The clocks are forward at last, lighter nights, new energy after the long cold winter months of the far north. And ‘Spring Forward, Fall Back’ seems a great metaphor for life too – at least from my position right now. I’m stranded in bed in a flat in Sheffield, due to a scuff on my backside that would be inconsequential for anyone who could walk, but a potential disaster for anyone sat in a wheelchair (the nightmare of pressure sores). I’d just had a spring forward after winning the first bike race of the season for the British Para-cycling Series (thanks to John at www.fit-for-purpose.co.uk for his coaching over the winter) and two weeks bike training in Mallorca – oh so good to ride on roads where there are more cyclists than cars, more sunshine than cloud, and more cafes than a hungry woman could wish for. But with every bit of progress we make in life there is often a setback and, as I’m reminding myself now, it’s how we deal with the setbacks rather than the leaps forward that makes the difference between being happy or miserable, succeeding and failing… So here’s what I’m telling myself…you’ll be stronger for resting; Lance Armstrong won races after cancer, so a tiny sore on your bum is nothing; read some books; learn some stuff; enjoy the peace and quiet of being cooped up in four walls; don’t go on your turbo trainer because you’ll only scuff it up again – patience is a virtue; write blogs that you never find time for otherwise! So far, so good! And as the quote below reminded me, I’ll do what I can to find the good bits about being stuck in bed, rather than get pulled into the potential gloominess of it! (Yeah, probably most teenagers dream)
“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down” (Mary Pickford) All a bit melodramatic for a scuff, but then it’s the scuffs in life that have the potential to drag us down, when really we just need to scuff them off.
