There's a sorrow in my heart. Things have improved so much in the past few weeks, and I'm so grateful. I feel so much more calm, at peace. And yet there's still this sorrow poking at the side of my heart, like a delicate fish bone caught in your throat while you're at a dinner party. It's not big enough to cough up, and not thin enough to swallow. It's this abnormal size, and every time you swallow, you feel a sharp tinge. And the only thing you can do is to try swallowing thick bread, in hopes that it will wash it down. That's what this sorrow is like. Only this sorrow isn't in my throat, and can't go away with a swallow or two. This sorrow is deep inside, and I'm not sure how to access it.
I guess I've begun to realize how much is out of my control, and how little I have, not emotionally, and not in an abstract sense. No, I'm rich in all the things that really matter, like family and love and faith. What I don't have is the superficial, the things that "don't bring happiness." Basic luxuries, like a predictable living situation. Like a steady income, like....why can't I even say it? Like money. I'm so broke, and so in debt.

You grow up thinking that as long as everything else is there, as long as you have all that matters emotionally, money is insignificant. You grow up thinking you'll be happy with less. But then when you have less (and by less, I mean living off money you don't have), you start to be overcome by this disease. You start to be taken over by numbers. Numbers! They're everywhere! $3 for blueberries. $2 for a bus ride home, so that I don't have to feel like my bones are breaking from cold. $.75 is how much I paid for the last three hours of heating in my flat. $10 for a toaster. $ 2 for a Latte, 1.80 for an Americano.$8 for dinner with friends. $4 for warm house socks. Everything is numbers. What you eat, what you wear, where you sleep, what you bathe with, what you walk in, what you talk in. They're everywhere. The moment you open your eyes, like a pack of wolves, like a bug infestation...and all of a sudden come 11:30pm, you realize you've spent so much of your day just making choices and navigating between numbers, constantly deciding whether your comfort is worth it, whether your craving is worth it, whether you deserve it this time....and it becomes like a sharp bone rooted deep inside of you, jabbing every time you make a move, make a choice, and you start to feel so injured and so vulnerable and so so so so so ugly for even thinking about it as much as you do, because everything in your life is telling you to have faith in your future, and yet you just can't let go of reading the numbers.

"Ratiocinative" : (noun) the process of logical reasoning

Really??!! Sounds more like a disease.

On second thought, that may be fitting.

Infidelity

I’ve found a new walking buddy. Quite cute, in fact. Not too tall. Fashionably colored. With two wheels, two handles, and a cushiony comfy seat. Sounds like a bike, you say? Why, yes, that’s what I thought, at first. But I have since come to think otherwise. You see, bikes are meant to be transportation vessels. They’re meant to take you places. But that’s just not how our relationship works. Hidden beyond its twisted exterior, I think there was a bike somewhere in there, at some point. Maybe even a solid, strong, sexy one. Maybe one that made all others of its kind jealous, but those were the olden days. Now, this bike is just a man, like you and me, living every day, as if it’s his last.  

Last week, on a cold, wet morning. I locked the front door, and as I walked towards my friend, I told him. “Friend, I’m late. I should have been at the library by now. We’ve got to run.” We pulled out of my driveway and turned onto Banbury Rd. It was raining, quite hard. And we chugged along quite fine for a good five minutes. Then there was an intersection. A busy intersection. A four-way intersection, with kids crossing. An intersection with a red light, shining straight in our eyes. Well, in my eyes. I squeezed the brake, and nothing happened. I pulled it so hard towards me, that my nails were grinding into my palm, and still nothing happened. We were still running at full speed. That’s when I realized that Confuscious had gone blind. It snapped it’s brake. And instead, we took a nice walk. 

For forty-five minutes.

In the rain. 

To the library.

This is not the first time. In fact, this has happened so often that every bike co-op in Oxford knows us. Often, I’ll see the man who works at Summertown Cycles in Zappis Café in the centre. He gives me that smile, the kind of smile you give your girlfriend when you know her boyfriend’s cheating. Last time he I took my bike in (when it’s other brake snapped), he told me, “I’m sorry. I think it’s time you faced the facts. It’s time.”

Every week, the number of unexpected, long walks Confuscious and I take increase. This past week, for example, we took five. How many times did I ride my bike to campus, you ask? Let me think…..Oh yes, that would be five.

We stopped to walk Every. Single. Day.

I think it’s time we had the talk. He’s got to know. This is inappropriate. It can’t keep happening. I’ve just got to man up and say it to him. I’ve got to tell him: I’m married. There’s only one person in the world I’m meant to take long, unexpected walks with hand in hand. I can’t keep doing this.

Yes, it’s time for the talk. But I just don’t think I’m ready to be a heartbreaker. For now, I’ll just continue to leave my friend unlocked in shady places overnight, and see if, like all disloyal friends, he’ll jump ship when a younger thang comes walking along.