Remembering your childhood dreams
When I was a girl, I wanted to be an Air Force pilot when I grew up. This wasn’t one of those passing dreams, it started about the time I was my son’s age (10 or 11) and lasted until high school. Until I discovered that I was too little to pass the flight physical. The joys of being petite.
But this isn’t about that dream – it’s about another dream. One I had nearly forgotten, it was buried so deeply. One summer I saw the movie “Breaking Away”. I was probably 13 or 14 when I saw it. This movie is about cycling like Rocky is about boxing – it’s really about LIFE, but uses a sport as the vehicle to drive the story. I don’t recall why this movie touched me so, but it reached something locked deep inside.
I grew up in a place and time where nice girls didn’t sweat, and playing soccer was pushing the outer envelope of acceptable behavior. You weren’t supposed to suck at gym, but you weren’t supposed to enjoy it either.
But I really connected with that movie – it made me want to “break away”. I spent that summer riding my bike for miles and miles. I didn’t want to be a cyclist – I wanted to know who I was.
Life, convention, and my dad reasserted authority, and my quest to discover just who it was living inside this body was postponed for another day. Tonight after the hub and I go to the gym, I’ll get my bike out of the back, send him home to cook dinner, and do a little bit more “breaking away.”
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2 comments:
Neca -
Good Luck! Images from childhood, not quite sure of what, are what keep me turning the pedals. I like running, but there's just an extra freedom that I get on a bike.
Good luck finding out who you are, and here's hoping the bike can take you where you want to be.
Breaking Away was a really important movie for me too. After seeing it, I started cycling regularly. I was in high school and had a boyfriend who lived twenty-five miles away, so I used to bike down to see him (Now I remember that it would take me 4 hours to get there. For some reason, I had thought I was a fast bicyclist as a child, but maybe not). I used to ride 40-60 miles a day back then, and I trained for a double century ride. (I did 105 miles before stopping -- on a single speed bike. In shorts and a tshirt) What fun!
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