More than two months after my first bike tour I think I’ve learned something.

I learned a lot, actually, but this one thing goes beyond touring, yet can come back around to touring again to make it better next time. This thing is living in the moment.

I’m a great analyzer, a terrific planner, and I can give dog-on-bone attention to detail while wading through a long project. I’m just not good at living in the moment, even sometimes when those moments are the sweetest. To do it well I’ll have to unlearn many years’ worth of practice doing just the opposite.

To distract myself from losing my mom at 15, I dove into every activity I could to keep my mind off the present, wearing myself down to the point of getting mononucleosis and losing 25 pounds. This constant busyness naturally continued through the next few years while I also became a focused planner. I tried to build my own feeling of security by planning and planning, whether it was in my job, planning my financial goals and budgets, or planning my workouts, running mileage or weight-lifting goals. Everything was on a spreadsheet, projected out many weeks/months/years ahead.

Meanwhile I was missing so much of every day. I have entire blocks of time with virtually no memory beyond the generalities of relationship status, work projects, athletic efforts, or financial state. This is not good.

I’ve realized for some time I need to live in the moment more. It hit home after my last relationship dissolved in the span of 45 minutes and my world fell apart for the umpteenth time. I practiced it in those dark days afterward, stopping and feeling when it hurt. Then life got better and time sped back up to normal speed. It hit home again when I met the most beautiful, thoughtful, kind and amazing person–Dave–and realized I didn’t want to miss a minute. But eventually human nature tends to take over when we lose focus.

I’ve been going back through my daily journal entries for the Great Divide and it really puts me back in those moments. And the thing I notice most is what I didn’t write, but what I clearly feel when I put myself back in that time.

I held back, wasn’t in the presence of my own experience a good portion of that time. I was worried about all the unknowns, the things I couldn’t plan for, couldn’t control, didn’t have the experience to expect. Simply put, I was thinking more about what was around the next bend than what I was experiencing at the moment. I realize I’m talking about a vacation, a ride purely for the fun of it, a tour, after all. But sometimes the hardest thing to do is simply enjoy something for what it is.

There were days on the tour that I was successful at living in the present, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Looking back now I can see that. So, it’s hit home once again that I have some personal evolving to do. I want to put it into practice on the next tour, because I don’t want to miss a minute.