I never learned how to ride a bike. I know that sounds wild and and ridiculous, but it’s true.

I was never taught how to tie my shoes or shave my legs. I never got ‘the’ talk, and, although it may sound trivial. I didn’t have a birthday party from the age of 6 to 14. Although my family had a big house with 2 luxury cars, a maid, and I went to a nice private school, I never learnt how to ride a bike.

I had clothes in every color, we owned a a beach apartment, and yet I still never learned how to ride a bike. Of course I had a bike, but no one taught me how to ride it. I had sneakers, yet no one taught me to tie them. I could afford razors, yet no one showed me how to shave. I had everything, but it felt rich and poor at the same time.

Sometimes, having what it takes to get the things you want and need doesn’t compensate for knowing how to do it or for another human taking enough interest in you to teach you. I had a house but not a home. I have a mother but not a mom, and I have a father but not a dad.

What’s the point of having everything if you don’t know how to use it? Those things end up becoming junk in your drawer or skeletons in your closet.

Eventually, I did learn to tie my shoes and shave, yet I still didn’t know how to ride a bike. I could buy a bike; I could definitely teach myself, just as I did with everything else, but I didn’t. Maybe it was out of laziness or maybe I was waiting for the teacher whom I had spent my whole life aching for someone to help me understand the world from a child’s perspective. Someone to guide me and make me feel loved. That never came.

I may may have always been an A + student, so why would I need help now? What all this has taught me is not to ask for help, but if we don’t ask for help, we won’t get it. We all need help sometimes.

I’m a 19-year-old woman. I know how to cook, clean, and do laundry. I live on my own, drive, shave, tie my shoes, and plan all my own birthday parties, and yet, I still can’t ride a bike.