Reflections on a stolen bike

My bike was stolen recently. I had locked the bike in my apartment’s garage. But I guess a simple lock was no match for the bicycle thieves.

Like a fresh breakup, I’m still in denial. Each time I walk past the garage, I hope that the bike would just appear again. Maybe a construction worker moved it to fix the pipes and would return it.

I find myself feeling empty now, as if someone had ripped away a body part, because it’s not just a bike that I lost, but a piece of me, a piece of my growth, a piece that made me who I am.

After a month of scouring on Facebook Marketplace, I found a beautiful bike listed for just a hundred dollars. It was sleek yet sporty, with tasteful leather handles and seat, and thin wheels equipped with seven speeds. It was everything I wanted in a bike. I quickly arranged a meeting with the owner. The moment I got on the bike for the first time, I knew that it would be part of my life. I paid in cash, rode it home, and sent him a text, assuring him that I was to take good care of it.

The rust-eaten brake lines were in desperate need for a change. The chains clicked on every gear change. Sometimes, it would even disagree with my judgment and change to another gear on its own. I took the bike to a shop to get it fixed up, installed a kickstand so it could stand on its own, and latched on a basket so I could use it to carry heavy things.

The cost to fix up that bike ended up equaling the cost of the bike itself. But I was happy to pay that price for it reminded me, even without realizing at the time, that my own life was also reparable with just a bit of effort. Things could still be in my control. And when everything felt like it was falling apart, I could fix things little by little.

I bought the bike in the latter half of 2022. In May of that year, in a slightly delayed act of teenage rebellion (I was 21), I had decided to distance myself from my parents. The memories of childhood neglect all came flooding in. I had realized that all those years of my parents making me feel worthless and incompetent was just them projecting issues in their marriage onto me. I was furious. I vowed to myself to cut off all ties with them once I had paid back every dollar they spent on raising me, for every meal they’ve ever bought me, every piece of clothing they’ve bought me, all the cost of raising me, and all the inconvenience I’ve caused them. I had wanted nothing to do with them for making me feel guilty for just simply existing. I wanted to repay them for making their lives so hard so I could feel like I didn’t owe my life to anyone, so I could start living my life on my own terms.

That summer I took on multiple software gigs at the same time. They paid more than anything I had made up until that point. I wanted to prove to myself and to them that I was capable of making money, and started making plans to make as much money as possible, as soon as possible, so I can repay my debt and live my life.

I had a great time that summer. I finally didn’t feel guilty for spending money, because the money was mine to spend. I didn’t have to feel like anyone was making sacrifices for me to spend some money on a nice meal. I loved it. I took my then-girlfriend to eat out. We traveled to Argentina, New York, Mammoth Mountain, and Napa Valley. I had just started to find my footing and started to feel like an adult. I started to have confidence in myself for the first time in my life: I knew I was going to make it alright.

School resumed in August. It was my last year of college. I knew I had what it took to finish strong and get myself where I needed to be.

In September, I received a text from my father, telling me that my mother was ill and I should talk to her.

At first I was angry. What did he mean by ill? She caught a cold? Why would he text me out of the blue if she’s caught a cold? Are they fighting again? Is he trying to get me to talk to her so she would start talking to him again? I ignored the text at first. Then a couple days later, my mom texted me that she found a lump and at that very moment was going into surgery.

My world shattered.

By the time she discovered it, it was already fairly big. It was a rare form of cancer. There were only a handful of studies on this type of tumor. The survival rate was less than favorable.

I was brewing up strong emotions that I didn’t know how to deal with. How could I hate her as she’s dying?

I started to skip classes and miss club meetings and events when I didn’t feel like going. Everything felt trivial in the face of my mother’s battle – my hatred for her, and my hatred for myself for hating her. Then I dropped everything. I spent my days in my living room watching Curb and cooking.

In hindsight, it was actually the most peaceful time I’ve had in a while. I didn’t worry about anything else. It felt kind of freeing, a different kind of freeing, that I felt like I could do things that didn’t fit my character, and it didn’t matter. I felt that no one really cared about me, but in a good way, in a way that I could disappear tomorrow and build a new modest life for myself somewhere else and no one would come look for me. I didn’t indulge in those fantasies. But I did buy a bike in a city notorious for being car-centric and bike unfriendly. I biked everywhere. I would go places just so I could bike there. I biked to get groceries. I biked to the climbing gym. I biked across the city to my then-girlfriend’s place. I biked to my favorite taco trucks. I loved it.

That bike got me through a tough time in my life and made it fun. Though I don’t use it often anymore, I found comfort in knowing that it was there, reminding me that if life ever got overwhelming again, all I had to do was to put in some effort in myself, and fix things one at a time.

After putting it off for a week, I eventually called my mom, discussing her treatment and why I stopped talking to her for so long. I wouldn’t have thought in my wildest imagination that she would be as receptive as she was in that call. She said getting cancer made her realize a lot of things, and she just wanted what was best for me. That’s all she’s ever wanted, but didn’t realize her parenting style was causing me so much pain. We both cried. And I just realized how different her childhood was. Growing up in China at the end of the cultural revolution as the only one in her family to go to university in Beijing, she had her own battles to fight while raising me. She too was figuring out a lot of things on her own for the first time – how to support not only herself but me as well, how to progress in her career, how to manage her relationship with her parents and her marriage. At that moment, I forgave her. And I realized she did nothing wrong. She raised me the best way she knew how, and I appreciate her for that. I hope she forgave me too.

Now that bike is gone. I know it was just a bike, but it represented an important period in my life, a period that I look back on and greatly appreciate. And here I am writing to commemorate that period and to commemorate that bike. Thank you.