I stopped at the top of the hill, my right foot pressed back against the coaster brake (脚刹) on my bicycle. All I needed to do was to1 my foot, and I would be swept down the hill. But I 2 . To my 12-year-old eyes, the hill was a mountain and the slope was 3 steep, which prevented me taking up the challenge.
When I returned to my hometown more than three decades later with my friends Dave and Scott, we 4 to the base of the hill and walked our bikes 5 . We stood once more at the top of that hill, looking down from the edge, but this time with a 6 set of eyes. To our surprise, now the 7 seemed more obvious, even larger than we'd imagined as kids. We knew that once we started down, there was no stopping or 8 . And right at the bottom of the hill, we would have to turn left to 9 dumping into the stream.
Dave went first. Then I was next. My heart was pounding. I 10 on the bike for a moment. Then I released the brake and yielded myself to 11 . I skidded to a stop next to Dave. Scott followed. The three of us spent several minutes laughing, draining off the adrenaline (肾上腺素) . We had 12 the childhood challenge of riding our bikes down the steep hill.
We didn't know it then, but we'd face many similar 13 over the years — leaving home, getting married, moving to a different town, starting a new job, and many others — that would cause us to pause at the 14 and collect our courage 15 we launched ourselves down the trails of our lives.
