  It’s there looming in my peripherals.

I just want to get back to my old self.  I think that’s why I want to go on this trip.  To be away from everything that effects me negatively.  But to go on this trip would mean to feel the fear again – because of spending $2500 on an ebike.  I’m just going to have to suck it up and wait a bit.

Honestly, if I stop spending so much freaking money, I’ll have my ebike this time next month.

I normally would sell a few signature couples on Groupon for a LOT of expendable cash and put myself on the schedule to massage them but I can’t do that with the business in Bozrah.  It’s still not busy enough for Breanna to quit Massage Envy, so I’m needed there to take clients.

As of now we have 24 unredeemed vouchers and 18 redeemed vouchers.  We’re still in pre-launch.  Groupon has seriously effed up my plans.  I can’t leave for Bar Harbor now anyway, not with Groupon not selling our deals properly.

I’ll check in with you next week.  I’m curious to see what changes happen in the coming week.  It all comes down to the business in Bozrah.  That’s all I’m waiting on now.  It’s really all I’ve been waiting on since we opened.