About 4 years ago, I was sitting in my parent’s home on a wednesday night with nothing to do. I had no friends to hang out with, I had no real job to wake up for the next day, and I was full of self hatred because I was nearing the 300 pound marker on our bathroom scale. I had been obese since about age 10, with my weight rapidly increasing since I was 8 years old. There wasn’t anything I could do to get a job, because I had no car to get out of the small town we were living in, and no local businesses were hiring. Every person in the town had labeled me a dork, and were taking after their parents’ conservative views, which I held a militant position against. I’d seen first hand the outcome of conservative leadership, with my family’s income suffering whenever a conservative government was in place. I wasn’t going to agree with their ‘drop all the taxes and never let fags marry’ position. So, with no possibility of friends, or a job, I only had one problem to attack: My obesity.
It was then that I walked outside to our shed, got my bike out, and did a short 15 minute ride around our town. I then returned, and vowed to bike a minimum of 2 miles every single day. I would go on to bike this 15 minute route every night for approximately 2 to 3 weeks. I would only bike this route at night because I was afraid someone would see me, and laugh at me for being so fat, and riding a bike in such a seemingly hopeless manner. I always held a very deep seeded fear of others teasing me. It started when I was 15, and went to a concert in the city with a friend of mine. There was another group of people from our highschool, and I heard a girl from the group say “oh god, mike bailey’s here” in a sarcastic manner. Her statement made me feel like someone had ripped out my gallbladder while fisting me, and would go on to make me worry about the opinion every person in our town had of me, and I continue to have issues with those people any time I return to my small town to visit family. If I ever walk from my parents’ house into town to get lunch or something else in town, I always worry that someone from high school will see me, and believe that everyone else’s statements about me moving from chicago were fabricated. Sure, I could easily show them proof that I hold residence in chicago, but that would only be possible if they stopped. Being such the short-sighted people that they are, they are likely to only assume that I was lying, and run off to tell every other person they know. Yeah, I’m probably being paranoid, but it’s just a deep seeded issue I have, and I’m probably going to have to go through several visits with a therapist to get over it all.
Well, back to the story. I had been biking for about 3 weeks, doing about 2.5 miles every night, and I was interested in branching out of my loop. I happened to live just across the street from a newly developed trail called “The pollyann trail”. This was a trail for joggers, cyclists, and horseback riders which spanned several towns in northeast oakland county. My dad was an avid cyclist, and had recommended I try it out, but there was a problem. I could never be safe biking that trail at night. So, I dropped my nighttime-only policy, and started heading out at 7pm, and biking 45 minutes round-trip to a road we had family living on, and back. I would do this for several more months until I started to lose more weight, enough to make me comfortable with being seen by townspeople.
After outgrowing that loop, I started biking between our home in Oxford, Michigan, and down public streets & roads to a town south of us, Lake Orion. It’s been said that Lake orion is 5 years ahead of Oxford. Lake orion had it’s own part of the pollyann trail which had spanned from oxford, as well as a very long east-bound trail called the paint creek trail. I would ride that on ocassion, but I generally preferred biking streets, as I would get faster speeds on them. The loop between lake orion and oxford took 1 hour, and gave me 10 miles every day. I biked this route every single day, but with the same route getting bland, I decided that I needed something more to motivate me. I’d always been interested in art, despite having absolutely no talent with a paint brush, marker, or even crayon. I had always been good with computers. I knew that if there was something that was somewhat mathematical, and formulaic, I could get the hang of it. So, I decided to get a new digital camera. The camera that I bought was a Canon powershot a620. It was a well-reviewed compact camera with a well functioning zoom-lens, ~7mp, and I bought a 2gb SD Card with it. I took this camera with me on every bike ride I went, and took pictures of all of the nature & scenery I could find. I was still a shy person, so I never took photos of people, or even asked. I took the position of ‘nature is more important than humanity’ to help validate my anti-social nature, and to this day hold this position, seldom making exceptions for people I hold a significant relationship with. Having a camera gave me a newfound desire to wander everywhere I could, and wander I did. This would lead me on trips ranging from 15 to 40+ miles a day, with my relentless pursuit for natural beauty & exercise never skipping a day. The only days I would not bring my camera with me were the days when it was going to rain outside, and on those days I simply scheduled a 10 mile trip around the weather.
By the end of the fall, I had lost ~55 pounds, but I was still significantly overweight. My desired weight at 6′4 was 180 pounds. Many told me that my goal was overkill, and that I was healthy at 245, but i never listened to them. I would go on to bike whenever it was physically possible in the winter months. This would include bike rides in the early morning hours where my hands were turning a dark shade of red because I hadn’t purchased gloves that made winter riding tolerable. I did crash on the road-side ice several times, but I held my weight loss obsession, and biked whenever I could.
In January, with a new sense of confidence, I met a girl on myspace. Her name was Victoria, and while she did lean religiously conservative, she was a social liberal. Victoria turned me back onto drugs, a vice that I hadn’t been involved with since I was 19. We mainly just stuck to smoking pot, watching movies, and random cooking activities. We did coke once, and with my mind bouncing all over the place, I asked her to choke me. Not because I wanted to die, but because I was turned on, and being choked had always been a kink of mine. This scared victoria, and she began to see me less and less. We would see eachother on occasion, but she avoided me. She knew that I wanted her, and wanted no sexual or emotional relationship with me. She would invite me over on occasion, but things were different from there on out. When this happened, i lost a lot of the motivation for life that I had. I felt like all of the work i’d put into my physical well being and creative mindset was done in vein, and that no matter what I did, I would never find someone who would find me desirable.
