You’re Too Much

The next day I ran into a Cara, a human data base of people in recovery. We talked about all the people doing well. Roger ran a motorcycle repair shop. Billie had gotten her nursing license back and worked with other nurses struggling with addiction.  Trevor made and refinished furniture at a business he called The Strip Club. “Because he strips furniture!” she said. I told her I had gotten the pun.

We talked about people who weren’t doing so well. Josh bought twenty scratch-off tickets a day.  Called it his retirement plan. Kim said she was a ‘free spirit.’ Cara thought Kim was addicted to the danger of sex with people she’d met online.

Sam lost 100 lbs., put it back on, lost it again.  “I had to tell him ‘my eyes are up here,’” Cara said.

“He was staring at your chest?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound like Sam.”

“He was staring at the donut on the plate in front of me with the kind of lust only two weeks of fasting and eating bean sprouts can create.”

Later that day I was riding my bike on the Montour Trail, thinking about Josh and Sam and Kim. They all had that tendency to do too much of anything. “It’s going to kill them,” I said to the handlebars.

I had planned to turn around after twelve miles. I decided three more wouldn’t hurt. My mind wandered until I saw the eighteen-mile marker. ‘Might as well do twenty,’ I thought. ‘It’s a slight downhill grade the whole way back.’

Halfway back I remembered the sun sets at the end of the day. I had no lights on my bike. I pedaled the last ten miles like it was the Tour de France.    My legs burned. My shoulders ached. After hours on the narrow seat, I thought I was lucky I’d already fathered children.

“Too much of anything,” I said as I struggled to put my bike in the back of my SUV.

Today I’ll try not to do too much of anything. 

Dogged Determination ©2018 by Ken Montrose

Dogged Determination is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and anyone you might know is purely coincidental.

Other works by Ken Montrose are available at: www.greenbriartraining.com https://www.pinterest.com/kenmontrose/mt-rose/