End of the Road - 3

The final part of my morning musings (8:20am).

And perhaps this is life for you – you get so far, you try your very best, but that doesn’t always mean that you reach your goals.

But that would be to miss that point, wouldn’t it?

Because the point of Beijing wasn’t really to get there (so I kept telling everyone). The point of Beijing was to set me on a journey – a succession of experiences that I would never otherwise experience. The point of Beijing was to make me leave the UK during a pandemic, to travel across the world when no one else was travelling, to have a series of experiences that would have been impossible if I had never taken the risk of leaving the UK, and entering the unknown. And in that sense, my journey to Beijing has been an utter success.

Beijing has taken me across the world at a time when almost no other person was travelling. Beijing has allowed me to spread my message of living well and positively with (or without) cancer across the world. Beijing has allowed me to meet thousands of people, and share the cycling on Chris with over 300 people.

So yes, maybe today, my journey east comes to an end. It starts as a day like any other: coffee, writing, breakfast, packing, cycling. And perhaps it finishes like no other day has: my final day on the bike.

But does that matter? Does it matter I’m still thousands of miles from Beijing? In one sense, yes it does – I always intend to achieve the goals I set myself, and I would be lying if I said a part of me wasn’t disappointed and aching by not achieving this goal I have pinned so much on, put so much into realising.

Yet, on the other side, that is missing the point. The point is everything I have been so damn fortunate to experience over the last two years. This journey is an accumulation of days in, days out. It is a succession of days that in some ways are all quite similar and unremarkable: coffee, writing, breakfast, packing, cycling. But in their accumulation, they form something remarkable – a succession of experiences that are totally unique, a journey across the world that has given me a set of experiences richer than I could have hoped for.

And above all, what’s the bigger picture?

I’m alive.

When I started this cycle trip, I didn’t think I would finish it. I – bluntly – thought I would be dead before I got to Beijing.

So yes, maybe I was right when I started this cycle trip – I won’t finish it.

But isn’t the real victory, the thing that matters above all else, that I am still here. That I am able to not finish the trip?

Being alive is the biggest prize and success of the whole trip. I have been so lucky to get so far, and to be able to be alive and experience not being able to get to China – maybe that is the most important thing of all.

I breathe as I write this. I feel the buzz of coffee. I hear the tap and clack of keys. I am here. I am here. And, I hope, I hope, there are many more chapters to write.

Me not finishing the trip, Delhi airport. A cause to be happy, after all?