Just like riding a bike...

When I was four, my dad tried to teach me how to ride a bike in the best way a balls-to-the-wall dad of the 1980s knew how to: no training wheels, no helmet, and on a caliche road. This was not the first attempt in this endeavor, but it was to be the last one for roughly two decades. You see, I was a scared and shy little kid; I didn't like meeting new people (they scared me) and I didn't like things that scared or hurt me (they scared AND hurt me). Dad grabbed the back of my bicycle to help balance me, then told me to start peddling and he would keep up with me.

There was this brief moment when I felt the wind in my hair and the zipping joy that runs through your body when you learn something new. I was SO excited to be riding a bike!!! I wanted to share this excitement with the most awesome Daddy ever and so turned around to smile at him and get his encouraging smile back.


Turns out that even the legs that go with his 6'5" body can't keep up with a kid on a bike... He was about 20' behind me. I had no safety. I had no clue what I was doing! So, I turned back around to face front, panicked, and - is this really surprising? - promptly crashed.

The physical aftermath of this was no big deal: a few scrapes on my knees and hands, some big enough to "see" the scars years later and use it as an excuse for being a teenager with no idea how to do something most kids learn before they can even speak properly. But, the psychological scars I allowed from this experience would haunt me for years. No matter how much I remembered that brief moment of pure pleasure while riding, no matter how much fun it looked to be, and no matter how many people in my adult life tried to teach me how to ride, I was blocked. I could not do it.

That is, until a friend was not determined to be The One to save my poor, car-and-foot-chained soul. She just wanted to take a ride and offered her husband's bike for me to try. Very calmly, very soothingly, she told me to ride if I wanted to and just let it be what it needed to be. The January after I graduated with my Masters', after I had traveled three continents and 15 countries by myself, after having jumped out of an airplane not attached to someone else, and after I had passed my 30th birthday by more than a year, I finally learned how to ride a bicycle.

And then would not do so again for a year and a half.

The actual riding seemed like so much fun and such great exercise! I really wanted to be comfortable with this world-wide pasttime, something that transcends the ages, the languages, and the cultures. But, the whole falling and getting hurt thing was too much for me to let go of: it just seemed painful! So, I was scared and anxious about it.

I have now been riding with my husband for a little over a year, thanks to him encouraging me to after the friend who taught me how to ride gave me a one-speed cruising bike with long handle bars and a comfortable seat. After a year on that one, Rob bought me a seven speed for my birthday that is just as comfortable and makes hills SO much easier! And, I LOVE it! I do!!!

I am still nervous about cars and turning my head to look over my shoulder, I have let go with only one hand and only long enough to push my sunglasses back up, and I can NOT for the life of me figure out how you people stand up on your bikes - are you CRAZY?!?! My biggest fear has been falling because I know that it hurts; people break things in their bodies and I have no insurance right now on top of still just really not liking pain. BUT, I am riding and that makes me happy!

This past Sunday, Rob and I rode to breakfast as a great way to get some exercise in while it was still in the double digits for the day. There is one patch where we need to either ride on a sidewalk that is uneven or ride in one of the three lanes of a fairly large/busy street. Sidewalks have been tricky for me because you HAVE to ride in a straight line instead of having the freedom to mess up and swerve around like you do on the road. This particular sidewalk is even harder because you have to "thread the needle" as the sides of the sidewalk are pushing up in opposite directions and there is a tree limb sticking just barely out over the sidewalk.

I went for it!

I hit the tree limb with the handle of my bike and down I went. Now, mind you, this is the first time I have fallen from a bike in - literally - 30 years and it has been my biggest fear of bikes for every one of those 30 years. Amazingly, it happens so fast that there is no time to panic; you only get to deal with it.

Somehow, the Universe saw fit to have me fall on the one patch of ground between a sidewalk and road that must have been recently tilled because it was soft and fluffy dirt while Texas is in the middle of one of the worst droughts in recorded history. Also, those years of Tae Kwon Do my parents forced me to do paid off: I landed in a manner to ensure I did not break my wrist or arm because that was not what I threw out to land on first. And, I give thanks because when I landed, my hand and head where poking over the curb by just a few inches, yet there was not a car to be seen to fear getting hit.

With my husband's helping, warm hand, I got up, brushed the dirt off my legs, crossed the street to where I could be on road again, and got on my bike. We had breakfast to eat and exercise to get! But, mostly, it just really wasn't that bad. I have a bruise and some scratches that took about 30 minutes to stop feeling. While I realize how lucky I am that this was not a worse fall (or how I called a soft landing into being), I have survived that one panic-inducing event which kept me frozen in fear for three decades and came out the other side just fine.

I am writing this because there was such an outpouring of love and sadness after my last entry: while I do not have the words to express how much it meant to me to have so much love, I want everyone to know that I'm doing alright. All of this has been a humbling experience that I think I really needed to have in order to be fully and truly without some of the judgments I have had about both other people and myself. The present part of this experience is scary, anxiety-producing, and sometimes just out-and-out frustrating. But, much more importantly, the whole of this experience is exciting, healthy, and allowing me to fulfill a desire I have had for the majority of my life! With my head held high, I am anxiously looking forward at what is coming up without too much need for what is behind and - though it is hard work sometimes - I am enjoying the ride!

Just like riding a bike, right?