Calculated risk

I’ve been around motorcycles most of my life. I really do like them. The freedom, the breaking free. Adventure and travel, the place I feel most alive.

My Dad had a little Honda 500 that he rode back and forth to night class in San Jose, CA, to save gas and time, while he was getting his MBA circa 1968. He brought home “Jeanie Doll” my first real baby doll on the back of it when I was 5. Once we moved to Albuquerque in 1971, Dad sold it, and often said around the dinner table that he shouldn’t have been riding it back then either, because of the risk and danger. He has a family to support, yaddy yaddy….

Very first boyfriend, David Rusilko (God rest his soul) rode and raced them. Life-long, multiple tries boyfriend Don, I had a crush on him since he was buzzing the school bus on his dirt bike. Scott and I had an old-school Goldwing during our brief, ill-fated marriage mid-90’s. But I rode on the back. Don, when we rekindled our romance in our 40’s, I rode on the back.

I am by nature, not an adrenaline junkie. I do like being exhilarated. I’m a Capricorn, with a Virgo moon. I’m down to earth, grounded,. But I do want that exhilaration. I was a ski bum the year I was 48. I’m a balanced, calculated risk kinda girl.

Last weekend I finished the basic motorcycle riding class, I now have the motorcycle endorsement on my DL. And while my platonic friend Richard has a second bike I can ride… I’m daunted at riding this big Harley 1450 cc Dyna Wide Glide. I feel like I need something less awesome to be learning and practicing on.

And then there is still those tapes back there in my head, of my Dad telling me how dangerous it is to ride. How I owe it to my children and grand children. And truthfully, how I need to not get hurt so I can keep looking after HIM, if he was all here and not in the throes of Alzheimer’s. He would disapprove. Every parental figure I have in my life, they disapprove. (My bioMom told me she’d FORBID me. I didn’t even tell her about any of this, it was in response to riding behind Richard. LOL LOL Good luck with that, I’m 56. )

Am I being selfish taking this risk? Am I living my core values? Of course I care about people who depend on me. But I’ve sublimated my desires for some 56 years. Calculating…

I sincerely don’t know on this one.