Harnessed and Burdened

It's been quite a curiousity for me to regain my driver's license this time around after being without it for a year and a half.  I lost it previously for a few months after my first seizure and then once again following an unfortunate run in with the law.  Those brief flirtations with being bicycle bound were over quick enough to not really notice much of an impact on my life style and during this past 1.5 years I seemed to have just accepted it and moved on.  I've always been relatively good at accepting misfortune and inconvenience and moving past it.  No reason to dwell on personal misfortune.  I've always believed life to be much more enjoyable if misfortune can be laughed at and energy focused on the humorous and enjoyable side of life.  The worse the struggle becomes the more opportunity for laughter.  In this case, I had the impression from my neurologist that he would be unwilling to allow me to drive again but in this I was wrong.  As a result, I had accepted my fate as a biker in stride and moved on with life. 

It wasn't until the doc had granted me with the ability to drive that I learned how much I had missed it.  The ability to walk out the door, climb into my truck, the Annie G, and drive off to points unknown is the pinnacle of freedom.  The complete lack of ties to anything.  The ability to simply set forth on my own, having no need to beg another to provide the wheels and the license.  For 1.5 years I was imprisoned within the range of my bicycle.  The first time I climbed back behind the wheel of Annie G, patted her dashboard, and pulled out into traffic to head out of town for a hike and a night at the cabin brought an elation which I do not have the words to express.  It was as if for 1.5 years I had been bound by yoke, harnessed, and burdened and in a moment that yoke was lifted and I was set free. 

It has been said before, and I will say it again...Freedom, my friends, is bliss.