Smoking & Bike Helmets & Whiskers on Kittens . . .

While on a bike ride, a friend asked if I was glad I was wearing a helmet.
I responded that wearing a helmet was like quitting smoking. He looked at me quizzically.

While never a heavy smoker, I knew my periodic cigarette binging wasn't a good thing. I tried every game with myself I could think of to break the occasional habit. I'd buy a pack of cigarettes with the intent to smoke two at the most and throw the pack away, hating the cost and waste of money. I'd throw the pack into the dumpster, less two cigarettes, only to find myself dumpster diving the next day. (This was twenty years ago when my adventures encompassed a grittier spectrum of tolerance).

Plan B was to run the pack of cigarettes under the faucet, destroying 'any chance' of retrieving them. The next morning I found myself fishing a cigarette out of the wet pack and diligently applying my hair dryer to its soggy remains. Ah, the sweet joy of light up, taste aside.

Back to biking. I'd always loved the feel of the sun on my head and the wind through my hair while riding a bicycle in open country. I recalled the jokes of a remarkably- fit-former-dare-devil-boyfriend as we rode into the fortieth mile of a fifty mile bike tour some years before. He, riding a high tech racer, dressed in street clothes, nonchalantly puffing on a cigar. (Yeah, I know). Target? Bikey Bobbleheads a.k.a. those who wore helmets.

So the friend I was currently riding with, who did wear a helmet, would periodically ask me if I'd wear one to which my response was typically, "I'll think about it." Concerned for my safety, he'd tell me a helmet would give me less wind resistance to which I replied, "So does hairspray." In the back of my mind I knew I'd feel safer with a helmet, was very careful about the potential hazard of gravel on the road, but just didn't want to give up 'the freedom.' Until I fell. Taking a short cut through a high school parking lot. Gingerly navigating around speed bumps.

So when he asked me if I was glad if I wore a helmet now, I said, "Yes." Like quitting smoking, it's one of those things that I knew I probably needed to do, but just couldn't bring myself to change without a wake-up call.

So I have joined the ranks of the Bobbleheads. In the eyes of another, decidedly uncool, but relieved of the nagging inner voice reminding me, ad nauseam, "You know, you really need to do this . . ." And sometimes that, in itself, is alone worth change.

©2010 catherine lenard