Since I was a fairly small child I've been rather risk-averse. Whenever I was introduced to a new activity I weighed the benefits of partaking against the risks of injury and death. I don't play contact sports, mostly because I'd hate them, but partially because I'd worry about breaking my teeth. I would love to do roller derby, for instance, but again, my teeth.
As I enter what I would consider my "mid" twenties, I am settling into a pretty regular pattern of life — I work, I go home, I watch some movies or TV, I go to sleep, I get up, I go to work, to ∞. This last weekend I changed that pattern, hopefully forever, and I'm aiming to change it even more in the coming months.
Over the weekend I took part in a 3 day motorcycle training course and received my motorcycle endorsement. My family, mostly my dad, has encouraged me to ride since I was younger and 4 years ago I began riding a scooter in preparation to one day take on bigger and better two-wheeled things.
The course was hard, much harder than I anticipated, though I didn't really know what to expect. I set myself up to make it much harder by choosing a training school an hour from my house. My schedule last Saturday and Sunday consisted of: get up at 5:00am, leave house at 5:45am, arrive at school 7:00am, ride motorcycles all day, depart for home, go to sleep at 12:00am due to nervousness, get up at 5:00am, drive drive drive ride ride ride.
There were 10 students in the class including myself and while at first I was a bit frightened by all their chain-smoking, Def Leppard blasting from their cars, and experience riding they all turned out to be lovely people. Our instructors were a British transplant who gave all the right/left directions backwards and some sort of Harley-riding cowboy type.
Class focused a lot more on surviving potential hazards than I would have thought. Little time was spent learning about shifting and cruising and more about swerving, sudden braking, and not falling over. I appreciated learning all those things, as I know first hand how important they will be, but I'm a little nervous to go out on the open road when I've never been out of 2nd gear.
The written test was a breeze, the riding test not so much. First of all, on day two of riding, three of the class, I made a big effort to eat and drink much more than I had the previous day. I had gotten really overwhelmed and anxious and thought part of that was due to dehydration and low blood sugar. I guzzled coffee and water on the way down and once the class got going we didn't really stop. As you can imagine drinking 12oz of coffee, about a quart each of water and Gatorade did not sit well when I literally had to sit on a bike for 3 hours without a break. When it came time to take the test half my intention was on not falling over while the other half of my brain focused on not peeing on myself.
The test itself focused, again, more on hazard avoidance than on actually cruising around. We did a quick stop, we swerved around an obstacle at decent speeds, we wove through cones, we executed a u-turn and some other more sweeping turns at higher speeds. I completed each task and then re-entered the long line of bikes waiting to test. I was about 4th in line which was great to see a few people before me and meant I spent a ton of time watching other people finish a task I'd already completed. I tried not to watch too closely to some of the exercises, such as the u-turn, because watching other people totally biff it really didn't boost my confidence.
When we were all finished with each of the tasks we gathered as a group while our instructor finished up our scores. He first let 3/10 students know they had failed and would have to retest. When he started to address the rest of the group I had an inkling we had all passed but when he said the faithful words, that we were finished and were now endorsed to ride motorcycles I jumped with joy, literally. And then I went and peed.
So much of my time is spent working, sleeping, and worrying about what I'll do next I think this journey, to uncharted waters of motorcycles and trips and adventures and potential hazards is going to be incredible. I'm already on the hunt for my first bike, my second bike, my cool bike, I'm already thinking of how cool it would be to tour through Europe with my dad, or ride down the Pacific Coast Highway to California, or or or so many other things! This is one tool I can use to gain some more badassery back into my life.
In other news, I will very shortly be registering for Doula training in the fall, and next week I have my interview to become a hospice volunteer. With each new activity, new training, new adventure comes a lot of nerves and a lot of risk weighing but in the end I know these are things that will change my life for the better and help me become the person I know I can be.
