FTP
July 4th, 2026.
Independence Day.
Waning Gibbous in Pisces.
Today I pulled the Sun.
A day that ends with me laughing at the fact that there’s a woman dressed in an Uncle Sam costume auto-playing a synthesized rendition of Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai on her casio keyboard as we near our building entrance...
“Dad I know this song.”
“Yeah?”
“How does it go?”
“future’s made of … something something something”
“virtual insanity… good ear.”
The fireworks?
A little underwhelming.
Somewhere along the way to view them, I turned to Delta…
“You know… it’s weird what they represent at the end of the day… the rockets… bombs… I get it, but … eh gaining independence to take away others .. weird”
We ended up watching them from the Mexican-American Cultural Center…
“It’s funny that you were so excited for them to build The Waterline only to be disappointed in its completion, seems … representative of something.”
“I thought about that… I watched myself.. grow as it did… or so I thought. A goal to obtain for the person I thought wanted to become … and then sort of realized… it’s… soulless…”
“Seems like… like a lie you were sold.”
“Yeah… but I guess that lie helped me find the truth?”
“Sometimes the things that give you hope can disappoint you…”
“hmmm”
I’ve been craving a cabeza torta from Las Trancas for the past … 4 months now.
Thought maybe today would be the day, we walked over there prior to the fireworks and found that they were closed…
We walked past another taco truck in search of another option…
“Have you been here?”
“No… honestly .. I want my cabeza torta so I won’t settle for … like just any taco truck, it’ll ruin my day. We gotta do something completely different. I know what I want, I’m not gonna settle.”
Before dinner, we watched Holes.
“Mom, why are you crying?”
“It’s … sentimental”
***moments later***
“Dad… you better not be crying.”
“I’m not!”
“Then why is there water running down your face…”
We had steak and potatoes for lunch.
A much better option than the glizzies I thought would follow this morning’s bike ride.
And what a bike ride it was…
Writing this now, I see how much of the day’s moments seem to be a looking glass … a microcosm.
The bike ride this morning however was an obvious compressed version of it…
I arrived right on time.
I’d contaminated my rear brakes cleaning the bike last night and had hoped to get a new set of pads just before the group set off.
“What’re you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be like not here?”
“I ask myself the same questions…”
As I walked up to the shop, the door was getting locked.
“Did you need something?”
“Brakes are… a little questionable”
Quickly my brakes are examined…
“You contaminate them?”
“Probably … cleaned it last night.”
“Ah.. they’ll burn off. We’re rolling”
“hmm.”
I clipped in and joined the peloton…
“Were you able to get a pad?”
“It’ll burn off…”
“What .. well.. I mean … eh yeah you’ll be fine actually.”
“I’m just tryna ride my bike after this week…”
With minimal sleep this week.. a disrupted diet.. I could feel the extra work I needed to carry out just to keep up with the group..
“How are you feeling?”
“Honestly, I’m nauseous, my legs are cooked, I feel like shit and I really think I’m just gonna wrap it up and go home. This should be like… easy, I get why it’s not but fuck.”
“Bruh it’s fine, you’ve had a long week”
“I guess.. really think Ima wrap it up though”
“Nah”
Even feeling like complete dogshit though, I still found myself easing up the hills we’d come across…
But as soon as they flattened, when things became easy… I’d find myself getting strung out and left behind…
Eventually I found myself alone…
Battling no one except for myself.
Too far to turn home, no sense of direction other than the road ahead of me, no idea how long it would take for me to reach any isle of solace.
“Well… I guess I can just cruise at my pace now”
I wrangled some gummy bears out of my back pocket and pedaled on, steady in the flats, working up the hills.
As I came around a corner, I caught glimpse of a bike way up ahead of me.
“Ah… a wheel.”
It disappeared around the corner…
“I know you’re there… I simply must bring you back into view”
I could work a little harder knowing what lay ahead of me..
I’d catch a glimpse of the wheel every now and then only for it to disappear behind a corner or over a crest, but each time it came back into my line of view it was closer.
I could feel my spirit replenishing…
I’m about 300 meters off their wheel when I watch them turn into the gas station, the parking lot filled with riders from the rest of the ride..
Much less than I thought there’d be…
I thought I was dead last… the hold up.
But over the next 15-20 minutes, I’d quickly learn that was wrong…
That assumption was based only off of the data I had, the miles I’d spent alone, not the big picture….
I drank a Red Bull..
I chugged some water..
We got back on the bikes..
The battle I’d put myself through the first half of the ride faded into distant memory as I could feel my body, my brain, coming online.
Maybe it was the Red Bull but my groove had certainly returned.
“Man if I would have went turned back home earlier, I would have hated myself. This is exactly what I needed.. I can’t believe I was even thinking about turning back.”
“Yeah … you were .. you just had to go through it.”
“I was really out here saying shit, that is just completely outside of me… turning back.. going home. Crazy.”
We took off into a descent and I flowed along. Quick enough to enjoy myself, working efficiently off the peloton… leaving myself enough energy to graciously proceed up the climb that followed with what felt like zero effort.
Making it back into the city, having to navigate traffic, I broke off the front finding myself among the first few people to arrive at our end point.
I put my bike up and got a Mexican coke then pointed myself home…
The bike gods are loud and clear.
They will punish your ignorance.
I woke up this morning…
I prayed.
I ate my eggs and my oatmeal.
I hugged my daughters.
I kissed my wife.
I rode my bike.
Some things were revealed to me… there’s still things that will have to be uncovered.
But I think…
Rather, I feel grateful.
All empires must fall.
But love conquers all.