How to ride a bike
For 2022, a reminder that you can.
There’s a video of the first time my brother rode a bike. He’s in a little blue shirt and a little blue helmet and he’s pedaling as hard as he can and the bike is rolling forward and he is crying “I can’t do it, I can’t do it” and all the while he is doing it and maybe that is what living is.
Maybe we will never know if we are really living, we will always wonder when life truly begins, and all the while we are biking, biking, biking.
Maybe sometimes we will ride without a helmet and the wind will blow in our hair and other times we will need knee pads and training wheels and a bell on the handlebars and we will ring that bell and say “I am here” or “I am coming” or “help help help I have no idea what is happening.”
And you can forget how to ride a bike but you never really forget how to ride the bike because even when we fall we can pretend we are young and our bones are still bendy, we can get back on the seat, we can try again or we can be scared for the rest of our lives and then instead we can walk or wait or crawl but we will still get there somehow and the bike will sit in the back of a crawlspace or get sold on the internet and someone else will learn to ride in some part thanks to you.
And sometimes a bike hurts your butt and maybe cars drive by faster and maybe we sweat through our work clothes while trying to balance in the bike lane but at least we’re moving.
So the next time you’re wondering “am I even alive?” see that boy on the bicycle, tell him he’s doing it, and tell yourself you are too.
My brother learned to ride a bike while crying that he couldn’t. Sometimes that’s how living is.
Question to ask your mom:
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Great sentiment for the start of the year.