Recently I’ve been quiet, I’ve missed events, I’ve missed sessions, I’ve hated my bikes, and I’ve mostly been lying in bed pondering existence. I’ve concluded that free will most definitely doesn’t exist, but apart from that, my mental health has been getting a kicking, and as usual, when my mind declines, so does my body.

My mental health has had issues for a while, and it comes back to a time I tried to use my head as a brake at a skatepark. The one thing I’ve learnt in life is that you should not do this. Thanks to this, I’ve lost two decades of memories and still have issues remembering things. When my phone sends me photo memories, I probably can’t even remember being there; it’s like looking into someone else’s life.

I’ve been at what feels like a constant battle with my ex. I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of this other than to say it is challenging. However, it all escalated this year due to my decision to start a new relationship. Not only did this have a toll on me, but it also had a significant toll on my new partner, especially as my ex tried to bring her daughters into it.

The police were even brought in, which, thankfully for me, turned out to be a good thing. As things escalated and court dates were set, I started to spiral back down into a black hole. Then the court dates were pushed back by three months, and I felt as if my life was going down the drain. Unfortunately, my relationship hasn’t made it out of these times; we are still friends, though.

As the court date got pushed further back, my lawyer tried to negotiate with my ex’s lawyer. The good news is once they found out that the police wanted to testify on my behalf, I was given exactly what I’d been asking for for the last four years.

Still, even if there is good news and I got what I was after, I have been unable to change my depressed and anxious mood. Some days it is hard to get out of bed. Getting out the front door is even more challenging. I can’t even bring myself to touch my bike(s). Sleeping is a luxury that I can’t seem to get back into the swing of. I feel like I’m a mess, which makes writing a blog or going for a ride tasks that I can’t complete. I honestly think that life is just passing me by.

None of this is typed to gain any form of sympathy or even empathy. It is just life.