Cycle Logical

“You must learn to be uncomfortable!”

The cycling instructor at my gym made this comment well into Saturday’s class and I confess I was a little taken aback.

Her classes are always gloriously difficult, for which I am incredibly grateful, as this is what I’m paying for, and what I currently need, given an annoying weight increase I’ve recently experienced. (Oh, cheese, how could you do this to me?)

And as a card-carrying Catholic school survivor, I live to be uncomfortable. I sprint from happiness like a deer flees a forest fire. Maybe I didn’t write the book on being uncomfortable, but I sure as hell added several new chapters.

Of course, my instructor was talking about a different sort of uncomfortable.

She was referring to short-term physical strain leading us to better health and trimmer waistlines.

Saturday’s workout was quite different from her usual torture sessions and thus a bit disorienting—which is how you improve and grow.

I, on the other hand, traffic in emotional discomfort, where I plant my roots in rotten situations, replay rotten memories, associate with rotten people, and then survey the vile landscape and loudly whine, “Gee, this sucks!”

This is pain with a twisted brand of gain, in that my inner saboteur gets exactly what he wants in the form of my endless misery.

After class I decided to break my usual Saturday routine of puttering around the house and instead ride out to Rockaway Beach with one of my Meetup groups to escape the current heatwave that’s been sizzling up the Northeast lately.

I made the usual excuses to myself about wanting to relax on the weekend and skip out on all that travel.

But I knew I was afraid of doing something different, such as riding the A train all the way out to Queens. It would be so much easier to sit in my local park and be…comfortable.

No, damn it, I was going to break that chain of foolishness. Rockaway, here I come!

Train in Vain

And that’s when I hit the first obstacle.

The MTA had suspended R train service in my neighborhood and replaced it with buses to pick up people at the subway stops along Fourth Avenue.

I was seriously peeved over this development, but I soldiered on, cramming myself into the rolling sardine can to pick up the R train at 59th Street.

From there, it was a short ride down to Jay Street, where I connect with the A train and soon be frolicking in the waves and rays of Rockaway Beach.

And then I learned that the transit freaks had rewired the R train to go express into Manhattan, avoiding all those downtown stops, including Jay Street.

Okay, I thought, as I rode over the Manhattan Bridge, I’m pulling the plug on this thing. I can catch all the rays I want in Central Park, avoid the sand, and still stealth-ogle girls one-third my age in bikinis.

(Yes, I know I’m a perv, and I’m very uncomfortable with that. Satisfied?!)

Central Park was steaming like the rest of the city, the population was minimal—include the girls in bikinis. So instead of meeting new people in a new location, I sat by myself in an all-too familiar place. Not the kind of change I was looking for in 2019.

My sister called me and insightfully pointed out that had I really wanted to go to this event, I would’ve gone.

I would’ve checked the subway schedule ahead of time and made the necessary adjustments. Hell, I even “forgot” to bring a towel with me.

But I got this comfortable discomfort as my reward. I psyched myself up with indecision, taking on the role of an emotional Hamlet as I agonized over whether if I should go or not go to this event.

There’s nothing wrong with skipping a trip to the beach. But it’s quite unhealthy to instigate this useless internal warfare that only wastes time and ruins your day.

“I’ve got to stop creating all this drama,” I told my sister. “Life has enough drama already!”

Indeed, it does. And it has plenty of discomfort, as well, much of which we can’t avoid.

But there is that special kind of discomfort that can expand your mind and improve your life. You have to pedal like hell to get there, but it’s sure worth the trip.