This past week, I found a bike I like. It’s a used bike, so I wanted to research it a bit before buying — and couldn’t find one particular stat that always troubles me: the weight limit. So before I purchased the bike, I asked the shop owner about weight limits. She (quite reasonably) told me that these days, there are plenty of kids out there that outweigh many adults, so yes, the bike I bought would easily support me and probably someone who outweighs me by quite a bit.

I’m short, so I moved to a 24” bike, which are often marketed as children’s bikes, although there are a lot of us short adults in the world that need smaller bikes.

So often in my mind, I still worry about weight limits. Having lived as a morbidly obese adult for so long, it’s automatic, and even though I’m considered average size now for a woman (although still medically obese), I struggle leaving that behind. I’ve been that person who was mortified after sitting in a chair in a diner and breaking it from excess weight; I know what it feels like for my weight to destroy something.

Related to this, I also struggle with feeling like I have to tell people why I’m concerned, but I have managed to stop myself from doing this lately when it crosses my mind. Honestly, it’s no one’s business that I used to weigh 200+ pounds more than I do, currently. Sometimes, I think it’s a matter of pride that drives me to want to explain, but I’ve come to realize that if I truly want to leave morbid obesity behind, I need to restrict myself from defining myself that way. That hasn’t been me for a while.

As I said above, I’m a normal size for a woman my age, despite still being defined medically as obese for a few more pounds. I’m now in the not-so-unique position of being the average that the world tends to cater to. When I was far outside the bounds of normal weight ranges, I often felt as if I needed to apologize for my size, especially if I was attempting to do something weight-related. At the very least, it was always a factor when buying something that would need to support me, from travel wheelchairs (mentioned last week) to lawn chairs to hammocks to items like bikes. I’ve owned a bike for several years, but I rarely rode it; both because I felt totally awkward on it, and because my knees were previously restricted in motion.

Now that my knees are super bionic leap-over-tall-buildings-in-a-single-bound models, I wanted to try to ride a bike, again. I even worked on both my husband’s and my bikes last year in anticipation of taking them camping, but the truth was that I was scared to get on mine; it was no longer because of knees or weight, though. It was because the bike was simply too big for who I am, now. I used to ride 26” bikes all the time, but the last time I rode one with any regularity was in college — and that bike was stolen while I was still in college. It’s not that I’m necessarily any shorter than I was, then; regardless of new knees, I’m not as agile as I once was. I also am rather hung up on being able to reach the ground with at least my toes when I’m on a bike, and I couldn’t.

I had to push out the ideas that kept me from riding — things that were no longer issues — and accept that if I wanted to ride, something needed to change, and it was no longer me. Fitting into the mental picture of actually being a smaller person has been a bit of a challenge, but as time goes on, I’m slowly chinking away at those old ideas that screamed you can’t do that because you’re huge. There were a couple of situations on vacation where I was shoved up against a door with a bunch of people in a private transport; other than feeling vaguely uncomfortable because of Covid, I realized that I was okay with a situation that previously made me feel anxious and claustrophobic.

I’m still surprised at times like this; I still have things to learn and unlearn, but the challenges I face now are so much more fun than they used to be!