before, after

I don’t remember learning to ride a bicycle. Not who taught me, how long I used training wheels, the color of my bike, nor how many times I fell before I caught on. Before my body discovered the sweet balance spot, to use momentum to my benefit, to assess, as I slowed, at which exact moment I should place my foot upon the ground.

I pedaled to and from school, Rexall’s drug store, and friends’ homes in Midland, Michigan, and continued when we moved to South Bend, Indiana, although there I added trips to the zoo and to the swimming pool. At eleven, my family settled in Utah, plunking me in a mountainous community where I continued to ride–and push uphill–my bike.

Then a hiatus: no bicycling in college.

At twenty-five I bought a mountain bike, which I rode scant times over the next fifteen years as I married, raised children, juggled work and home, while again living high on the foothills of Salt Lake City.

After my divorce, I started to again ride a bike. To get exercise. To clear my head. To escape one thing or another. To gain, again, balance.

For the past eleven or so years, I’ve pedaled indoors throughout each winter. The course I take is intended to keep cyclists fit while snow and cold temperatures keep us from riding outdoors. Each year there are a few “tests” given to assess our fitness level. Similar to a time trial, it is a maximum effort sustained for anywhere between fifteen and twenty-five minutes. These are never easy, as we work to balance breath, exertion, and commitment. I struggle, each time, with the part of me that urges me to just stop, chiding me with both the silliness of it all and my right to self-determination. I’ve been doing these for years: I know I am capable. Yet each time I host an internal debate, and sometimes the winner is not my best self.

Yesterday I fought back, and completed the damn thing. I needed that victory, since I had bailed early on the previous three tests. I needed to prove to myself that I could bear it, that my physical body could withstand the mental chatter and prevail. That I could do what I didn’t want to do.

I spent years of my life doing what I didn’t want to do. And of course, like everyone, I continue to frequently do what I don’t want to do. Like recalcitrant children, our hedonistic selves must often be reined in, redirected, buckled to different tasks. The reward? Not great glory, but instead a sense of competence. Not necessarily wealth, but instead, greater self-esteem. Not material prizes, but the spiritual one of depth and capacity.

I am the same human being I was two days ago, and yet I’m not.