medicmurphy thanks for understanding.....really, most people don't, as you probably know. Maybe it is denial but I just cannot believe that I will not ride again. It is a part of my being. Even if I could find a partner with a bike and ride on the back, that would do. if I couldn't ride my own.
But finding a partner is even harder than most other things.
One thing that I am really learning, though, is this: when something starts to get hard to do (taking off a jar lid, picking up something, getting down underneath something, whatever...) the very best thing we can do is keep on doing it.
Honestly, I think that most people stop being able to do things because when it got hard to do it or painful to do it they just gave up and stopped doing it. And so now, they cannot do it at all.
If something gets hard for me to do, I make myself do it even more. Use it or lose it is very real.
Now, of course, with fibro sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't, but I think it is always worth a try.
I stopped riding half because my back and hands hurt so much and half because riding was what my partner and I did together and it was a huge part of our relationship. when she died, it was such a grief-filled thing to me to ride that when it started being very physically painful as well I stopped.
I shouldn't have, I think. But now it is too hard to go back to it ....yet, anyway.