pne | Random memory

Once, as a child, I was riding my bike when I got hit by a car while crossing an intersection not far from my home, and I ended up in hospital for a while.

For years afterwards—maybe ten years or so?—I couldn’t cross that intersection by bike.

If I was on foot, that was fine; if I was on my bike and dismounted and pushed the bike across (especially if I used the pedestrian crossing with a traffic light), that was fine, too. What I couldn’t bring myself to do was ride my bike across—even if there was no car in sight, and even though I didn’t remember the accident itself.

At some point, though, I guess I “got over it”, and the last couple of times I rode my bike around there, I was fine riding it across the intersection.