Once I learned how to ride a motorcycle this big, I rode it quite a bit--but never enough. I put her in the back of my truck and went to Alabama with my dog. I rode the Fall River Road through Rocky Mountain National Park with a boyfriend on the back. I spent time in Southern Colorado cruising through farm land. I traveled to a friend's wedding in Winter Park, experiencing true cold weather riding. I had leather chaps and steel toed boots. In other words, I was a single lady with no small children!
Based on how my mother is, I figured that being a mother would mean obsession with keeping my kids alive. I never anticipated it would spill over into a need to keep me and my husband alive. Mason came out of me and I knew I could never ride that beautiful bike again. I wouldn't be the mother who died on her motorcycle. But, how to let it go?
A man wanted to buy it. I sold it. I watched it drive away from me on a trailer. I cried a lot. Not really about the bike, because I hadn't ridden it in over 8 years (gulp!). I cried about what the bike meant to me and represented about me. I cried about the memories and the fantasy of driving down the road whenever I want to. By myself. I churned through all the ideas and emotions that were preventing me from letting go of something I never used. Then, I thought about the two little boys and grown man who are my world. And I felt clear.
