What color is your funk?

My funk, my manner of living, is usually a nice cheery pink hue. Not neon or hot pink, not so pale a pink you can barely see it, but just a nice rosy, blushing shade of pink. Usually. For the past week, though, my palette has been replaced with one of hues of blue. Dark blue. Moody blue.

Getting out to ride my lovely bicycle should help with that, right? Well, yes...it should. Except, over the course of this past winter and these days of spring blooming around me, I have been having more and more difficulty maintaining the energy to ride. I get so very winded and my heart sometimes feels as if it is going to explode, it beats so fast and furiously, even on an easier ride. It's not as if I'm getting more and more out of shape by not riding more often, either; in fact, I've been dropping weight too quickly without exercising.

I went to the doctor last week to get the results of some tests he had ordered a few weeks prior. I was expecting the usual: an abnormally high clotting factor amongst the other niggling medical issues with which Lupus has gifted me. I was neither expecting nor ready for the news I received, news which explained the fatigue and shortness of breath, the increased arrhythmia and pounding heartbeep. Though I won't have a diagnosis until I have more tests run next month, my doctor and I now know that the right side of my heart just isn't keeping up.

Lupus has affected so many of my organs. I won't go into all the details, but I guess I really shouldn't be as surprised as I am that something like this is going on. I've known there were slight problems for years...sporadic issues that have come and gone, but have basically been either ignored by my medical team because I couldn't produce the symptoms in their presence, or I just never followed through because of my extreme hesitancy to get caught in that net of seeing one doctor after another and taking this pill to counter the side effects of that pill, etc. again.

In the back of my mind, I have filed away the worry that, someday, I won't be able to ride again. My adult body wasn't built for a bicycle, with the surgeried leg bones and bum organs, but my spirit soars when I ride, so I make the necessary compromise. And normally, my body shuts up when my spirit takes the lead. However comma...lately, riding has been such a physical challenge that I can hear the squeaks and wheezes and creaks and snaps and rattles my body makes as it pedals so fiercely to go just a few miles. And I realize, I'm not ready to stop riding. The distance between myself and my one time goal of riding a century (100 miles) is increasing day by day. Bicycle touring, something I still hope to do this summer (like my friends Sven and Doro, cyclists from Germany who are pedaling from South America to Alaska), is going to be considerably more formidable than I first thought, and the extended trips I dreamed of taking are most likely nothing more than a sweet dream now.

I haven't forgotten all that I teach, the lessons of choosing happiness, of accepting and letting go...but I am having trouble letting go of this one. Not only did the news of a broken heart hit me where it hurts, but it came at a time when I've been hoping to fall in love again...hoping to fill my heart with love of a different kind this time 'round. Not a "White Knight" kind of adoration, but a connection to someone who wants to share a journey of the spirit, something I've never looked for before. I'll say it...I wanna be in love. I miss it terribly, and somehow, I think I'm supposed to fall in love right about now. Not that I'm counting on it, but wouldn't it be something if the right fella came along and, just like that, my broken heart would mend? Love can be a magical, mysterious thing, a healing thing. And if my heart can't be fixed, well...I wouldn't mind skipping a heartbeep for the right reasons... like a tender word or an unexpected kiss full of passion.

In any case, between the news of the heart and being lonely, I hit a wall. Hard. I quit riding except to get my mail, if I left my flat at all. I quit writing. I quit reading Facebook, where my friends live. I'd find myself just sitting, not thinking and not doing, but not in the beneficial non-thinking, non-doing manner of meditation. Just a numb, "What the hell do I do now, and how long do I wait before someone shows me the way out of this suck-fest?"

However comma...I heard my Voice today, the one that Ego has been covering up with deafeningly silent cries of "woe is me" and "why me?" I say silent, because, other than a very few people, I haven't told anyone my news. I just disappeared because I don't know what to say, and I don't want to sound like a hypocrite because I haven't been following the advice I so often give. And I do NOT want to be a medical statistic as opposed to my true Self. I am trying my damndest to be positive, to accept that this is just a part of that great wheel turning. Today, while I am still lonely, at least the sun shone where it hadn't for a week...into my bwoked heart. And it didn't hurt quite so badly as it did yesterday.

I did ride yesterday and today. Not far, and it wasn't easy, and I got really wet in the rain, and riding against the wind had my heart beeping to beat the band...but one of those wheels is gonna spin regardless of whether I choose to take a ride on it or not. I think I'll go for the ride and see where it takes me. After all, the views of the past few years have been utterly amazing...

I'm slowly getting back to me. In the meantime, does anyone know what color to mix with blue to get pink?