On Monday I dropped my bike off for an extensive tune up I can't afford. It'll end up costing me the equivilant of six tanks of gas, but unfortunate noises coming out of automobiles are always significantly more costly to remedy than those which issue forth from bicycles; best to preserve the car's health for something more important than these measly five mile trips about town. My bike tires are starting to crack, and the snow we will be having in not so long is really managed best with knobbier ones, anyway; might as well true the wheels and clean the chain while they're at it. With minimal friction, I will make extensive use of my balaklava and snow pants this winter, good little blood for oil opposer that I am.
The mechanic bore a startling resemblance to Thomas. It’s not that he looked like him so much as carried himself the same way. Must be a type: wrench with an art degree. Marriage to a proffesional means you never have to think about maintaining your own bike. For five years I haven't pumped up my tires or changed a single flat. Pffft: and I call myself a feminist.
It was the first time in five years, only the third time in my life, that I walked into a shop through the front door like any old customer, and had to pay, actually pay money. I let him talk me into expensive tires because that's what they had in stock and I didn't feel like being without a bike the extra day it would take them to get something cheaper from the other location. Thomas would have been annoyed that I wasn't willing to wait for a better deal.
When I was ninteen, I brought my bicycle in for a tune up at Thomas’s shop. How romantic: I even kept the claim slip in my wallet for years afterwards. It resides safely in a photo album now. At the time I was riding a venerable old Shwinn named Esmerelda, all shiny fenders and curved handlebars. To those bikies for whom the sport is just another excuse for conspicuous consumerism, such a ride is laughable. Ah, but once you’ve lived with bike messengers who tear through Philly on Frankenstiens built from garage sale cast offs and dumpster dived parts, purchased speed fails utterly to impress.
Thomas cooed over my bike, how pretty she was. He knew a gem when he saw her. We both prefer objects with history, celebrating underappreciated beauty, defying greed by living simply. Translatoin: we are cheap; he even more than I.
For a woman with serious badass credentials, I fall in obsessive debilitating love with embarassing ease. Since I agonise over every little crush or fling much longer than the algorithms in Cosmo reccomend, I always figured I’d be a natural at forever. Au contaire, dear reader. Imagine my shock: this marriage thing is Hard. Seriously. Hard. There are so many compromises, so many little things on which to find middle ground. Turns out, I wasn’t done being selfish. Sure, sure, I got married too young, that should have been obvious. Yes, thank you, it is apparent to me at long last. So, now what...
We are making it up as we go. He gives me so much freedom it raises our families eyebrows. This fall, at my insistance, we don’t live in the same city; not even the same coast. So are you getting divorced? No, no. He’s finishing his novel, I’m staying with friends. I need to be twenty-four now so I don’t freak the hell out over my lost youth in ten, fifteen years.
He’s the sort of guy 21st century strieght women dream of: sesitive, arty, smart, good with kids and pets, able to talk about his feelings, hilarious when the situation requires, but macho, a nice body, an athlete, able to fix stuff or scare off bad guys if need be. (Not that bad guys aren’t scared of me. I mean, they are. I’m just saying.) If I made a list, and for the sake of full disclosure I should tell you that I did, he meets or exceeds every criterion.
In theory.
I find myself wondering sometimes if I love him enough, if I love him the right way. If I love him. How sickening to see it sitting there in type like that. What the hell is wrong with me? There’s that list with all the items crossed off, remember? Missing now and always in my feelings for him, though, is an edge, a burnign clarity that I’ve caught glimpses of before. I’d managed to convince myself it was not nessesary or real, just an illusory high of a greedy bipolar mind. Lately I’m not so sure again.
There are paths I would have taken if I weren’t marrried. One in particular. Three years ago I got into Antioch College with a big merit scholarship but didn’t attend because Thomas thought we couldn’t handle the debt. He never asked me to decline, but complained and worried so much about the money that I looked into the future and saw more resentment between us than it seemed we could weather. Other chances that I thought for sure would come through instead collapsed in on themselves. A cold calculation creeps into my mind these days when my defenses against it are down: is what I’m given worth more than what I sacrifice?
We have what I thought I always wanted, and yet, here I am, the bad spouse, thinking about giving it all up. I bought myself those tires precicely because I knew it would piss him off.
There's always the road not taken. I used to think about it often. I still do sometimes. But I realized that road also wouldn't have given me so many of the things I have today. So, I'm grateful. You can't measure what you don't have, only what you do.
Posted by: InterstellarLass | October 26, 2005 at 12:50 PM
What an open and honest entry! Perfect! If love is the reason for living, then surely wondering about that love is the reason for questions.
A proper response to this entry will require some thinking.
Posted by: Keith | October 26, 2005 at 01:20 PM
My mom told me love is behaviors for a lifetime.
Feelings go up and down. People get further and closer. Both people are human, make mistakes, do things absolutely right but love is the relationship.
It's good to live without cutting kindling wood for regretful future fires.
Posted by: Pearl | October 26, 2005 at 08:38 PM
That's a very nicely written and thought-provoking post.
I'd try to respond properly, but I don't currently have the hours it would take to get the words right. Perhaps someday.
Posted by: 'mouse | October 27, 2005 at 10:45 AM
Hey there again from Michele's!
Posted by: InterstellarLass | October 27, 2005 at 03:19 PM
That's a lot on your plate to keep up with. I know I have given my wife advice about her career that has been good and bad. Overall I just try to be supportive no matter what the cost. Our relationship and her mental health is more important.
Posted by: yellojkt | October 27, 2005 at 04:00 PM
Happy Halloween. :-)
Posted by: Pearl | October 29, 2005 at 07:25 PM
so, i'm posting a comment just to tell you that i'm gonna email my comment to you privately; let's just say i soooo get it.
Posted by: SheSneezes | October 30, 2005 at 02:01 PM
I have been reading your entries, and I love your thoughts. I will continue to read, but must do it at home...sometimes I must actually work when I am here.
I am visting from michele's today. I will return tonight, and continue to read.
Posted by: dena | November 01, 2005 at 10:21 AM