I moved to my crunchy small town from Boston when L was 15 months old. My husband and I had just one car at the time, which he needed for work. I saw this as an opportunity to become a true mom of the area. I bought myself a trailer for my bike, a helmet for my son and was ready to embrace my latent inner-hippie. I took one preemptive practice run around the block a few times and then felt ready to be a real local. I imagined myself in the best shape of my life from biking everywhere! I imagined my days biking into town with my happy toddler, meeting up with some like-minded women, running a few errands and coming home feeling fit, refreshed, in-touch and like a great mom. I was going to be that mom and I was psyched.
For my first real outing, I packed L into the trailer with a snack and a drink and headed off to the supermarket. I loved the adventure of it all! I found the bike rack, figured out how to park my giant trailer there without obstructing the whole rack and felt great as I headed into the market. I still felt great as I packed L back into the trailer and surrounded him with the groceries: 2 gallons of milk fit nicely under his seat, eggs and raw meats in the back where he couldn’t reach them, non-fragile items packed all around him. It was a tight squeeze. Once I got it all secure, I hopped on for my ride home.
I had not considered several factors:
- Groceries are heavy;
- Heavy trailers are very hard to pull;
- The supermarket was downhill from my house, which means that my house was uphill from the supermarket;
- I was not so fit;
- I don’t really like things that are really hard;
- L has no patience for things that take a long time.
We finally made it home. I did not feel fit, refreshed, in-touch and like a great mom at all. I felt sweaty and sore and tired and obviously not fit. I felt irritated and angry at all those damn hippie moms with their damn happy kids in trailers. Instead of feeling like a great mom, I felt lousy for making L endure a very long, uncomfortable bike trip packed in with the groceries in the hot trailer listening to me curse at the world.
I knew I was not ever going to be that mom. Why did I think I ever would be? That very night I met my husband at the car dealership and we got our second car.
[…] Generally I feel confident in my abilities to do just about anything. I figure if someone else can do it, then I probably can too. This is the attitude I had at 9 or 10 when I decided the bar in my closet needed to be raised from little kid height to normal height. I got my dad’s tools and removed the brackets from the wall, repositioned them, re-screwed them in and replaced the bar. I did a fine job and the bar is still holding strong today, level and everything. It’s the attitude I had when I decided to try galloping and jumping a horse for the first time, when I traveled alone through Kenya, and when we moved to the middle of nowhere and I decided I could just take L everywhere by bike. […]
Excellent!! I love this. It reminds me of how I am with spiders. LOL.. I want to also invite you to read my blog. It might make you feel better at times and I can definitely relate.
http://ourfamilyspectrum.blogspot.com/