Bravery: To Do the Things You Love

I clutched the handlebars a little bit tighter and swallowed hard.  Looking down the steep valley below, covered with rocks and rivets and dried out waterways, I almost didn’t go down.  In the few split seconds while the wind sailed past my ears, I remembered in brief how I might have approached this valley as a 10-year-old.  Back then, there was no fear of falling.  There was no wondering about long days of physiotherapy after an operation, no ripped apart tendons, post-operative blood clots or lost work. There was no thinking at all, just breathing and doing.  There was no thought like: “but the kids!”  It was just me, on a bike in the wild, exploring around every corner, racing down concrete streets, zipping over driveways and around hedges.  When I was younger, fear did not govern, just joy.  The free feeling of the wind and the sun, endless afternoons and open country roads called me.  That was before, of course. 

That was before this 30 something body peaked over the edge of this hill.  In a moment of clarity, as the brave woman ahead of me sailed at speeds I could barely remember going, I realized how much I wanted to go down the hill. In that moment I stopped thinking about what I should or shouldn’t do.  I stopped thinking about what I ought to do with all of its enslaving responsibility and limitations.  I became, for a moment, the 10-year-old again whose dreams were bigger than her fears.  The 10-year-old explorer, dreamer and creative.  I remembered who she was and came out of hiding just for a second; just long enough to throw me and my bike over the edge of the cliffside, speeding down the bumpy road, and right into a burst of new joy and courage.

 I wonder if I can dream one new, big, wild dream again?

Here, in the dusty land of Malawi, head over handlebars, while still wearing shoes of fear that are well worn on my feet?

Now, when I have four kids at home, and my body and body image repeatedly fail me?

When, I cannot see the how of getting to the what that is calling me?  Or even confidence that the what is what I think it is.

I wonder if the gaping dissonance between my true self and the self I tell myself I ‘ought to be’ is wide enough to fit a vivacious new hope.

 I guess the joy-filled, the exhilarating way is straight over the edge.  The way forward is the way down and also the way over and through rocky terrain filled with pitfalls and potential hazards.  I guess that means I hold on, take a deep breath and just do the things.  The wild things don’t have to be grand but maybe they are just simple allowances of doing more of what I love to do and less of what my own high expectations demand I should do.  

 Maybe, it means I should ride my bike more and that just might be enough.

What do you love to do that you need to make more space for? What holds you back from going over the edge? What would your ten-year-old self want you to do more of?