Right angles.

It seems hard to imagine I only learned to ride a bicycle when I turned twenty-one. Triathlons, cycling races and hundred-kilometre bike rides later, however, I hate to admit, my adventures of self-made glory are still interspersed with awkward moments of adolescent hesitance. In short, there are times  I still ride like a kid on a bike with the back wheels removed for his first time.

Call it bad experience. Mental block. Fear. A glass ceiling. Whatever you call it, time freezes and the bad experience plays out like a fresh movie leaping off pages of a still-life book.

At traffic lights when the lights turn from green to red, it takes me a good ten seconds to mount on the bike again. Over and over, my right leg circles the right pedal, back and forth, back and forth, with the memory of having fallen over and over when I first started and having nearly broken my wrist once, stuck fresh in my mind. Every time it happens, the memory etches itself more deeply into the landscape of my mind. Sharp turns, narrow paths, junctions… they all have the same effect on me. So instead of riding along, I very often dismount to push. Not because I’m considerate or being safe, but because of Fear.

Before we married, we stopped riding for a good few months. After hearing of a friend who got married with her husband in a wheelchair because of a tibia fracture from a game of soccer, we decided to keep our stakes low. Wedding preparations and preparing for a new home kept us busy anyway. We didn’t think too much about it.

After we married, however, a certain liberation caught hold of me. I became more daring, more rational, less encumbered by fear. I couldn’t explain it, except discover that I was no longer afraid to go over bumps, ride through narrow paths. Then I realized, it was because you ride ahead of me. And just like many things in life where you lead by example, I realized that I, too, could stretch myself when inspired to walk the path you blaze ahead, too.

When you ride ahead, you clear the path, you give me confidence. And because of that, I ride more fearlessly, more enjoyably, more confidently.

But there was just this one turn into our home where I never ride through with you- a seemingly dangerously narrow path with a sharp ninety-degree turn into a long alley. You, in your all your suaveness of a seasoned triathlete, would slice through it with graceful ease, while I clumsily un-cleat, and then plop on the ground to push my bike through.

That day as we were riding, the words of my pastor somehow found their way into my head. “Marry someone who can take you further, Wai Jia. Someone you respect, someone whom you can say you truly love.” As soon as he said that to me solemnly, he turned to Cliff next to me and told him in grave severity, “Be someone Wai Jia can respect all the days of her life. Read continually, learn something new every day. Do whatever it takes. Because she’s a driven woman.”

But for all my driven-ness, I still fall back down on my scraped knees when faced with difficulties. I come home, and you always have something encouraging to say. The seven years between us are pregnant with your years of experience and wisdom. I admire you like that. That you don’t have an encyclopedia or bounds of medical knowledge stored in your head, but you have ears that listen, shoulders that carry, hands that comfort, and a heart that heals.

So I took the leap and asked you how you always go through that right-angled turn so seamlessly, the one just before we reach home. And you said, “Easy. You can practise by riding in circles. Small, tight, circles. And if you can do that, this will be no problem.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Really weally?”

“Really weally.”

And that’s how it is when you have a best friend to believe in you. He breaks mental barriers, pours the warmth of the honeyed sun on the frozen panes of your mindfreeze, he smashes the glass ceiling. And because of that, you can go further, you can take greater risks, you can reach higher.

You rode ahead and I watched you.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m going to practise. Now.”

So I did what you said, to go in circles at the wide open space. One, two… then I took a deep breath, and went through the right angle measuredly, slowly, successfully, just like the way you do it.

It was a really small incident, but it meant the world to me. It smashed the glass ceiling. It meant I could go through that right angled path, and more. It meant that when I saw roadblocks, junctions, narrow paths, I could remember what you said and achieve it. I could, because you showed and taught me how.

It meant the world to me that day- to discover how important it is to have someone believe in you, to be your cheerleader, personal life coach and best friend.

Thank you for being that for me.