I thought about the trauma she’d been through. Trauma is alarmingly punctual. Birth is the first—that shocking, rude instant. One second you survive this way, the next second that doesn’t work. You must survive a completely new and foreign way. Breathe or die. A terrifying end and a terrifying beginning.

She broke her first bone when she was a year old, falling on her wrist trying to walk. There is nothing more adorable and emotionally eviscerating than a toddler crawling in a cast. She didn’t try to walk again for another six months. Pain has fueled a thousand punk bands and built empires. But at that age, pain is an anchor on ambition.

When she was three, I took her on a tour of a friend’s private enclosure of rare African birds. One—a large, turkey-like creature as tall as she was—attacked her, went for the eyes, made her bleed and narrowly missed blinding her. In the right light, you can see the small scar under her eye, the graffiti of near tragedy. For a year she would see pigeons on restaurant patios, scramble into my lap and shake.

When her mom and I got divorced, the trauma migrated from her skin to the inside, in the heart and the head and the blood. 

So the girl is afraid of hurt. and can hardly be blamed. 

As a parent, it’s frustrating knowing how overblown their apprehension is. You can’t tell them they’ll be safe, that any scratches and cuts will come and go like a light rain. They think we’re gods, but think our words are some mortal babble. They can feel their own nerves, electrified with adrenaline and fear. Our words often don’t have enough milligrams to soothe those. 

And so I put her on the bike, held her tight, rolled it slowly down the park promenade at Mission Bay in San Diego.

“Don’t let go!” she yelped, teetering from side to side, each time my arms propping her back up to the balanced center. “Don’t let go!” 

“Keep pedaling,” I told her. “If you stop pedaling, you lose your balance. If you’re not moving, you’re falling.” 

Unsure if I was talking to her or myself. I recently lost a TV show. A fairly terrifying hole was ripped in my career. In moments like now, it’s tempting to swipe right on couches and whiskey. And yet I get up earlier every morning, meditate, write, cook, create, get my ass to the gym, work, pedal. Keeping going keeps me going. 

“Don’t look down at your pedals,” I said. “If you look down, you fall. Look straight ahead where you want to go.” 

Again, to myself or to her? Pick a destination and trust yourself to get there. Spend time looking down, overanalyzing the awkwardness of the work, and you fall. 

Finally, I let go, running alongside with my arms next to her just in case. Until I let my hands fall to my side. And she rode off, wobbly but going. 

I cried a little. My fiance Claire filmed it and cried a little. My dad made a metaphor about baby birds. 

Part of what makes teaching them to ride a bike so emotional is the loss. Watching them do life on their own power and their own courage, increase their ability to go farther and father away from you, faster. 

It’s a doing and an undoing, beautiful and breaking. As much about you as them.