Downhill: Day 4

I guess the old saying “it’s just like riding a bike” is literally true, because today I took a bike ride for the first time in I can’t remember when.  I was a little nervous about getting up there at the beginning of the ride, but my biking partner Hannah was very encouraging.  After the first few wobbly minutes it all came back to me, and by the end of the ride I was biking like Lance Armstrong.

Okay, maybe not.

But, all that to say that I didn’t fall off my bike once today.  And I got from my house to the library, the intended destination.  And Hannah and I had a lot of fun together: for me it was probably coasting down a couple big hills; for Hannah it was probably laughing at me.

I realized as I was riding that there are probably some serious life lessons one could take from the exercise of riding a bicycle—Hannah and I bantered some back and forth as we rode.  A couple that came to mind were: don’t forget how to use your brakes (imagine Hannah yelling said comment in my direction as we rode toward a huge crowd of people) and the way you look in a helmet is way less stupid than the way you look splattered across the concrete (this would be my helpful response to Hannah’s concern that she didn’t look cool wearing a bike helmet).

I think it was Hannah, though, who made the comment most true to my life at the moment.  When we finally got from our house to our intended destination (the library), panting and sweating, Hannah exclaimed, “All I can say is that I hope the rest is downhill!”

Hannah, I totally agree.