Tapper,
If and when (as you sound like a lifer to me) you get back into riding no matter what bike you choose to ride, get acquainted with it in a parking lot. I know it sounds stupid to someone who knows how to ride already, or possibly not.
Set up cones (I use tennis balls cut in half) Start with something simple like a straight weave with the cones set at about 1 1/2 times the length of your bike. Find your friction zone (that gray area in the clutch where the bike moves but doesn't lurch with the application of more throttle) and use your rear brake to control your speed. I found that the friction zone came to me automatically and practiced staying in the zone by doing a slow walk exercise a few times until I had a good feel for it.
After doing the basics, increase the difficulty level set up an 18 ft circle practice riding in both directions inside the circle, using the friction zone and back brake to control speed. When you get good at that set up a figure eight and practice making transitions between left and right circles. If at any time you feel like you're going to fall straighten up, and ride out of the exercise.
There are lots more exercises to practice as well, offset cone weave is a good one, u-turns in an 18ft space, the intersection (also known as the iron cross)
The idea here is to improve your riding ability and teach yourself the lean limits of your motorcycle(the lean limits part only applies to cruiser style bikes, at slow speed on a sport, or sport touring bike at slow speed would have you on the ground in a second). Believe it or not as boring as this all sounds it will really make a difference in your confidence level out in the real world.
A lot of people out there that claim to have a lot of experience riding really have one year of experience repeated over and over again.
I learned this stuff from a video called "Ride like a pro IV" Where many more parking lot exercises are demonstrated and explained. They even show the motorcycle officer test (USA) It is quite interesting and informative.Not to mention a confidence booster if you actually practice what they teach
