Fun Vs Risk

Was recently watching a show on these crazy dudes surfing "monster" waves in Hawaii and thinking "these sunsabitches are crazy....I wanna try it!"  Then on comes the guy who's towing these guys out into the big waves behind a jet ski, and he says he'd be out there, if he was 20 or so and still had those high levels of young man testosterone.  Seeing as he was 49 however, he said, "I see life differently today."

Yeah.  I understand that.  It's that same kind of feeling I have when I think about riding my motorcycle after 40+ years of  travel, dirt-biking and touring pretty much the entire United States on two wheels (I haven't made it to Hawaii or Alaska on a bike... yet).

But today I don't heal as fast, and if I do go down in something serious, do I lose my job because I'm unable to work?  What if I'm forever disabled as a result?  I've had enormous luck in my life when it comes to escaping certain death from stupidity, but one day, that luck will turn.

Oddly enough, coupled with this sage wisdom is a deep and pervasive pang of regret.  Deep because there's so much still to do; pervasive because almost everywhere I look today, I realize I wasted the time in my life when I could have - and would have - been doing those things that today are simply beyond my ability to muster.

It isn't because I physically or mentally can't.  I can and still do occasionally, but today, I don't far more than I do because...

Too much to lose and the risk...outweighs the fun.

Proud Scooter-Trash Wife at Thunder on the Mountain in Virginia City, Nevada 2003

Nuff Said.