When you're in fifth grade there isn't much you can control. You're too young to have any freedom but old enough to start understanding the world around you. But when I was in fifth grade I simply liked to ride my bike.

Around 3 o’clock I would usually get home from school and immediately dropmy backpack, eat a snack and then head outside to my garage to get my beautiful silver bike with pink sparkly streamers falling gracefully from the worn handlebars. I would end up keeping this bike and pass it down to my sister a few years later. Most days I would take my bike and ride up to the street until I reached a stop sign at the end of the road, then circle back to ride around the culdesac. Before I could drive a car this small stretch of street was the only place I could go by myself in my elementary years, so I made sure to take advantage of it.  I would ride around while singing songs, making up stories in my head, and enjoying the breeze in my face while I happily peddled down the road. I would do this almost every day until the evening when I was called in to eat dinner and get ready for bed. 

     On one particular bike expedition, I was taking my normal route down the hill past my neighbor’s house. I was coming across a turn in the road when I looked down to my feet and realized that the shoelace on my twinkle toes was untied. Before I could brake to fix this, my shoelace wrapped around the left pedal causing the bike to abruptly stop and throw me to the ground. I fell hard on the cement scraping my knees and my hands. My shoelace was wrapped around the petal leaving me on the ground, stuck to the bike in the middle of the road. 

 As I was trying to untangle the shoelace from the pedal I heard the sound of a car coming down the road. In my nine-year-old brain, I simply thought I was going to die. All my life I had been taught to always look both ways before I cross the street and to wait at stoplights. But there was no parent holding my hand here, I couldn't get up to run far away from the car. I was still helplessly tangled to the petal. This was probably the first time I had ever felt in true danger. 

At this moment my only idea to avoid my imminent death was to drag myself, the bike still attached to my foot, to the safety of my neighbor’s grassy yard. Now in reality the car was only going about five miles per hour but this didn't stop young me from thinking that it had no idea I was there. As I clawed my way to the side of the street dragging a bicycle the same weight as me, my  adrenaline caused  fear to fade into embarrassment.” what is the person in the car thinking as I drag myself and my bike to the side of the road.” My happy place had been turned into a place of discomfort and embarrassment, the exact feeling of school I was trying to avoid.  After the car had passed and I was safely in my neighbor’s yard I could finally fully untangle my shoes from the petal. I slowly stood up examining my scraped knees and scratched fingertips, picked up my bike and walked home. Then put the bike in the garage, seeing it differently than I had before.