When spring came, and the snow began to melt away, i returned to the bike. Biking trails wasn’t possible due to the rain giving the trail the consistency of chocolate cake with 3 feet of frosting on top of it, but I continued to bike the roads. I raised my minimum from 10 miles a day to 15 miles, and took up new routes around the northern limits of oxford, leading around Leonard (northeast), Romeo, and with many of my trips leading me directly out of the county and into Lapeer. These areas consisted of more woodland, and were dirt roads for the most part. I took a joy in biking these areas, because the land was far more beautiful than what i’d seen in mid & south oxford. However, the terrain was much more rough, and I did not carry my camera with me because I was afraid of damaging it. I would take my camera out for a few trips when i wandered south of oxford, and discovered many wonderful places. Deep in southeast woods of oxford I found a monastery where a group of monks lived. I trespassed on their property without noticing the signs, and while everything outside of the area was hot and windy, this area was perfect. The temperature was perfect, the winds were much more soft, and everything was simply perfect. One of the monks would spot me as I gazed at their land. He simply looked at me through a window, smiled, and waved. I waved back, and continued to rest for a couple of more minutes. I then got back on my bike, and left.
By June, I had lost 95 pounds. but my parents were growing impatient with my joblessness. I explained to them that I had tried to get a job, but nobody was hiring. I kept an eye out for possibilities, but I wasn’t finding anything. Then one day in early May, a friend of mine from the internet sent me an IM. He had previously asked me if I was seeking employment, but there was a catch. I would need to move to Chicago. Previously, I had very little faith in my ability to work for his company. However, with my parents being on the verge of throwing me out of their house and onto the streets, I had to do something. So, I asked him a round of questions. Mostly relating to how I would be able to survive in a city like chicago where the price of living was so high. He told me that he would be prepared to pay anything to have me work there, as he had heard great things from the people I had been doing freelance server administration for. I never had an ego, I would bill myself at dirt cheap rates, simply because I didn’t need a significant amount of money to live. I earned good reviews because of my cheap rates. If I had more expensive rates, they would have hired other people, and those people would have earned the job, as well as the followup recommendation. Often times, I would bill myself at the rate of $20/task, with most tasks being highly technical in nature, sometimes taking hours to complete. Karl then asked me if I would be able to come to chicago for an interview. I told him I’d talk it over with my family.
That night, I told my dad about it, and said “chicago’s an expensive city.”. I told him that I’m leaving, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do to stop me. Either they would help me, or I’d do it by myself. He said “ok”, and said that he would try to get my mother to agree to it. My mother was initially very frightful of me leaving, but I held a confident approach any time it became a subject, and that helped sway her opinion of me moving away. I would visit chicago 2 weeks later, and sure enough, Karl hired me. I gave myself 3 weeks to pack up and move, and he threw me $2,000.00 to aid in moving.
With that out of the way, I continued to bike, because i wouldn’t be taking mine with me to chicago, due to amtrak restrictions. I passed by victoria’s house one night, and told her that I would be moving to Chicago in a couple for weeks. She acted unimpressed, like she believed I was lying. She then told me a couple of days later that she was moving to portland, Oregon with her ex-boyfriend. No real plan for what she was doing there, but she was very secure in the fact that she was going to escape oxford.
2.5 weeks passed, and I asked victoria if I could see her on the final night I was going to be in town. She said “Sure! Swing on by.” It was raining most of the day, but at 11pm I decided to ignore the rain, and walk straight to her house. I got there at about 11:30, but her car wasn’t there. I called her cell phone once, no answer. I called again 30 minutes later, no answer. I called at 12:30, no answer. At 1:30am, it became clear that she wouldn’t be there. I waited outside under an overhead-doorway cover for several hours only to be let down. With rain pouring down around me, I left and walked back to my home, sent victoria an email letting her know that i tried to see her, but that she wasn’t there. She ended up sending me an email the following morning explaining that she spent the night at her “ex-”boyfriend’s house. I didn’t reply to it, and at 10:45am, my train to chicago left the amtrak station in Pontiac.
Since moving, I’ve held the same job. My parents have told me that they didn’t expect me to last more than two weeks, and are surprised i’m still alive out here. Victoria and I ocassionally chat, and I visited her in portland in January. There’s no romantic involvement, and i’ve grown to accept it. I bought a new bike in July, and rode it a bit, but am not completely secure with biking the city. I’ve joined up with the critical mass cycling movement, which is always fun, and it’s helped me grow a little more used to biking in the city. Tonight, I took my longest bike ride in all of my years in chicago residency, from My southside neighborhood, bridgeport, all the way to the far-northside neighborhood of rogers park, and all the way back. The trip was ~30 miles, and lasted from 9pm to 2am. A few drivers do honk and yell, and i always have a middle finger and a mind full of obscenities ready to come pouring out of my mouth.
I doubt anyone will read this whole post, but I’ve meaning to write about my life from 22 to 25. I’ll be turning 26 in June, we’ll see what happens then.