Or: When Health is Nothing Like Riding a Bike

He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.

W.B. Yeats, The Rose of the World

Around the time I turned sixteen years old, despite having ridden a bicycle since I was about seven, I suddenly stopped being able to mount one at all. I could not (still cannot) figure out how brakes work. I had entirely forgotten how to steer. It was (and, context aside, continues to be) the very amusing converse of that famous old expression: “It’s like riding a bike: you never forget!”

But I forgot. And a week ago, we finally determined why. Following my father’s departure, my mind misfired: it arbitrarily repressed a number of seemingly innocuous memories. Birthday parties, basketball games, and school lessons all became hazy at best; at worst, they were entirely obliterated. I never know when they’re missing until I try to recall them. Apparently, this includes the time my dad taught me to ride a bike.

It might not seem like a big deal. It certainly wouldn’t be for any normal person. But that is exactly the point–things like this are why I don’t get to be a normal person. Never mind living on my own. Never mind holding down a job. Never mind stable relationships. Never mind having children. I don’t even get to cycle down the street with the rest of my university friends.

When my peers were traveling to foreign cities, learning new languages or new things about themselves, I was checking in and out of hospitals, testing out new medical procedures, and trying to determine the likelihood of being able to continue an academic career at all. When people tried to help, I closed off from them. When people made me feel terrible about myself, I let them. When the person I had been seeing for half of a year decided suddenly, without explanation, to sever me from his life entirely, I thought I deserved it. Because whenever someone chooses to leave me, I have to reckon with that possibility.

Please do not think that I feel sorry for myself. I honestly never have. There’s very little to pity. I don’t even know any other way of living. There is nothing to mourn, because I never really lost anything: I can only ever remember being like this. But sometimes that frustrates me, and sometimes it makes me sad. Because I am defending myself, all of the time. And against what? I really couldn’t say.

I would like to be less of a burden for my family and the people who love me. I don’t believe that I am dead weight, or unworthy of their care, but I know that I cause worry and grief to many of the people that I wish to hurt least of all. The person I am lives often in the shadow of the illnesses she carries. And that’s lonely. That’s frightening. That’s hard.

But I have made, so far, a kind of life for myself. I still go to work every day, and sometimes try to do some art, or learn a piece of music. I always show up to therapy. I usually remember to put gas in my car. I try to keep in touch with people. I don’t hurt myself the way I used to. I really hope that I can go back to England and achieve something more than half-hearted survival. Sometimes, I think a lot of people don’t like me; but I also know a handful who (probably) do. And that doesn’t always feel like much; but honestly, it’s something. Maybe everything. In any case, it’s better than nothing at all.

So, it’s okay. It’s always okay. I’m working on it.

Eventually, I’ll get there. I’ll find my way back to health–that elusive, half-hallowed word that imbues every image of life I conceive–and back to the people who love me. I’ll want to be awake and alive again. I’ll learn to enjoy, or at least endure, solitude. I’ll laugh a bit more than I have of late, and write just as much, and drink a bit less. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even learn to ride a bike again.

Because I don’t quite recall what it felt like to be that child, elated beyond language, knuckles wrapped around the handlebars, the wind in my hair and upon my face, my dad perhaps running and laughing–did he laugh back then?–a few paces behind me, as I kept the two wheels upright on my own for the first time.

That image is a fiction. I don’t remember it anymore.

But I wish I could. I wish I could. I wish I could.

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