When my kids were little, I taught them to say a phrase, which to this day, make me smile. ‘If you are not crashing, you are not learning.’ It was because they showed stress when they were learning new skills and I wanted to teach them grit, thoughtful risk taking and a willingness to be vulnerable in learning.
WOW those are hard lessons for us adults. When was the last time you leapt without rock solid confidence of your landing? We all know the people that avoid taking decisions by continuing to ask for more data instead of accepting the inherent risk in the situation. We also know the people that avoid trying new things, because they are ‘too old for that’.
I like to believe myself open to shenanigans and risk taking. In all honesty, however, when these choices are knocking at my front door, I gulp and have to deep breathe my way through. I know the very real pain of crashing.
On Easter, the universe presented me with some choices, one enabling shenanigans and risk. The day before, I did way too much vertical on the trails. For Sunday, the kids had requested the Easter Egg Hunt (EEH) with clues directing them around our town. This is a gift for endurance runners. I could drag my family around my favorite trails in our town under the guise of an EEH. Only one catch – I needed to do the route twice (hiding and finding). After my Saturday, all I could think was OUCH! In my problem solving, I came up with the genius idea to ride my bike to hide the eggs. There was only this slight issue of having dystonia that could prevent me, given it’s been quite some time since I ACTUALLY rode a bike.
I convinced MB to put air in my tires. MB insisted I wear a helmet, I insisted on wearing bunny ears, so he humored me and shoved the ears onto the helmet. It didn’t come back like riding a bike. I was tippy. Very tippy. The three-year-old we passed on his scoot bike boasted more skills than me (he WAS impressive). There were parts I had to walk. Apparently, going up Swiss level hills on gravel, looking ahead and balancing is far beyond my capacity. I was a picture of pure, grinning, ridiculousness in bunny ears when I wasn’t fighting to stay upright.
There were moments when a part of me that whispered, ‘you are too old for this. Why do you keep insisting on trying things with a high likelihood to crash?!’ I finally have an answer after all these years of crashes and near misses. I want the joy. I want the memories. I would hate to say that I chose to not try because I was worried my ego or body would be bruised. Or that I used having dystonia as an excuse to stop living. There is no way I am willing to miss the laughter and fabulousness of my kids thwacking through the woods on their EEH. That joy lives in my heart forever.
On Easter, we fulfilled our family tradition of hiking far longer than anyone wanted. There was some limping, mild complaints, sharing of snacks. It was simply perfection.