As I write this, I am just a few days away from a day that kinda means a lot to me.
To anyone else, it’s just another day. And every other year it has been one that has been a little confusing to me as I’ve tried to block any emotions around it, try to understand it... do my best to perhaps even forget about it.
But this time it feels more powerful.
This time I feel in control for the FIRST time in many many years.
This time, I let the emotion in and do whatever it needs to do as I get through a day that forever changed my life – 10 years ago.
It’s been a fascinating, and at times very painful journey. As you try to relearn how to do life by yourself without others understanding how lost you are – you look around you and see how everyones lives have moved forward. Relationships have been formed, families had, careers built, finances soaring after 10 years of everyday people working their arses off to get ahead in life and live their best life.
Yet you look in the mirror and all you have seen is someone you no longer recognize. A woman who has loved to her full capacity but never really felt love in return, one who used to have all the confidence in the world and laughter was a part of ones daily life. For years you look and you see failure as you fight to regain any kind of traction in life as person after person walks away from you because you “should be better by now”.
10 years ago I was a very different human. And here I am, writing on a forum that both helped me to grow that original freedom and self confidence that I had as both a motorcyclist, and a person. Yet at the same time it aided in the destruction of so much of my world and the hate that came for years from many of the people I once loved.
I feel myself drawn here to write. To blog like I once did. To dream of riding my dearly loved R6 around the country solo once more and set myself free as I move into a totally new chapter on my life.
I might be a different person now, but I will be honest say I am so fucking proud of myself and wouldn’t change any of it - even the human factor that I never considered could be experienced. Because I have become / am someone who lives life with very different values and understanding now. I have tolerance and acceptance far beyond what I ever did as a 26 year old girl who had just lost her house to negative equity, who then lost her career and hard built little empire as the result of a motorbike crash.
This year, on the 20th of March as many local riders head to the annual hill climb in the Wairarpa I will be sitting by a Lake, with my last remaining elderly dog at my feet, enjoying a glass of wine on my own and having a toast to being alive. I will remember leaving that last hill climb I attended and then the corner before my memory was erased for the next 2 months. I will raise my glass to now being able to start living after a life was paused for almost the entire 10 years. I can now breathe and the air has never felt fresher. I have excitement back in my heart and the sadness presents itself less often over the life that I lost in my past.
It’s a little scary. Time for me is now running out for some dearly held wishes in my life like having my own family. I’m older. Far more haggered and tired than I was, far more adverse to putting up with crap from others and I’m starting out now where I was those 10 years ago Financially. But it is a dream come true to be right where I am now.. And I have worked very very hard to get there.
This very moment is everything I have survived for.
For I am still a motorcyclist. No longer do I care to ride with another being, nor do I give a rats arse about speed, or distance, or looking good on the road. My bike may still be needing some serious love and repairs (not from the crash, some serious lack of maintenance and love over the years), without much of a heart beat to keep it going... but I still have the deep desire and passion to just fucking ride, to aid my hearts burning desire, to look down at my speedo and see the multiple smiley faces from training those many years ago with Karel Parvich that remind me to look up, smile and relax my grip telling myself “you’re riding Katie-Jane, switch on”. Thank you Karel - to this very day you are still with me on every ride and I will always be grateful for you.
I miss what Kiwibaker gave me in those early years. The friendships that I have been able to still hold onto through all of the shit that have come from here effect me very deeply. Those of you reading this today will know who you are. Some have stood by me when I have yet again fallen so hard on my face and stood back up without an ounce of confidence in my new world. When I have looked them in the eyes and told them I don't think I can do it any more. It’s because of people like you I was able to do so and I thank you.
Why did it take so long for one person to simply come through a crash? There is no easy answer to that. And perhaps most will never understand what’s involved until they have helped a loved on through it, or been unfortunate enough to have to learn themselves.
It is with a very exhausted but proud heart that I can share that I have finally been successful in buying my own home again, almost 10 years to the day of losing my last one and walking away with a 40k mortgage and no where to live then crashing my motorbike epicly. I have brought the little country shack that I had moved into just before my accident in 2011 and I have never stopped fighting for it. Even when my rent payments were bouncing, when I was so far behind financially from the loss of my career that I could barely breathe. I now have found the only thing I was ever looking for since life went a bit sideways. Safety. I am safe and it is the most amazing feeling I have ever experienced in my life. I am home. And no one can ever take that away from me again.
Very soon I believe my R6 will be humming again and I will slowly start to learn to ride again – in my own time and away from the noise of the riding world. But if you do see me out there again on the road, please do say hello. I no longer know how to communicate with people, I have zero trust in other humans and I am as shy as I was as a teenager again. But I am finally ready to learn how to tackle that, and get back out in the world again. A little older, a little more hardened, heart far more hidden, and pretty sore and creaky most days. But I am here, and I am more grateful than I have ever been to be living my life.
This is the first time in 10 years I have felt like I can breathe and laugh. I have missed those simple pleasures. Katiepie is back.
<3 Pie xx
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