KK’s Live Healthy Journal: 7 Things Learning to Ride a Motorcycle Taught Me About Myself
July 2008
Lively Women: I’m writing this post while in the air over central California, on my way to a conference in San Francisco. I’ll be blogging about the conference at www.inkthinkerblog.com and tweeting about it, too! Follow me for updates. We’re beginning our initial descent and we have only 123 miles to go! At 531 mph, we should be there in no time at all.
I’m a worrier. I’ve always been a worrier. I remember getting sick when I was about 10 years old and missing a week of school, and by the time I was well I had convinced myself that if I went back to school, my parents would die because I wasn’t home to make sure they were alive. For years after my brother died back in March of 2003, until recently in fact, every time two or more people I cared about were in a car together, I was convinced that they would die in a fiery crash. I see I child running and I envision him falling. I see a man eating a hot dog and I envision him choking. I worry about EVERYTHING.
So you can imagine how thrilled I was when my husband started riding motorcycles. Are you imagining it? Okay, take what you’re imagining and kick it up about a billion notches and that’s where I was the first time my husband left to go for a ride after taking a motorcycle class. I was convinced that I would never see him again. I actually had a panic attack and would have collapsed had he not grabbed me because I was hyperventilating.
Now, before I go on, I need to point out that I’m not usually that freaked out about worrying. It’s something I do all the time, so I’m used to it, as…