My dad was my guide the first time I took off the training wheels on my bike, my first experience riding a “big kid” bike, in a park near my house. I remember the doubt of myself I felt, the worry that I just couldn’t do it. The resistance to the imbalance, the fear of falling. But my dad told me I could do it, to keep trying. After quite a few tries and some tears, I was riding my bike all by myself, my dad watching close behind. And suddenly came a feeling of freedom. All anxieties melted away and in its place pure joy. The pedals beneath my feet and my fingers gripping the handlebars reminded me of my potential, what I could do, the balance I could hold. With my dad by my side, biking became a love of mine, a tool with which I could remind myself of God’s love.
A similar self doubt has popped up in different places since starting Life Together, particularly with my work site at the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center as a Care Navigator, where I help patients get connected to resources in the area. I love the job and I feel very passionately for the population and the cause. However, waves of self-doubt come flowing in from time to time, where in the end it piles up and I am overcome with the fear that I am incapable. That fear of imbalance comes back, that the wheels against the bumpy road will give out and I’ll fall.
Despite my fears, my communities around me have held me off since taking off the training wheels and helped me to feel my wheels on the road again after hitting an uneven sidewalk. Since the day I arrived, my community here at Life Together has served as another reminder of God’s love. We look out for one another. We feed one another. We hold each other accountable when need be. We are here for each other for a hug or to ask how our day at work went. We sit in quiet company with one another. And in this environment I feel I can be the most myself, filling to the brim with love and respect I feel from my community every day. I am also blessed with communities outside of Life Together that have also helped me stay in balance. My girlfriend serves as my confidant and support as my best friend in the world. My family makes my days brighter with every FaceTime call or meme sent. My coworkers bike right alongside me as a team. It is with all of their help that I remember God’s love for me, the steadiness, the balance.
It is both the ups and downs that brought me to remember that free feeling from the first time I rode a bike. One blue-sky autumn afternoon after a particularly hard day at work, I decided to bike home from Government Center where I get off the Blue Line. I just followed Google Maps, unsure where I was going. It led me to the Charles River Esplanade, a place I had never been before. Sunlight glimmering in the water, old buildings along the skyline. And all I could think of was how lucky I am to be here. Right now, in this moment. In Boston, the city where my parents met, the city becoming my home. Surrounded by support from people I love. Pedaling, breathing, holding steady. Suddenly I was laughing with delight, whooshing by the splashing duckies. That feeling, that feeling of childlike freedom, came rushing back.
It is this freedom, this reminder of God’s love, that biking provides. That leap of faith in times of worry, in times where I might fall. That Life Together, too, provides. And I am so lucky to be here, pedaling on.