Like many kids, last summer I learned to ride a bike. Only I am in my 30s. When I was a child, I had no one to teach me. My mom never learned. My parents were apart when I was four, and before my father left us, he bought a bicycle for my brother and me to share.
My mom later remarried. Other kids would laugh at my brother and me because we were the only ones older than six and still depended on training wheels. My stepfather removed them, but in doing that, I lost interest and trust in riding the bicycle. I was so scared to fall off. I thought I was too old to learn too. After all, I was 8 at that time. Not knowing how to ride didn't let me down at first, until we moved outside the center of our city. In this area, bicycles were popular. When I went to the store to buy candies with my friends, I was always the last to arrive, on foot. By then, I was 12 years old.
In my early 30s, I remember how I felt when I watched my neighbors' children, as young as three, learn to ride on bikes. Then something changed. The fear was still there, but something much stronger appeared. I joined a women's bike-riding club. There, I stood in a city park, decided to control my fear. In the club, I met women from different backgrounds, and they were all finding riding skills for kinds of reasons. It made me feel like being more powerful. Not long after, I was riding confidently.
Filled with the joy of riding, I bought my own bike. It wasn't simply a bike. It was also a chance I missed earlier. Every day, when I rode out, I enjoyed the beauty of the nature and the wind on my face. Buying a bike was an investment (投资) in transportation. And it was an investment in reconnecting with my past childhood memory.
