One of my earliest memories is of a friend of the family who lost his leg in a motorcycle accident.  When he would visit our family he would always let us children look at his prosthetic leg.  We would gawk in amazement as he pulled his pants leg up to reveal the hard plastic leg.  Sometimes he would let us feel it and knock on it.  I was always fearfully mesmerized with it.

Hand in hand with that memory, is another of a teenage boy (or maybe he was in his early 20’s) who would ride his motorcycle endless up and down our dead end street.  It was loud and I was always scared as his engine revved, popped and sputtered for what seemed to me like hours.  I didn’t like loud noises or motorcycles and can remember being terrified to go outside or even function during this time he was riding the street.

Later, in elementary school, I watched in amazement as a good friend of mine nonchalantly hopped on a motorcycle with her Dad and rode away from school. I could not comprehend how she could possibly want to ride a motorcycle.  As a teenager, I vowed never to ride a motorcycle.  They held no interest for me and you would never catch me on one, much less even looking at one. 

When I was a young adult, I worked at a law firm as a paralegal and was assigned to help on a case involving a young man’s death on a motorcycle.  I recognized the name of our client as a guy I had gone to high school with.  We were not close and were not even friends, but I was horrified as I sifted through photographs from the accident.  His body was mangled, broken and bloody.  I had to have these horrible pictures enlarged and arranged for the settlement talks.  I had to review these photos with the attorney and talk about each one in detail.

This horrific case only deepened my conviction that I would never ride a motorcycle.  So it may surprise you to hear that last Sunday afternoon I went on a motorcycle ride with my brother in law and loved every minute of it!  In fact, this is not the first time I’ve ridden on a motorcycle. I’ve been several times in the past few years with both my father in law and my brother in law. 

I don’t know what came over me, but a few years ago I relented to their requests and rode with them one beautiful, sunny day.  I was tired of living in fear.  I was at a stage in my life where I wanted to try things and experience things in life that were at my finger tips, but had never done because of fear.  I checked my fear of motorcycles at the door and have never looked back. 

I loved my first ride and now I jump at the chance to ride with them whenever they ask.  Sometimes it is just a short ride to run an errand, but they know they can count me in. They never made fun of me.  They never said, “I told you so!”, but you can see the laughter in their eyes when they ask me and I excitedly reply, “Yes!” and then can’t seem to get the helmet on fast enough. 

This past Sunday afternoon, riding with my brother in law, I could feel the tension and stress leaving my body as we cruised down the curvy road.  I have ridden the back roads near my house in a jeep with the top down and enjoyed it thoroughly, but it could not compare to the motorcycle.  There is just something freeing about a bike.

As we twisted and turned up and down hills and through hollows, I took a deep breath of the fall air.  I soaked in the shady, damp, tree covered sections of the road which smell musky, but yet clean.  As the wind blew in my face I remembered my fears and how good it feels to let your fears go. I just imagined myself holding my fear tight in my hand and then stretching it out and opening my hand wide.  The wind took my fear and blew it far behind me.  It blew it into the past - down a road I traveled long ago.