Cycling Through Amends With ‘Lost Possible Self’

STORYTELLING | by SHERRY STRIPLING

CYCLING THE SAME RURAL ROADS within a 25-mile radius of my house for 25 years has given me time to ponder the cycles of life.

I don’t change inside my helmet. But outside old farmers give way to young families. Kids playing ball in the yard lean against cars in the driveway “courting and sparking” before what feels like a season has passed.

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Thoughts come:

• We would take better care of ourselves if we realized how we cling to mobility in old age.
• The frustration of not getting projects done with toddlers at our feet is fleeting compared to how long the empty nester putters alone.
• What might I have accomplished if I hadn’t spent so much time observing other people’s lives as I spin by?

Together those thoughts lead me to a research article called “Whatever Happened to ‘What Might Have Been’ “, in which Laura A. King and Joshua A. Hicks report how people respond when they reach that time in life when they regret “lost possible self.”

Somewhere in mid-life, we are forced to come to terms that our youthful dream of being the butcher, the baker or the candlestick maker with pewter pieces at Le Musée du Louvre is not going to happen.

These authors suggest there are two roads that veer past these regrets to happiness:

• Let go of what might have been to focus on the goals you have chosen to accomplish.
• Reach a true emotional maturity by understanding that the complexity of life, including disappointment, leads to greater self awareness and growth.

I might suggest a third road: Incorporate all that you’ve learned into a new dream. But the sun is out — and my bicycle calls.