Motivation

Last night my mom, dad, sister, and I were looking through old pictures and this one caught my eye for two reasons:
1. I don't look like me. I look like my mother. And
2. That bike was the love, pride, and joy of my six-year-old life.

The day of my sixth birthday in the early spring of Kindergarten, I received that Lion King (ohh, yes, it was quite a fabulous Lion King bike) bike. It was my very first real bike (I had only formerly had a tricycle), and that afternoon I spent hours alone in the back of our driveway skinning up my arms, legs, and face trying to learn to ride it without training wheels.
What's interesting, though, is that I did it all by myself. No Mommy or Daddy holding onto me and then letting go and me flying into a bush--no, instead, they were inside with my baby (or, more like, 2 year old) sister, and so I taught myself. One of the few times I learned something on my own without my parents going into overprotective mode. And I learned, not by hopping on and trying to peddle in a straight line, but fby linging my left leg over, pushing off with my right, and turning curves and swerves and figure eights. Weird, right? You'd think I'd have had a concussion or something trying to teach myself that way, but I was actually okay. I had a few bruises and a few scrapes, but for the most part I did okay just learning how to balance the bike by leaning side to side. I that's just typical me: always avoiding--either on accident, or with intention--the obvious method, and inventing a new, and often stupid, alternative, which, weirdly enough, sometimes works out. I think God mis-wired my brain so it thinks backwards. Maybe that's also why I can do the hard math problems, but not the easy, normal ones.....