Rode with Son three times through the afternoon for a total of forty-five minutes and six miles. Not exactly booking down the road, but my legs feel it today. Put on more than 7,500-steps. Maybe with this bike I will achieve the goal of 10,000-steps much more quickly. Didn't do the treadmill yesterday for doing so much biking. Will try to combine the two. I expect each exercise provides its own benefit.
Got me to thinking about how I learned to ride a two-wheeler. I was five or six years old when I got the bike. As I recall it was too large for me. I was afraid, but Daddy said he would teach me. And he did. But he failed to teach me confidence. He expected that to just come, I guess. It didn't. Confidence and me have never been overly close. One or the other of us always seems to find a way to separate from the other.
Daddy's way of teaching was to hold onto the back of the seat to steady me and then run along as I peddled. I thought that was cool. But there was a problem. You ever try running alongside a bicycle in motion? Even one peddled by a six-year-old? Daddy would have been around thirty-nine or forty. He was strong, but he wasn't a runner. He couldn't keep up. Not his fault.
What I do think was his fault was that he didn't tell me that. In fact, he told me the opposite. He would hang on while I peddled. But he couldn't. Still, I believed he could. I was only six, and not that bright.
I wouldn't get far before I would hear my siblings laughing. By six I had learned that was never a good sign unless I was laughing with them. Turning, I would see Daddy being left behind. I was on my own.
Immediately I would cease to peddle, freeze up in a panic, and eventually fall in a heap with my bicycle. Daddy would come and bring me back and we would do it again. Again he would tell me he would hang on, and again I believed that meant until I was ready for him to let go. How silly of me. I just wasn't getting it. Crash.
I don't recall how many times I crashed. My siblings loved it. It was better than going to a movie. There was no joy like watching someone else be humiliated. Eventually, Daddy had to give up. While not old, he couldn't keep running down the driveway like that. (Dirt driveway.)
He was probably very disappointed in me. I'm sure in his mind he was thinking that I would instantly achieve confidence when I realized I had been biking alone for so long. But that never happened. I panicked every time and crashed. And after that day I never trusted anyone to hold onto the seat. (Daddy had made Mickey do it. Mickey went farther, but even he had to give up trying to keep pace with wheels.)
Reluctantly, Daddy agreed to get me training wheels. I think he felt shamed. He had never even known anyone who had needed training wheels before. Now, one of his children was too afraid to go near a bicycle anymore. So I got training wheels.
I didn't need them long. I remember the neighborhood kids teasing me about them. I didn't much care for the teasing, but it was better than crashing all the time. Then Tommy, Chris's younger brother, went biking with me. It was just the two of us. He kept looking at my wheels. Finally, he told me that he didn't think I needed the extra wheels. Said they never touched the ground until I stopped. (They made an excellent bike stand.) So he talked me into going home and asking Daddy to take them off. Daddy must have been happy in a way. On the one hand I was now daring to ride without the extra help. On the other, he hadn't been the one to bring me to that place.
I feel bad about that, but Daddy just didn't understand. While I was blessed with great physical strength, and a good amount of intelligence, I was crippled emotionally. It takes me ten, or twenty, times longer to develop confidence than others seem to need. There have been very few exceptions to this. I fell in love with the theatre right off. And baseball. And I believe I can tell a good story, even if I don't write so well. And I think I know what it's like to feel someone else's pain. But after that, no.
So yesterday Son and I arrive at the bike shop. Madonna, who sold us Son's bike was there, but busy with another customer. So we got Jason. A nice young guy who probably bikes a hundred miles a day or something. He brought out a nice Trek bike and we went outside so I could test drive it.
I got on, and immediately started to fall to my face. Jasan did an excellent job of trying not to laugh. Did a lousy job of succeeding. After taking a few trips around the parking lot we went back inside so Jason could find another model for me to try. I took the opportunity to ask Son, "So, did I look okay, or did I look really stupid?" I love Son's honesty. "Kind of both."
You know, I can live with that. I don't particularly care to be looking stupid in public (which is why I avoid being in public at every opportunity), but Son's honesty tells me I needn't wonder about it. It is. Knowing the truth somehow makes it easier to bear. I'm hoping I only look stupid because I'm fat. By the end of summer that may not be so true anymore. Then I'll just have other reasons for looking stupid.
Would Daddy be proud of me, I wonder? Or would he think I look stupid, too? Daddy hated stupid.
6 comments:
For crying out loud, what kind of bicycle salesman laughs at a customer for not being a good enough cyclist? (A bad one is the answer you're looking for.)
There are things you can do to build confidence, you know, and not just on the bicycle. I'm not surprised you don't have a lot when I hear about all the undeserved ridicule you were subjected to as a child.
It was undeserved too. When my lads were learning to ride they were given loads of help and we never laughed when they fell off. It's not funny and it hurts. I think both of them had training wheels at some point. Some people just find it easier to learn to ride than others - it's no biggie.
I'll bet your dad would have been bursting with pride at your blog and writing skills. The heart-warming memoirs of your family are so charming.
But still, do you really feel the need to please a deceased parent?
Maybe you should move on to pleasing yourself (and your fans).
Hi J. Maybe. He liked a good story. And he liked to read. Loved it, in fact. Although he mostly read history, natural and cultural. His favorites were the Old West and Native Americans.
His memory is with me always. And though I have never felt like he was actually here with me, what he was, and what he liked, remains important to me. He set impossible standards for himself, I think, and somehow I seem to have made them mine. So many people loved him. Yet there was a loneliness about him I cannot explain.
Oh, well.
Hi Fairy. In the guy's defense I must add that Son was practically on the ground. But then he's only twelve. I actually hadn't started riding yet. I was just trying to get on. I don't stretch like I used to and lost my balance. Once I was on I was fine.
I remembered my experience learning so that I didn't repeat it for Son. He had training wheels. The summer he had me take them off he still really needed them. I came home one day and saw Spouse trying to do for him what Daddy had done for me. I opened the window and said to leave him alone. He could do it. He got on and rode, and he's never looked back.
If I could just "win" once in a while. I think that would make a big difference. But maybe I'm just deluding myself. But it would be nice to win once in a while anyway.
You know what's sad? You were brought by circumstances to feel you were 'crippled emotionally' when what you are is a highly sensitive person. This is the type of person who is called chicken, timid, lacking in confidence and other hurtful labels, but which is normally a toe in the water and then ease in sort of personality, not the run and cannonball type. It's normal. I'm one, and I can say that I felt the same sense of failure at being the way I am. But you aren't alone in this, and it isn't cowardice or anything like that but the need to understand how the situation is before you can step into it comfortably.
You might check out the book "The Highly Sensitive Person." Eye opening, and, hopefully, healing for you.
Thanks, WW. I'll give it a go.
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