Work is love made visible.
-Kahlil Gibran
This is precisely the sentiment that kept me messengering, loitering at the gates of a proper career. Most of my friends had long since moved on to a different world, one with paid vacations and 401(k)s. After eight years, I had amassed a couple of decent bikes, $30k in back taxes and hospital bills, and a rap sheet filled with obscure violations (yes, Virginia, there is a law against skitching).
It’s hard to kick an addiction to freedom: a few cities, a few countries, the ‘93 Worlds in Berlin…but after getting locked up one too many times for traffic violations, it was clearly time to get out of the game.
Fast forward ten years…jobs, kids, bills, but every once in a while, a Saturday morning ride: single speed in a wife beater, trying to hang with the crown bosses, a ‘cross race here and there, clawing into the top ten in the 2008 TdC. In the wake of tragedy, a new addiction is born.
Because, as Eleanor Roosevelt once said, America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed.