I May Have Permanently Injured My Lady Parts

Why I biked, begged and bruised myself for a cause and why I’m going to do it again and again.

It seems so obvious now, but for so long I didn’t understand the connection between athletics and fundraising. What does a half marathon, a 5k walk or a bike ride have to do with raising money? Why should anyone pay you to exercise?

Even when I signed up for the Ride For AIDS Chicago, I still didn’t really get it. But I had wanted to do a long bike ride for a while, my friend Amanda had been asking me to do it for years and of course, raising money for people affected by HIV/AIDS is a great cause. So, in the winter I signed up to bike 200 miles in July from Evanston, IL to Wisconsin and back in exchange for raking in a minimum of $1,000 for people living in the Chicago community affected by the gnarly disease.

There’s a certain social weirdness around fundraising, right? Asking people for a bit of their hard earned money for a cause they don’t know necessarily that much about feels a little taboo. Asking for anything from your friends and family can be hard. Asking for money can feel incredibly icky. Why should I be the one to tell you where to donate? Does it come off like I’m implying I’m better than you?

To try to circumvent the ickiness barrier, I tried to offer things in exchange for donations. Design services, cross stitch projects and babysitting were all part of a neatly organized Google Doc I created to try to avoid just straight up asking for money. “See? You’re getting something out of it. I’m not just a regular fundraiser. I’m a COOL fundraiser.”

The Google Doc worked. I reached the minimum $1,000 in no time. But, something had shifted. I started to learn more about the organization I was working with and the good they were doing. I learned more about what kinds of services those dollars were going towards. I read encouraging notes from our team captains asking us to push ourselves to raise more. And frankly, I liked seeing that tally go up. It’s OK to be competitive for a good cause, right? RIGHT?

The embarrassment and apprehension about posting donation requests on Facebook started to fade away and made room for a new logic. With all of the negativity and nonsense on our non-stop feeds, why did I feel so weird about inviting my friends to do some good with me? I’m rarely embarrassed about anything I do or say, so why should I feel weird about this any longer?

So, I said the two words that kick off some of the greatest accomplishments in our lives: Fuck It. I’ve got 1480 Facebook friends and we’re about to get some shit done. I asked people to help me reach certain milestones on the page. I emailed friends. I re-emailed friends. I asked people face to face in the break room what it would take to get a $10 donation. And people donated. I had fun with it. Over the Memorial Weekend, I raised $167 by promising to plank for 167 seconds on Facebook Live. (Again, why would anyone pay me to exercise? I’m getting there.)

Come race weekend, I was just shy of $3,500, a pretty big number for someone who had originally intended to raise the minimum to join the bike ride.

I was happy with where I was, but there were more goals to achieve everywhere. My team was so close to raising $75k together, and I wanted to help us achieve that! The ride as a whole was nearing half a million! How could I help? How could I squeeze a few more dollars out of a few more pockets? (On a 10 hour delay trying to get to Chicago for the event, I tried to raise money by taping a sign to my chair for strangers to see. I’ll admit now this was one of my weaker tactics as it raised zero dollars and zero cents.)

After nearly missing the ride thanks to something going on at LaGuardia Air Traffic Control that I still don’t understand, I made it to the start. I was frantic. (Due to the delay, I had had to FaceTime my parents from the airport to pack for me while they were in my apartment.) So, at 5:30am I was hurriedly trying to take what I needed from my luggage and what they had packed and get my ride gear in order.

I was so out of sorts I almost missed the morning’s opening ceremonies. And thank the universe I didn’t because this is where is where it all clicked. While I was worrying about what I needed, and what concerns I needed resolved, a community of 400+ riders, crew members and volunteers were coming together. People spoke about the reason for the Ride: to reduce to stigma around HIV/AIDS. To provide access to services to people desperately in need. To rally around people who might not otherwise have a community to depend on. The stories and speeches were strong, and courageous and heartbreaking.

“Jessy, I’m thinking about my brother,” my mom said tearily as she grabbed my hand. My Uncle Ed died of AIDS in 1990. He was gay in a time it was infinitely harder to be gay. He had HIV in a time where you knew, undoubtedly, that you were going to die from it. And now, 25 years later, because of events and fundraisers like these, HIV isn’t a death sentence, and having it doesn’t mean you won’t be loved and supported and find yourself without a community.

So that’s when I realized that I had it all wrong. The bike ride isn’t the main event, the ride is the after party. The 6–9 months of fundraising, and asking, and having the courage to say, “Hey, pull out your wallet, why don’t ya?”…that’s the main event. The ride is the blood, sweat and tears AFTER the blood, sweat and tears. The ride breaks you down physically so you can’t help but feel the whole damn thing: the accomplishment of the money you’ve raised together, the knowledge that there’s still so much more work to be done, and the celebration of finding so many goddamn wonderful people to take the journey with.

So, for a completely different reason than I originally intended, I rode that 200 miles. And it was probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. My under carriage might be forever on the mend. I cried at rest stops, on my bike, and whenever I saw someone else crying. My body broke down enough for me to really feel the impact of what was happening.

No one pays anyone to exercise. We ride to recognize every single person that took time out of their day and money out of their pocket to help others. We struggle for two days to recognize the people that struggle every day with this doozy of a disease.

That ride was hard. Really hard. But, the thing is, I already know I’ll be doing it again next year …because I just signed up.

Thank you to everyone who made a donation, big or small. You have made a significant impact in this world and someone you’ll never know appreciates you more than you’ll ever know. Thank you to the amazing people of TPAN who ran that event like a well oiled MACHINE! Thank you Shannon Cunningham and Yvette Pryor for pushing all of us to raise more, do more and ask for more. Thank you Team Cheetah. Thank you Amanda and also WHY DID YOU MAKE ME DO THAT AMANDA?, Thank you Robin and Lindsay and Kira and Teddy and Genevieve. Thank you Mike. And of course, Thank you Mom and Dad for the amazing pack job. If you’re reading this, and you’d like to make a donation, DO IT RIGHT THIS MINUTE. See ya next year.