Thread: Risk

It's hard to know exactly where it begins... I just know when it hits home.

After all the preparation: the days, weeks, months - the time spent going over every detail, waiting in anticipation... it still comes down to a single moment when I must make the decision: "Is what I stand to gain worth what I could lose?"

That unspoken question comes packaged along with my initial commitment; the investment in my dream. It lurks in the background, ever vigilant, while I modify my equipment...myself. The ritual of tightening my focus in preparation.

"Why are you doing this?"

Well, you know why... Though that's no answer at all, really.

Plans, reservations, commitments...the moment moves ever closer, yet it remains a distant concept rather than a hard reality.

Finally, the waiting is done and the day arrives. The anticipation increases to a level that sets my brain and body to buzzing. It is palpable: I can taste, smell, hear, and actually feel the excitement in myself - sense it in others.

It doesn't matter who is with me. This decision is personal. It has nothing to do with a piece of paper I signed. Who can know the future? Who is able to guarantee anything beyond this very second?

And then: when the final calls have been made, when nothing else stands between me and the event itself, the fullness of the reality grips me. The images of past failures and pain...mine as well as those of others I have witnessed... march unbidden past my mind's eye.

The potential dangers I have tried to ignore rear their heads like ancient dragons, never vanquished. They are not to be denied. Not to be scoffed at: lethal.

Potential is not the right term: probable is more accurate. The thing that I enter into is dangerous- risk abounds. A tiny mistake could cause disaster, pain, or death. Worse, the actions of others could cause it. Worse still, I could cause that to fall on another...

Despite all that, I have armored myself within. There is no sure safety. No guarantees. But if I desired those things, I wouldn't be here...

And now the decision. One made with conviction, punctuated by action. No going back...there are only two choices.

I will ride.

Once in a while I think on it... then try to imagine not riding, might as well ask a cat to bark