The Story of Bicycle Boy

an ending, a beginning, a new chapter

Morgan Campbell

Jun 07, 2024

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Tomorrow my bedroom will be empty. The cupboards will be clean. My bag will be stuffed. My bicycle will be in a box.

In six weeks I’ll be on the other side of the Atlantic, touching the soil of my soul mate, my best friend. Meeting her mother for the first time. We will relearn the shade of each other’s eyes, all over again.

Before then, a train waits to take me to a stranger. Together, we’ll drive North, 20 hours, to a place where the sun never sets. I will go further alone.

How can I tell you about the last few days, these last weeks, months? How can I get the words out, right, here? I have missed you, dear Bicycle Boys. I am honoured that you would read these words, and share this space with me, that you have done so, for nearly 10 months now.

And in that time what happened? How did we get there, here?

(a small forewarning, dear Bicycle Boys; this here be my most vulnerable letter, packed with triggers!)

Almost 2 years ago, in September of 2022, I sat in my advisor’s office at my university. I told her I wanted to utilize every single resource at this school, apply for all the grants, write whatever e-mail, and take the following year abroad. First, I’d study in Italy and learn about old art and ideas. I’d take the Summer online, floating around Europe. Then, I’d make my way up towards Norway for a year exchange — a trip that happened to be by bicycle.

I told her about my plan and she did everything in her power to help me get it done. The paperwork, the checklists, the moral support. She had done the very same thing in her degree, some years ago, and ended up taking her Master’s in Poland, learning about death. She told me this was her dream job — to give students the resources to live and learn and go out into the world. I e-mailed every single scholarship board, filled out pages of documents, pleading my case to everyone that I would go out and do my best.

I got three checks in the mail with sums of money larger than I’ve ever had in my bank account. My world was opening up. A year before that I thought I might live out my days in a mental institution. Now I had $25,000 and a ticket to Lisbon.

My advisor said to me, very clearly;

“You’ll just have to get past that point, halfway through, when you’ll want to off yourself. After that, things will really start to make sense.”

I did and they do. In fact, that death cycle repeated a few times. Likely reoccur when I land at home. I imagine I might feel lost and alone again, unsure of my choices. And then I’ll get past it, and things will make sense before they don’t again.

This November, I was at the offing stage. I couldn’t understand why the fuck I was here, in this frozen country. It was dark from 3 pm to 10 am and dim in between. I lived in an apartment small enough to touch both sides if I spanned my arms wide enough. I was stressed about school and my art practice. I had no money left and was worried about failing whoever funded half of this journey.

There were just my two arms to hold me through the hole that threatened to swallow me each night. I felt alone and the loneliness felt final.

The reality of a certain phone call, made a few months prior, finally struck me.

My then partner had admitted to cheating on me for nearly half of the time we were together, with a woman he insisted I was insane to worry about. I kissed him goodbye and he went home to her. I had sent packages from Prague and letters from France and Italy, for her to be the one to find them in the mailbox.

I found out over FaceTime and just about lit my building on fire.

I woke up. I emerged from a multi-year nightmare. I had more energy in my body than I’d had in years. I laced up my running shoes, grabbed three cigarettes, and bolted across the town. I untied them and danced under the moon in a church garden. I screamed over the bridge:

“Fuck you, mother fucker!”

“Fuck your philosophy books and your accolades! Fuck your shit-eating smile and your full head of hair. Fuck your fucking stupid bicycle! You’re forty fucking years old! What is she, born in 2002? Fuck you!”

Something else was also happening. After I got that phone call, I said fuck it. I have nothing left to lose. I already lost the reality of my last two years and the person I thought I loved.

One day, walking along the river, I cold-called my old therapist and told her that her suspicions were right — that he had lied all that time. That I wasn’t insane. And that I was finally fucking done. I was done watching a man put a fist through the wall or bring rocks to his skull if I so much as uttered a woman’s name. It was over.

My therapist’s voice crackled over the landline, 7000 kilometres away — asking me,

“Where will all that energy go now, Morgan? If not to him, then where?”

It all came back to me.

