What a Few Weeks It’s Been
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
When I kicked this Substack off I was hoping to prattle on about various subjects, presenting the oft ignored viewpoint of the upper class, middle aged white dude, and it not devolve into a self indulgent wankfest of ‘What Matt ate for lunch today’. And yet, here I am. Rambling on about myself again, for the third time in a row. Even Don Bradman would be jealous of that strike rate.
Why am I talking about myself again? Well, it’s easy innit? It’s been a tiring few weeks, and I felt I should publish something as I’ve been a bit slack. I could go for something more highbrow and in-depth - as was my original intent - but at the moment I don’t have the energy to put the required effort in, nor the tolerance to deal with the subsequent ‘well, actually’s which may result. So, again, you’re stuck with me as the subject matter. Sorry.
In its original form, this piece had an additional 700 words about my recent leave, and how I managed to achieve hardly anything which I had hoped to. I’ve decided to truncate that part as it served no purpose other than to make this piece unnecessarily long. So, here’s the Readers Digest version.
Despite the frustration of getting nothing done through my leave, it wasn’t all bad. My parents came up from Tasmania for a couple of weeks. Having not seen them for a while I was shocked by how much they had aged - but I guess that’s what happens when you start to nudge 80. Our time together was spent taking in the sights of Newcastle and its surrounds, enjoying near perfect weather.
A good time was being had by all, until the spicy cough descended upon us and the last few days were spent staying away from the general population and out in the open air. By the time of their return home, Mum and Dad had recovered and I spent the remaining days of my leave taking it easy, making sure I was fully fit before heading back to work.
My triumphant return to work went off without a hitch. A couple of ships on the first night and it was like I’d never left. For all of my sometimes grumbling about my job, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.
On the second night, however, things took a bit of a turn. I had a ship to take out at 5am, followed by one at 7:30 to bring back in. I woke at 2:30, hopped on my motorbike and commenced my ride to work - and I almost made it. As I was going through an intersection I had a 4WD coming from the other direction turn in front of me - he either didn’t see me or he briefly forgot how the road rules worked. I won’t go into details as I’ve already done that on my site - link here if you want to read it. One thing I did notice though is that it all felt familiar, having been in a number of incidents in my motorsport days. The sounds and sensations were the same, as too was the sense of inevitability once the point of no return was passed.
Luckily things weren’t as bad as they could have been. I was still upright, and the bike still rideable. My left leg was a bit battered and bruised, and the usual upper body aches were starting to set in. I continued to work and took the 5am ship out, but decided the four metre ladder climb to board my next ship was a bit too ambitious. So I went home to sit and lick my wounds.
That was last Sunday, and since then I’ve experienced the whole gamut of emotions, including relief, doubt, anger, and despondency. I started feeling relieved that things weren’t as bad as they might have been. A trip to the motorcycle dealer was positive, things could be repaired. The GP said my injuries weren’t that bad, and the rest of the week off work should be sufficient. Dealing with the insurer was painless. Things started out well. Then the pain set in.
As the week progressed, more and more things descended upon me. The pain got worse, and further investigation of the bike indicated that it might end up being written off. I was far more upset by that than I expected. I bought the bike new in February and since then have put 10,000 kms on it, including a nine day solo trip to Mildura and surrounds. It had looked after me, and I had looked after it. That coming to an end was not a prospect I was keen on entertaining. I freely admit it’s a character fault of mine, having told my youngest son countless times I need to stop assigning sentience to inanimate objects, such as motorbikes. But what can you do, I’m an emotional kinda dude.
In my idle times, self doubt started to kick in. Could I have braked or turned harder? Could I have ridden more defensively, half expecting him to turn in front of me? Was it my fault after all, not really having a green light, only thinking I did? Despite reminding myself that these doubts were normal, that I did what I could at the time, and regardless of how much I deconstructed it, nothing was going to change, these thoughts continued to stick around. I even went as far as going back to the intersection and satisfying myself that the traffic light sequence was as I remembered it, and that there was no way I could have got it wrong.
After that my mood darkened. I was in constant discomfort, and even simple actions caused me pain. Removing the bent parts from my bike and finding even more damage didn’t improve my state of mind. As things were getting more serious than initially thought, I figured it best to make sure everything was done properly. I paid the local Police Station a visit to see if they needed me to submit a report, as the question had already been raised by the insurer. The level of disinterest stunned me. As long as there were no major injuries, and both parties had swapped details, they didn’t want to know about it. These are the same lot who will pursue you across town for not stopping at a Stop sign, but go in and tell them someone didn’t give way and wiped you out - ‘Not my problem, bro’. I was madder than a pissed on chicken.
Since then my pain and mood has subsided. My whole week has been busy running around talking to insurers, repairers, GPs, and disinterested cops. I’ve had massages, reflexology, and acupuncture to try to ease the discomfort, as well as compression bandages, Nurofen, and Voltaren gel. I’m exhausted. My upper body has stopped hurting, although the leg is still playing up. It’s not debilitating, just constant and tiring. The galling thing is that none of this is my fault. At least with my other accidents, that was just part of the risk of motorsport - buy the ticket, take the ride. This time I was just a guy on his way to work who has had his week - and his bike and body - stuffed around through someone else’s failure. I’ll recover - I nearly have already - and the bike will be repaired or replaced, but it’s been pretty tough at times. Some may even say ‘character building’.
But that’s enough of the doom and gloom. The week hasn’t been all bad. I picked up an old typewriter on Wednesday, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Sure, I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, nor where I will put it, but there’s just something about the old school charm of it which appeals to me. One thing I had forgotten was just how bloody noisy the things are. As much as I personally enjoy the sound of someone bashing away at a typewriter, I’m pretty sure my neighbours wouldn’t appreciate me doing it on my back porch at 10:30pm, as I’m doing now on my MacBook. Maybe if I start smoking again, putting the ashtray to one side of the typewriter, and a glass of scotch on the other, my career as a novelist might start to take off…
But that’s enough for yet another bout of incoherent rambling about myself. I promise next time I’ll write about something a little more interesting, and slightly less self indulgent.
If you would like to read more about my motorcycling shenanigans, feel free to check out my other site at www.mattonamoto.com
Thanks for taking the time to read my work, I really do appreciate it.