No 2: A RIDE AROUND THE BLOCK
PHOTO BY NAOMI MERCADO
NAOMI MERCADO
I’ve realized that I am afraid of comfort. What is curious and makes my case more complicated is that I am a regular human being who, like everyone else, is also afraid of discomfort. All this made me come to the terrible conclusion that I live in a contradiction that makes me have no ground under my feet to stand on. I am afraid of comfort and discomfort.
When I speak of comfort I do not mean the literal comfort that one feels when lying on a bed full of soft pillows, I’m talking about a mental comfort, a certain stability, a state of confidence. I'm afraid of trust.
I'm going back eight years. Riding a bike has never been something I enjoy, my parents taught me how to ride one when I was little and if I get on one now I can surely get the momentum and do it relatively well, but eight years ago I fell off a bike and vowed never to get on a bike again. The curious thing about this case is that minutes before the fall, the feeling of confidence passed through me. I was 11 years old, I was starting to get comfortable riding my bike and even enjoying it. I remember my surprise at the thought "I think I'll start doing this more often." And suddenly and out of nowhere, a girl on a tricycle crosses in front of me in the middle of a ramp and to avoid crashing with her I lose my balance and fall. I start to roll down the street while the rest of the cyclists do their best to not go over me. Some succeed, others don’t and therefore I end up with a serious injury and a scratch on my face that left a painful spot on my cheek for quite a few months.
Another case that may have contributed to the creation of my fear of comfort occurred several years later. I had just gotten my driving license and like anyone who is just starting to drive a car, at first it’s difficult and we go with certain insecurity at the wheel and the turn signals on. One day I had to transport myself to various places, so I thought taking the car out by myself would be a great opportunity to practice my driving skills. I got to destination A without any problem, so on the way to destination B I began to gain comfort and confidence, so much so that I even turned on the radio and had the luxury of singing a couple of songs. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to guess what happened next: I crashed. It wasn't a serious crash, neither I nor the other person got hurt, but our cars were not as lucky, and neither was my mental health.
These are specific cases where taking confidence in something knocked me down. But over time these small traumas that were totally insignificant at the time, developed in my mind the contradiction in which I currently live. These cases clung to my head making it difficult for me to feel confident now for fear of mentally falling off my bike. Now the fear goes beyond getting on a bike or driving a car, now I am afraid of new relationships, new changes and even my own decisions. Now I feel that the fall is not from the bike to the ground, but from the 54th floor of the tallest skyscraper in the city to a highway filled with cars passing by at full speed. What made the distance of the fall increase is that now the fall is abstract, it’s all inside my head. That feels scarier.
I can no longer daydream and find comfort in the scenarios that I imagine in my head because by imagining them and feeling confident with them I condemn them to never happen. I know this is a pretty pessimistic thought on my part, but this is what my life has led me to, and I have decided to blame it all on my mental bike.
But not everything is bad, having realized this phenomenon that has been happening in my head is the first step to find the solution and get out of the contradiction in which I live to finally find ground to step on to feel comfortable, in confidence, safe and without any fear.
Anyway, I'm writing all this shit to conclude that it probably wouldn't be such a bad idea to get back on a bike for a ride around the block.
