When I was nine years old I fell off a bike.  It was horrible.  I was flying down a hill and my flip-flops fell off.  I had those pedals that had the spiky surfaces so I couldn’t put my bare feet on the pedals or risk impalement. I started panicking because my speed was increasing every moment with the descent - I had to do something fast.  Thinking my best option was going onto the grass, I steered my bike to the left and hit an edge.  Suddenly, I was hurling threw the air only to land on my forehead.  Ouch.   

 Blood seemed everywhere and my wailing began.  I walked down the rest of the hill to my aunt’s house, tears streaming and looking for Mom.  Unfortunately, Mom was out and Dad was there.  Let’s just say he was useless and leave it at that.  Not surprisingly, I didn’t ride a bike again for a long time and when I did, it was a white-knuckle, tense experience.

 Fast-forward to today and now I am the Mom with two kids riding bikes.  My kids kept asking me to go for bike rides with them too, not just Daddy or the sitter.  I would say with a shrug, “I don’t have a bike.”  Then my husband bought me a beautiful purple and hot pink cruiser with a big basket.  I had no more excuses, so I tried riding again. 

 Against every instinct I began riding my bike.  My daughter and I started riding to and from her school every day and after a week or two, I noticed things were changing.  I stopped gripping the handle bars for dear life.  I felt more comfortable riding and most of all, I liked it again.  It was fun riding on my pretty, purple bike – I felt so young again, even carefree.   

 Mind you, I will never wear flip-flops while biking ever again and I still don’t make a whole lot of conversation as I don’t want to somehow get distracted and fall.  However, each day I’m a little more confident and most of all, I feel as though I am reconnecting to that little girl inside who was hurt so many years ago.  She’s healing and coming out again…and I am happy to welcome her home.    

Tags: biking, childhood, family, fears, healing, hurt, instinct, overcoming

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Babies & Parenting, Best Life, Communication & Relationships, Empowerment, Friend & Family, Spiritual Self. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.