Today. Sunday. The day we usually ride to Pescadero and return via Tunitas. Kevin went FLYING up Old LaHonda. I didn’t even try to keep up, even though I was moving pretty well myself. Lost sight of him pretty quickly. Was hoping he might get a new record! I continued to do really well all the way to the half-way point, hitting 1100 VAM for that segment for the first time in ages. Slowed down a bit after that, then went up around the last really steep part (aside from the finale) and there’s Kevin, just now climbing back onto his bike after a pretty good seizure. So much for his great time, and so much for mine too, as I paused a bit to find out what had gone on, “wasting” valuable seconds. I thought, no biggie at the time, then later discover my time was 22:16, just one second off my time a couple weeks ago. Had I gone TWO seconds faster…
OK, clearly, I have not been spending as much time on the almost-daily-diary entries as I used to. It’s not just that things have been crazy busy at the shop and I’ve got less time, but also a change in priorities at home. My wife and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary last weekend, definitely something of a milestone! But we’d hit a bit of a rough patch when I cracked my pelvis back in February, with some interesting conversations and revelations about what the first 30 years were like and some evidence of both of us being a bit tone-deaf towards the needs of the other. Well, not “some” evidence, but quite a bit. Something that’s come from that has been a pretty significant change in evening routine. No more of my wife retiring to the bedroom, watching TV, while I stay up late working on websites and shop stuff and updating the almost-daily diary. We’re spending at least 45 minutes each evening re-connecting at the end of the day. Tossing aside things that became comfortable routine for years, decades even, and recognizing that things can be better than they’ve been. She let loose with some things that kind of rocked me to the core (few have suggested “subtlety” and “nuanced” are characteristics of my wife!), and it’s a really good thing she did.
The end result is that much of our relationship is better today than it’s ever been, and we feel like we have even better days ahead of us. But it does cut down on the “free” time I used to spend nightly on the computer. Bedtime is no longer 10pm for her and midnight for me. We’re getting “in sync” as it were. There’s time for me to address the aches and pains that three bouts of breast cancer have created for her. I make the bed every single day, no matter what. I bring home flowers, wild or from the store, as a regular thing. None of that happened until recently. We’re both still works in progress though. That’s not a bad thing. –Mike–