At first, I was prolific. I had energy to make art and start this Newsletter and call my friends. I finally felt like I had a job to do. And I finally felt like I wasn’t crazy. That I was sensitive and bright. There was no one criticizing me anymore. No one threatening me. I might as well write. I’ll start a newsletter and bare my soul on it and name it after a story I wrote about the guy who taught me how to switch gears and change a bike tire and be abused and pay strangers to talk about it.

So I did. And it has been the most vulnerable, healing, and transformative practice I’ve ever taken part in. I can’t thank you enough, dear reader, for that — for trusting me, for offering me your attention. It is a gift I am honoured to receive.

The summer before I started this newsletter I cycled from Amsterdam to Norway, alone. I found myself speaking to the air, usually between kilometres 30 and 80. I would fight with him in my mind, so sure something was going on, that his messages were hollow, that something was wrong. But I was afraid to cut off the communication. What if something went wrong on the bike, who would I call? What if something went wrong?

Things went wrong and I was forced to fix them on my own. I found myself kneeling over top of my upturned bicycle, in a tiny German town in the middle of the night. A man tried to help me. Our hands were covered in grease. We shared no common tongue. I heard my own voice repeating… “I am bicycle boy… I am bicycle boy… I am bicycle boy…”

somewhere in the Netherlands on the best bike trails!

Back in 2021, I wrote a short screenplay for a film with the same name. It was about the poetics of love, how I met him, the power of friendship, and the process of individuation. The name had a good ring to it.

I almost don’t want to tell you this story because it could afford him a power he never earned. But for me, it signifies a reclamation of the power we project onto others. It signifies our ability to rewrite context, to give ourselves titles and new aliases… to make things beautiful that were once painful. And I fucking love riding my bicycle. I knew I had to become my own Bicycle Boy. I had to pump my own tires and soothe my own heart. So I did.

Winter eventually ebbed, the final stages of grief began to pass… and Spring started winking, waking me up again. I moved out of that tiny apartment and into a home with my best friend here. A special kind — one of the soul.

We spent 5 months here, living in a way that I always dreamed of. I fell in love with our life. With the way we spoke with each other, practicing care and honesty. With how we ate (mostly garbage). With how she always picked flowers for the windowsill. With how she made art and made me make art out of pure inspiration. I fell in love with her. She fell in love with me. Then, she fell back into something with her ex-boyfriend. He drove through the night to come get her, crossing three country borders. Now, her room sits empty and I can’t bear to hear the echo.

Officially, there was pain. There was hope. There was a desperation to just keep things the same, for just one more day. There was grief, disbelief, dejection, projection. And pure sadness, somehow, yet again.

Still, when the time came, our efforts sat smiling at each other. Our artwork was finally on display in the gallery. I gave the opening speech with shaking hands and when I looked up, I saw her and found a small stillness between us. I saw the love in her eyes and I felt it land inside me. I knew no matter what, no one would or could take this time, this year we shared, from us. All we shared, all the love, the knowing, the all of the All of it. No one could take it away. Not him, when he watched our strained goodbye. Not us, when we regret. No one.

On our final bike ride together, we stopped at our usual route of garbage bins. Either the dumpster gods got the memo that the show was over, or the town got the memo about the show and we have enormous competition… either way, the bins were empty. It seemed a sign to go. We rode home nearly empty-handed. Sweat dripping down my chin, tears down my cheeks, blood pooling between my thighs.

I came home and booked my plane ticket. If not then…… I never would.

I woke up the next morning wrecked. Rain fell heavy, heavy, light light, clapping on the canopy outside, cutting through the warm air… And the air damp and the damp sticking so I rinsed and rinsed... Hot water down my spine, the window set wide, the plants and I showering. Tears came and all that salt disintegrating down the drain pipes. I took a pair of scissors to the tube of toothpaste, taking it for all its worth.

I sat down and started writing you this letter.

I am finally finishing it now, my body tired from packing boxes, my heart tender from saying goodbyes. Shelves are emptying, adrenaline is pumping, I am tired and wired. Heavy-hearted and truly, deeply, full of hope.

I will write you again, though I don’t know when.

I love you, dear Bicycle Boys.

Thank you for wading through these waters with me.