You can ride, but you can't hide

Is it "adult" to reward yourself with ice cream? Image AI-generated after Wayne Thiebaud.

I’m ashamed to admit something, maybe even more than ashamed. If there is some ladder or pyramid of shame to climb then I would be up there at the very top of the shame chart (or bottom? I’m unsure of how a shame chart would work). I just did my 2023 taxes. It’s a relief. I was sure this year I would owe money rather than get a refund, so really I should not have put it off as the penalty for such a late filing would’ve made it that much worse. In the end, though, my rebate was actually a bit more than I’ve received in recent years. Not doing my taxes in a timely manner always makes me feel like an idiot, or more correctly, a juvenile idiot. It feels like a sign of maturity to just do this task of adulthood on time.

Once I’d finally done it, I celebrated in the most childish way imaginable: by raising my hands above my head, running around the house like a naked infant declaring I am now going to have ice cream! Chocolate peanut butter, if you care to know.

This year feels particularly heavy on the adulthood scale. For the last few years, I have been a manager of a small team of designers. Surely being someone’s manager would make me feel not only like an adult but also an aging adult. This month, for the first time, I had to tell some team members their positions were eliminated. Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of the wider team we are a part of were being laid off. I was shocked at just how many colleagues were affected. As the news came in throughout the day, I felt my head spin, my stomach drop and my blood pressure rise. I jumped on my little single-speed track bike and rode down into the Don Valley ravine. On narrow tires, I spun over gravel and sand until I came to the hill to get back out of the ravine. Up a 10% grade, I pushed my pedals until all the bile, piss and vinegar erupted through my skin in patchy hives. At the top of that hill is a Dairy Queen where a 600-calorie binge treat awaited. There, in that modestly small and conveniently located DQ, I ate my feelings in Blizzard form, chocolate peanut butter if you care to know.

After I had finished ruining my girlish figure, I went outside and discovered my bike had a flat tire. I considered carrying it home but in Toronto, you’re never that far from a bike shop so I left it with a nearby mechanic and spun home on a speedy e-bike from Bike Share Toronto.

The final irony of this week was that after having to send off so many colleagues (62 of 92 were affected), we would soon be getting the second half of our annual bonus (though greatly reduced due to a difficult financial year) and as I had filed my taxes so late, I would be getting a healthy refund within days of the bonus payment. If I had been laid off, I might have been eligible for over a year’s pay in severance (taxable, of course). All of that combined jackpot would have induced me into retirement or some kind of hibernation at any rate. Popular culture may refer to “Black Girl Magic” but what is a financial windfall in troubled times if not a certain kind of “White Guy Magic”? The flat tire was in many ways, apt. The frustration of the day of layoffs, which I had tried to ride out of my system was replaced by the frustration of the mechanical failure of my bike. The deflation of the tire echoed my spiritual deflation. It felt like my soul was at 0 PSI. Perhaps it also showed me that I couldn’t outrun my feelings on a bike, no matter how fast or hard I rode. No matter how youthful riding makes me feel, I also can’t outrun adulthood, which comes for us all, eventually.