You admire something, you get hurt, you hate it but fall in love with it more!
That has got to be the summary of my story with a bicycle, it happened years ago but I still smile now when I think back.
I can't remember the first time I saw one riding a bicycle but I can remember very much how excited I was about getting on one for the first time. My elder cousin had a portable blue bike that seemed like the most beautiful I had seen all my life back then π
I was literally bowing to him for everything just so I could get on his bike anytime he had to go out with it and I would succeed but not all the time.
Image is mine and designed here
We would both ride to different places he visits, even places I shouldn't be as I was still little but I didn't care since I got the chance to ride on my cousin's bike's saddle. It continued like that until a day I fell from the bike and almost got hide by a car, my cousin seemed like a superhero to me that day.
You know that excitement when the bike is on speed and you could feel the breeze strong on your face... I was on high spirit enjoying the ride.
Then I flew down from the bike, the fall was painful that I couldn't get up immediately until my cousin came to pick up so fast and rushed me to a close by clinic.
That incident was traumatic for me that I developed Cyclophobia, Fear of bicycles.
How does one go from loving something so much to hating it too much? Even I couldn't explain it myself back then, I would see my cousin going out but would turn away as if I never saw the bike as a very beautiful thing to go close to before.
I can still remember the day he really wanted me to go with him but I cried my eyes out saying I'd rather walk to the place even though the distance wasn't for my little legs π he had to go on his own or drop the bike and we take a cab to the place.
Grandmum got worried for my actions towards the bicycle she was happy I loved so much. Even though she didn't have the money to get one for me, she felt bad when I stopped pressuring her for a bike I could call mine. I don't know what really transpired between my cousin and her, she made him try to teach me how to ride his bike.
You can imagine how evil I felt my cousin was for trying to get me on his bike by force π
Grandmum bribed me with all my favourites, my cousin even tempted me with going to a favourite spot of mine but I didn't bulge, I was so sure I wouldn't get on his bike for the hurt it gave to me.
One evening when my elder cousin came home with his bicycle, I was like "I want to learn how to ride your bicycle" in the most calmest voice ever π
Why? How come? What about my Cyclophobia?
Well, if you asked that, you'll have to promise you won't laugh at what cured my mental illness. I mean, grandma bribes didn't work, my cousin's temptations didn't work, what did?! π
I got jealous of our neighbour's kids who knew how to ride bicycles and play so well with it π₯²
I had the cyclophobia for months until we had a family moved in to an apartment closed to ours. They had three kids and every one of them had a bike of their own. I tried to play with them for the first time but they couldn't stop suggesting games that needed bikes for it to be fun.
I knew I was scared of the bikes but because they were smaller and they ride on it so fearlessly, I felt determined to overcome the fear and ride on my cousin's own. I'm not sure I can explain in good details how the learning process went.
I fell, I cried, I shook in fear, I got brave, fell again, laughed at myself, got applauded by my cousin and it went on like that...
I became so good with bikes that my cousin let me ride on his own while he rode on Grandma's old bike since it was too big for me. It took me less than three weeks to learn how to ride it so I'm guessing I was a slow learner but my cousin didn't make it seem like that to me then.
I had so much fun riding to short distant places with him, I was still scared of riding on main and busy roads because of my trauma but it only got better as I could take full control of my bike grip.
Since I was so good at riding a bicycle, Grandma promised to get one for me with the money I'll earn from picking snails and making brooms π what I didn't think then was that Bikes were too expensive to get with the money I'll make from those.
I couldn't get my own bike until I moved back to live with dad. At least, my cyclophobia got cured and I learnt how to ride a bike.
