Training Wheels

Last week I was asked to reflect on examples of personal triumph, and write them out in a story format. For whatever reason this request took my mind back to a hot summer day in 2004. There was conflict, moral struggles, a heroine, a vilified object, and even...a little bit of ice cream. Though entirely unrequested and very random, the juicy details of my most formative memory is as follows:

On a hot July day I sat under the sun, legs cooling off in the fresh cut grass as the sounds of summer surrounded me. With sweat beading down my face my eyes narrowed, glaring across the pavement at the literal bane of my existence. At just six years old, I didn’t quite understand the concept of an enemy. But I was beginning to learn that mine was pale yellow, made of steel, adorned with delicate flowers, and had tinsel hair that sparkled in the breeze. The stupid thing was gorgeous.

It was the bicycle of my dreams. I'd pestered my parents for months to get me a big kid bike without training wheels but, now that I had it, I hated it. Even with its tires twisted on the cement from my last fall, it still managed to intimidate me.

As I sat there in the grass waiting for my dad to catch up, I made my decision. I was never ever riding a bike again. Not this one or any others for that matter. It simply wasn't worth the trouble.

When I informed my dad of my plans to be a lifelong pedestrian, he instantly tried to change my mind. “You’re in control of the bike” he said. “It goes where you want to go because you control it, not the other way around.” In that moment I looked down at my scraped hands and bruised knees then back at him, and I knew my father was a crazy person. How could I be in charge of something that kept proving that I wasn’t? In my head I decided that my bike was unlike all others. It had a mind of its own, and was vehemently opposed to my success. I was sure of it!  

This was the first time I let my own subconscious stop me from reaching my full potential.

Eventually with lots of persuading and a promise of a strawberry ice cream cone from Peterson's, I got up. With a new sense of determination I brushed myself off and mounted my pastel nemesis. Once again, I’d get a couple feet forward before I fell off. Then I tried again, and fell again. But I kept falling over and over, with echoes of my dad yelling “you’re in control, be the boss,” until it wasn’t so scary anymore.

Before dusk, I’d finally conquered my fears and was riding circles around the park. I thought that biking was the only lesson I learned that day, and was thrilled. Looking back, however, I realize that what I really learned was how to succeed from failure.

I created an entire personified version of my bike in my head because I didn’t want to be responsible for falling. I didn’t want to face that fact that not everything comes intuitively, and sometimes practice really does make perfect. Cheesy as it may sound, my dad’s speech about being in control has always stuck with me.

Though I may not be in control of the obstacles I face, I can always control how I handle them. I've learned that you can either lie in the grass, or get up and work towards something. That day it just happened to be a yellow bike and an ice cream cone.