You Got A Brand New Key

So, today, my bike was stolen. Well, it was probably stolen last night. I know that it’s just a material object and that many worse crimes occur every day, but I can’t help but be shaken up and saddened by this. First and foremost, my bike was my most prized possession. I bought it a few years ago from the sort of bike shop where you’re more likely to see a Hispanic kid getting his low rider tricked out than to find a bubblegum pink beach cruiser. As soon as I stumbled upon it, I knew it was my bike.

It was slow and heavy and had coaster brakes. It was cumbersome and wobbly. It was majestically geeky and unabashedly girly. It was neither sleek nor practical and, the second I sat my butt in the wide, springy saddle seat and started the white wall tires rolling down Passyunk Avenue, I was in love. Within 20 minutes, I had a yellow receipt, a titanium lock, a white basket for the handle bars, and a new best friend. I christened her Melonie (after the 70’s pop star) because she didn’t go too fast, but she went pretty far.

For two years, I rode my rusty old cruiser alongside friends on road bikes. I rode her to picnics on the river and to see The Flaming Lips. She was not easy to ride uphill and her chain guard was a little squeaky, but she got plenty of attention from friends and strangers alike.

When I moved back into my parents’ house and felt like my life was coming undone at the seams, that bike was my refuge. At first, I would ride it around the neighborhood after it got dark, peddling out all my sadness and regret. Later, when I’d healed a bit, I rode her on the fitness path with the old lady power walkers. I peddled for miles- sweaty, silly looking and angry- until I was smiling again. Later still, when I was being raked over the coals and having my heart broken again, I rode even harder, pretending that those who were hurting me were under the pedals. Lately, in my happiness, I have ridden that bike to release the anxiety that comes from starting a new life, one you’re afraid to loose, and to celebrate my love for the bike and my newfound love for the neighborhood.

So, today, when I first realized that Melonie was gone, I was crushed.

Then, I got angry.

You see, in order to get the bike, the thief had to move a porch-swing, a ream of vinyl siding, a circular saw, and a ton of other construction material, from their path. They had to have done this during a thunderstorm, or in the dead middle of the night. In short, whoever stole my bike had to really want to steal my bike. It’s rusty and old and, frankly, not even worth $30. But, to me, it’s worth the world.

I try to be kind, and I try not to put too much stock in my possessions, but I can assure you all of one thing. If I see the person who took the bike, I will beat the snot out of them. Well, really, I’ll probably just cry. However, as those salty tears roll over my sun kissed cheeks, I will relish the thought of whomever it was suffering their way through all or the bike’s quirks and karma’s slings and arrows.

Someday, I will have another cruiser. Until then, I’ll be power walking with the old ladies and keeping a vigilant eye out for my poor Melonie.

No Threat of Turning Into a Pumpkin Here

When I was a little girl, I thought that the princesses in all of those fairy tales got their happily ever afters because they were so good. They were kind, forgiving, pious, sweet, gentle, patient and loving. They never wasted time being hateful, even toward those who truly deserved it. They were Technicolor angels, floating through life with gentle smiles and sparkling eyes. They never got drunk, fought, swore or even stuck out a tongue. Because of this, I reasoned, I should strive to be as good as I could possibly be and, if I was successful, I too would be rewarded with a fairy tale ending.

When some villainess threatened my well-being by being cruel and mean toward me, I reacted by retreating, like Snow White, into a fantasy world where, if I was kind and patient enough, no one would hurt me. I extended every ounce if energy I had wishing kind and happy things onto this person as though I could will her to afford me with an ounce of compassion. When that did not work, I switched to another kind of magical thinking, wherein I simply attempted to control fate with extreme worry. This, coupled with the extreme goodness, was utterly exhausting but I persisted.

I persisted with this worry princess voodoo until I was left, more like Bambi then a princess, standing between two forces which were hell bent on colliding and without the strength to move myself out of the way. Still, I reasoned, if I was good enough, and strong enough, it would not hurt me. Predictably, it did hurt me. When those two forces finally did smash into one another, six months ago, it hurt so badly that I thought that all of the goodness has been beaten out of me. I thought that I would never heal, never grow, and never be whole.

However, no matter how badly I was wounded or how angry I was, I could not let go of the idea that I could overcome all of this pain and be ok if I just willed myself to remain good. I openly practiced patience and understanding while secretly wishing death and dismemberment upon another human being. It was hard and painful, but I kept it up. I made myself a martyr for the cause of my own fairytale, all the while believing that my comeuppance would come on its own.

And then, a few days ago, I was given the chance to truly show my goodness chops when the person who had wounded me so badly was suffering and asking for my forgiveness. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t forgive her and I spent the next day being angry with myself for this. Then, a few words from the wisest woman I know put it all into sharp relief for me. I don’t have to be a saint to be better than someone who is cruel, and I don’t have to be better than her to be good enough to deserve my happily ever after.

It is these words, and the wisdom that is contained in them, that has finally, after six months of suffering in pious silence, set me free.

What a fucking relief.

There's No Good Metaphor For This...

A while ago, I took down all of my personal blogs and replaced them with one group blog and this one. I’d love to say that I had some enlightened, smart or funny reason for doing so, but the truth is that I was kind of tired of myself and needed a break from me. I know that is a funny thing to say, and that it reeks of exactly the same sort of navel gazing self-reflection that I was trying to avoid, but it is the truth in as compact a way as I can manage to phrase it.

Over the course of 4 years, I had spread myself all over the internet in an attempt to paint a pretty picture of my life as it was. I wrote in one blog about my daily life as though it were a conflict free sitcom life. Every trial was just comedy fodder and every triumph was Herculean. In another, I listed 5 good things every day, and in a final, more honest one, I secretly recorded every detail of the breakdown of my life and relationship.

When I deleted them, I did it for several reasons. The first was to stop constantly being confronted with all of the things I missed about my old life. The second was because I did not have it in me to write like that anymore. I was hurting, I was growing and I was busy. I wanted to see myself as just who I was at that particular moment and that self was too selfless to write about herself on the internet. The problem with this, of course, is that I am not that person. No one is ever just who they are at any given moment, and that’s a good thing.

After I deleted my blogs, I didn’t give the matter too much thought. I was busy with school and busy in my personal life and I felt good about it. Then, the other day, I revisited my cousin Leslie’s blog for the first time in a while. Reading her writing made me realize two key things. The first is that her talent for writing is unbelievable in its scope and power, and the second is that blogging was more than a means for me to project an image of myself to the world. It was a way for me to work out the things I was trying to understand within myself and a way for me to find my voice.

When I first started this blog I was playing around with finding my poetic voice and I thought this would be a good way to do so. Who knows, maybe it still will be. However, I think that the focus needs to be more on the poetry of everyday life and less on finding the most dense and confusion similes possible.

You see, in my life, there’s poetry every day, only it takes the form of many things. I think this blog might need to do the same. Because, like life and poetry, I take the form of many things and I would like to reflect them here. It won’t ever be as lovely and poised and eloquent as my friends’ blogs, but it will always be me.