Bike! A Christmas Memory

I am a little girl and I am the youngest of four children and everyone is much older than me and no one wants to wake up at 6am with me to sneak a peek at what Santa brought us this year. I am already skeptical of the actual existence of the infamous Mr.Claus since finding my parents' secret stash of potential gifts in their bedroom closet. But I want to believe because why the hell not? Isn't that the best part of Christmas? The magic of it all? The faith in something so outlandish as a man flying around in a sled pulled by eight reindeer?

So I keep on believing and I beg my sisters and brother to wake up a 6am with me so that someone will be around to see me see the presents under the tree for the first time. It won't feel enough like a memory if only I am there to experience it. I need someone else there for posterity. Otherwise it is just not as real (or as fun).

My sisters are both older and in high school and love to sleep in until at least noon on the weekends. Their heads are buried under their fluffy down pillows. I whimper into their exposed ears, begging for them to wake up. "It's Christmas!" I exclaim, thinking this will be enough to send them bounding down the hallway with me. Instead, I get muttered curses and groans. Also promises that they will get up in a few hours and open gifts with me then. They tell me to get lost, sigh deeply, and toss their lean high school girl bodies back and forth deeper under the covers. The room goes quiet and I am left slinking back into the darkened hallway.

I head to the room I share with my brother. He is on the top bunk, because I am too small to sleep up there and might fall off in the night. I say his name over and over until he stirs. I hear a mumble of response. "It's Christmas! Let's go see what Santa brought!" I exclaim. The mumbling stops. Stillness. I whisper his name again, but he has learned that any response will only encourage me to keep at him. Playing dead (aka asleep) will thwart any attempts from me to drag him out of bed. I keep saying his name until it starts to sound strange, like a foreign language. That is when I give up.

I shuffle down the hallway in the early morning light and everything is shadows. When I get to the living room, I see the dark silhouette of our Christmas tree, along with new shapes and angles surrounding it. Presents!

I flip the light switch.

No one is there to see me see my new bike for the first time. But I will always remember the moment anyway. It is big. Huge! A big girl bike for sure. Training wheels are already attached to its pastel pink frame. I climb onto it and hover my small, slippered feet over the pedals. I pretend I am flying down the street alongside my siblings on their sleek ten-speeds. Finally I can grow up and ride! My deepest dream is coming true this year and I am beyond thrilled.

At this moment, I have no idea that I will end up crashing into the neighbor's huge prickly bush at least a dozen times before I can balance enough to ride on my own. I have no idea that in four short months, on Easter Sunday, I will leave my prized possession on the porch like many kids do in safe neighborhoods like ours, and it will be stolen right from our front door. I can't imagine the amount of tears I will shed when I realize the bike is stolen. I can't imagine the deep sense of loss I will experience at such a young age. At this moment, I also have no idea that I will end up falling deeply in love with biking again so many years later, when I move to Chicago, Illinois and a sweet boy I fall in love with will offer to give me his old dirt bike. I will end up riding the hell out of that old bike, dragging its heavy dark blue frame up the stairs from my basement every morning to glide through the streets to my corporate job in a big tall building in the heart of the city.

I have no idea about any of these things to come. All I know is that I am in love with my very first pink big girl bike on that special Christmas morning, and the world is absolutely perfect right at that very moment.