When Empathy Has An Asterisk

Something happened today that should have been pure joy.

I finally pulled the trigger on performance work for Aurora. Pipes. Air cleaner. ECM. Tune. The good stuff. The kind of upgrades that wake a bike up and remind you why you fell in love with riding in the first place. I put money down, stood in the shop holding that receipt, and for the first time in a while, I felt genuinely excited.

That matters more than people realize.

Recovery isn’t just bones and ligaments and liability charts. It’s the slow, quiet rebuilding of a self that got knocked loose. For me, motorcycles aren’t optional accessories to life, they’re how my soul stays fed.

So when I got home, I threw a leg over Aurora. Just to feel it. Weight was fine. Balance was fine. Shifting? Harder. That told me something useful, so I backed off.

That’s not recklessness. That’s awareness.

Later, I shared that excitement. And the room went cold.

And in that moment, I was reminded of an ugly truth about choosing this life: when you ride a motorcycle, you quietly lose credibility the moment something goes wrong. It doesn’t matter that accidents are almost always caused by someone else. Actual fault has no seat at this table. This isn’t a judgment about an incident, it’s a judgment about the decision to live on two wheels at all.

What struck me most wasn’t concern. It was the absence of anger where it actually belonged. Not at the distracted driver who hit me, but at me, for daring to keep riding. That silent judgment sits underneath everything, unspoken but unmistakable.

I’ve seen it over and over when talking about my accident. People are shocked, dismayed, empathetic… right up until they hear the word motorcycle. Then something shifts. You can see the concern drain right out of their faces.

A few weeks ago, someone even told me they’d been angry when they first heard what happened. Angry at me. When I asked why, they admitted they didn’t know the crash was one hundred percent the other driver’s fault. Once they did, their tone softened, but they’d been carrying that judgment for seven fucking weeks.

Which brings me to something real that we don’t like to admit: Empathy has an asterisk.

People feel sorry for you after an accident, right up until they find out you were on a motorcycle. Then the unspoken thought appears: Well… motorcycles are dangerous.

As if that settles it. As if choosing a motorcycle means you consented to being hit by a distracted driver. As if riding forfeits your right to anger, recovery, or self-determination.

What I wish, more than anything, is that drivers could see the world the way riders do. Because we see everything.

We see them eating sandwiches while fiddling with the radio.
We see phones glowing in their laps as their tires drift over the lane marker.
We see them changing songs while nearly rear-ending stopped traffic.
We see them hitting a weed pipe at the light and driving off impaired like it’s nothing.

We see this shit. All of it.

And yet we’re the ones judged as reckless.

We don’t do this to bicyclists.
We don’t do this to skiers.
We don’t do this to hikers, climbers, or anyone else who accepts risk in exchange for freedom.

But motorcycles?

Loud.
Fast.
Nimble.
Unapologetic.

Somehow that makes us fair game.

The irony is brutal. The same people who don’t look for us, don’t see us, and drift into our lanes while staring at their phones, those same people get to look down on us afterward. As if the act of riding itself is the crime.

So here’s the truth: I’m not riding because I don’t care about my body. I’m riding because I do.

I’m not ignoring fear. I’m refusing to let it make my decisions for me.

And I’m done shrinking my voice to make other people more comfortable with my healing.

If that makes some folks uneasy, that’s theirs to sit with. I’ll be over here, building my bike, rebuilding myself, and choosing a life that still feels like living.