Another Thing I Learned This Summer

Friends,

One of the unexpected gifts of leaving my job has been noticing things I never would have paid attention to before. Not because they’re important. Quite the opposite. I suddenly have enough mental space to become aware of the wonderfully strange little worlds that have been quietly existing around me for years.

Take my husband, for example.

The men’s Tour de France. Every afternoon our television filled the house with commentators passionately discussing breakaways, mountain stages, team strategy, and something called “the racing line.” Before I could fully recover from that, the women’s Tour de France started. Apparently there is no transition period. The bicycles simply keep moving.

What surprised me most wasn’t that people devote their lives to professional cycling. It was discovering there are entire human beings whose full-time job is talking about other human beings riding bicycles. And my husband has opinions about the commentators.

Not the cyclists.

The commentators.

He’ll pause the television and explain that someone missed an important move or took the wrong line through a corner. He says these things with the same confidence I use when explaining why my childrens lunches must include protein.

I don’t know what “the right line” is.

I don’t even know who we’re rooting for half the time.

But after twenty years of marriage, I’ve learned to nod thoughtfully and say things like, “Ohhh… I can see why that would be frustrating.”

I can’t. But I support his right to have those feelings.

A few weekends ago he raced in a local cycling event. After he finished, he didn’t come home. He spent the rest of the day volunteering. Handing out water. Helping racers. Making sure the event ran smoothly.

I’ve spent years teasing him about how seriously he takes cycling, yet I’m the woman who somehow became Programming Director for a camp serving nearly 300 people because I thought, “I could probably figure this out.”

He’s the guy who races his bike and then stays to help everyone else race theirs.

I’m the woman who volunteers first and asks questions later.

We’re not actually that different. We just obsess over different things.

Which made me wonder…

Did he spend the afternoon quietly commentating while the racers went by?

“Nice cadence.”

“Questionable corner.”

“Strong hydration strategy.”

I honestly hope so.

Twenty years of marriage has taught me that you slowly inherit each other’s worlds. You learn vocabulary you never intended to learn. You develop opinions you never planned to have. And every once in a while, you discover that the thing you’ve lovingly teased your spouse about for years is really just a mirror reflecting a different version of yourself.

I guess we both have hobbies that accidentally turn into volunteer positions.

Mine just comes with spreadsheets.

His comes with Lycra.