As my weight loss is becoming more of a reality to me, I'm starting to think about how life will be when I'm at a truly healthy weight. It's kind of a radical thought for me. However, it's also good therapy. It helps me to start my morning if I go over not only my current goals, but the ones that I have for when my life is more simple than it is now. And trust me, being at a healthy weight is far more simple of a life than where I am now.
One of the things I want to do is start biking again. I'd like to have a bicycle to ride for doing errands that are within a reasonable biking distance, and also just for the joy of travel. I used to love driving around to clear my head, but gas has gotten so expensive, that's almost impossible now. Having a bike would allow me the chance to do that again. It would also help me to regain the childhood sense of freedom I had when riding.
I'm kind of in love with this idea right now, which surprises me a little. I haven't thought about riding a bike in years. Even though I liked the independence of it when I was younger, bike riding wasn't without its issues for me. For one thing, even though I was a kid light enough to ride a bike, I was still a heavy kid. As I've noted before, people like to ridicule fat people who are performing physical activities. It seems counter productive to do that, but the bullies never want you to change. They just want you to go away.
I think my biggest problem with bikes had to do with the materialistic/status concerns that kids are taught to have. You know, the kind that teach us that kids with the huge box of crayons are somehow better than the rest of us. When it came to bikes, my looming concerns had less to do with me being a fat kid and more to do with me being a poor kid.
Most little girls had bikes bought from stores. They were pink or purple or white with pink and purple accents. The seats were long and looked comfortable and sweet and had a nice U-shaped bar on the back that could serve to support anyone who was riding behind them. The bikes also had pretty woven baskets with fake plastic flowers and fake plastic streamers and a general aura of everything that 'girly' could convey. The little girls in my grandparents' neighborhoods had bikes like this, bikes that looked like the ride-able version of their Barbie Dream Houses.
My bike was the same bike my mother had ridden when she was my age. It had no streamers or basket. It had no special frills or pretty. The seat was a standard bike seat, small and to my eyes, very boyish. My grandfather had restored the bike for me so I had something to ride and had painted it with the spray paint he had handy, which just happened to be an icky, flat dark orange. My bike was serviceable and functional. My grandfather had put a lot of work into it. I should have been grateful for that.
But I was a little kid so I hated it.
Actually, I probably didn't hate it at first. At first, I was just mildly disappointed in it. It wasn't pretty and I wanted pretty. Still, it was a bike and that meant I could ride around with the other kids. I assumed they wouldn't really notice that my bike wasn't as cute as theirs and would just be happy I wasn't having to hoof it along after them.
The bike has rules. I couldn't leave our neighborhood. I couldn't let people borrow it. I couldn't leave it at anyone's house. Most importantly, when I got home, I was to park it in the back of the yard by the carport, out of the way of cars and out of sight for anyone who might see it.
One day my friends and I had decided to go to the movies. After having obtained permission from all the adults who needed to be asked, we were heading back to one friend's house so her mom could take us. On the way, I told them I needed to take my bike home first and make sure it was put away. As I was on my way to doing this, I overheard one of the girls say to the other, "Why does she always make such a big deal about putting up that bike. It's not like anyone would ever steal it." At this point, they both began to laugh.
Ohhhh, the shame I felt! The injustice of it all! I wanted to go back and just babble madly at them, about how it wasn't MY choice to put the bike up, it was just one of the rules. It wasn't MY logical decision to think someone would steal the bike. I didn't have some crazy pride attached to this bike. This idea was something my grandparents believed. Actually, it wasn't even my choice to have this bike. They gave it to me. I wanted a pretty bike like theirs.
Instead, I walked back to them and made some excuse about the movies and just stayed home and cried. I felt embarrassed and powerless and poor. Almost 40 yr old me wishes she could go back and tell me to get used to that series of emotions, because it was something I would be feeling a lot in my life. Embarrassed, powerless, and poor could have been a theme for me for years and years.
No, actually, I would tell myself that one day there will be this magical band of people called Hipsters who would rule the current trends of fashion and the idea of having an old, fugly painted bike would be the pentacle of desired bikes to them and I would have to hide it quite well because if I did not, hipsters would steal my bike away. I would warn me not to be fooled by their glasses. They don't really need those and can see perfectly fine.
Seriously though, I'm glad that as an adult, I'm not quite AS caught in the consumer status traps that held me as a child. When I finally do get able to ride a bike again, I'm just going to be happy to be on a bike, It can be old or orange or ugly seated and I will not care. In fact, I think I'd rather have that than pink streamer and fake plastic flowers anyway.
Okay, maybe not the orange part . . .
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