New Experiences and Being Yourself

 

Before I met Zeke, I had never in my life been on a motorcycle.

Now I typically put on an average of five hundred miles a summer on the back of a Honda Shadow.

We already talked about how I changed myself to be the girl that my boyfriend-of-the-moment wanted me to be, and how I lost my true self in the process. So how is the motorcycle thing different?

Being true to yourself doesn't necessarily mean that you shirk all new experiences. Where's the fun in that? We need new and different experiences to keep us growing and learning and really enjoying life.

How do you find the balance between having a new adventure and still being yourself?

The trick is honesty. Honesty with yourself.

There's no harm in trying something new (well, something that's new and legal and moral and relatively safe, anyway), the issue comes in when we try to believe that we feel something we don't.

Take the motorcycle, for example. Zeke invited me to go for a ride way back when, and I tried it (legal, moral, relatively safe), and I liked it. I actually liked it. I was surprised, too.

Cut to Zeke and I, about two years later, when I tried out a dirtbike for the first time.

I.Hated.It.

I told Zeke that I'd rather not go on one of those crazy things again.

I just didn't like it. And unlike several years before, I was able to honestly evaluate my feelings and express them. I was honest with myself, and with Zeke, too. I think he'd probably prefer it if I really enjoyed dirt bikes (because he does, and he'd like to be able to do that together), but I don't. And that's okay.

It's okay to be who I am. That's freedom, right there. I can choose the adventures I'd like to have, and no matter what I feel about the experience, it's okay.