Running South

I’m coming up on five months since the accident.

Five fucking months.

For five months, that’s been the center of everything. What I talk about. What I think about. What I measure time against. Trauma does that. It doesn’t just happen to you, it moves in, rearranges the furniture, and starts acting like it owns the place.

And then, right in the middle of trying to heal, I got hit again.

Not by a car this time. By people.

I had already trimmed my circle down after the cardiac arrests in 2022. Cut it down to the ones who mattered. The ones who showed up. Three people. That was it.

Turns out even that was too many.

One decided my recovery should look like their version of recovery. Got angry when it didn’t. As if they were the one in the wheelchair. As if they were the one living in constant, full-body pain. I was the one doing the work. I was the one clawing my way back. Sorry if that didn’t fit your narrative.

Another one, and this one still pisses me off, came at my integrity. Drunken texts. Accusations. Over a job I had already explained to him, clearly, a month before the accident. Anyone who actually knows me knows this: my integrity is cast iron. I don’t bend it. I don’t trade it. Not for friendship, not for convenience, not for anything.

But there’s always someone willing to show you exactly who they are when you’re at your lowest.

Stand-up fucking guy.

And then there’s the third. The one that owned my heart.

The one that broke it.

That one didn’t just hurt. That one changed something. Came out of nowhere and hit in a way that doesn’t heal clean. That kind of damage lingers. It echoes. It rewrites things you thought were solid. That one’s going to take time.

So I did what I’ve always done when the walls start closing in: I left.

Not the daily ride. Not the quick rip through town to shake off the day. I’m talking about the real thing. The kind of ride where the destination doesn’t matter. Where the point is movement. Distance. Space.

Freedom.

I pointed south and let it open up.

Triple digits. Wind tearing past me. Engine steady beneath me. Eyes locked on a horizon that just kept stretching farther and farther away.

And somewhere in that stretch, I felt it.

Not happiness. Not peace. But something close enough to breathe again.

I smiled.

Took in the desert. The heat. The smell of dry earth and sun-baked asphalt. The sound of the bike cutting through it all like it belonged there.

No expectations. No explanations. No one watching. Just me and the road.

That’s how I ended up in El Paso.

This morning, I’m meeting up with the local Litas chapter. Brunch. Ride. New faces. New energy. Maybe a few hours where I’m not carrying all of this alone.

And after that? I don’t know. I’ll probably ride. Let the sun beat the hell out of me. Let the heat cook everything out of my system. Let the miles do what they do.

Because right now, that’s what my soul needs. Not answers. Not closure. Just motion.