shiny new

At 1:00 a.m. on Sunday morning as I was speeding along the freshly rained-upon sidewalk on my spiffy new bicycle (yes, the sidewalk, and don't worry, I didn't go further than that crack), the quiet moist air in my mouth, the wind brushing across my face and through my hair, I thought to myself as my lips moved into a smile, "This move was a great idea."

You see, last year at around this time, before I bought my one-way ticket to Chicago but after I started thinking seriously about moving here, I focused a lot of my decision-making energies on whether I thought I would regret the move later. Now I see that however badly I think I'm doing now, or how everything turns out later on, this move could never induce regret. While I probably won't end up here in the long run (though I can never be sure--I may be living on a corn farm in central Illinois in 10 years) I seem to have surrounded myself with very thoughtful friends. I may not have the quantity I had in college or the social life (yes, sometimes I go to sleep at 11:30 on a Saturday night), but I have met some very good people. And in my slightly less than a year here, I have received two of the most thoughtful gifts anyone outside my family has ever given me (of course not counting the many nice gifts my family has given me over the years).

The "new" bike that I was so gleefully riding the other night was presented to me as a no-occasion surprise Saturday afternoon in the living room of my boyfriend's apartment. I had my ears and my eyes sufficiently covered, and when the hands came away, the bicycle pretty much of my dreams was sitting between the alley-found armchairs and the old wooden floor.

"To what do I owe this amazing gift?" I stammered with amazement, gazing at the slightly faded black frame, the shiny handlebars, the cushy seat, the rusty fenders (perfect for painting white and red).

Apparently my friend has been eyeing it all winter, where it sat unlocked near a hidden bar on a forgotten street populated mostly by warehouses. She sat for a day or two scrubbing at the rust, tuning up the chain, fixing the flat tire until it was roadworthy and presented it to me with a smile. It still needed a little work, but it was a nice smooth ride. "What do you think?" she asked. I felt like Ralphie in The Christmas Story; of course I was thrilled to have my very own bike, and for free! And more importantly, my friend was thinking of me.

My new bike looks something like this, but black, a little rusty, and minus the metal thing in the back: (I will post a real picture when it's completed)


I will be speeding around the city with it upon my return from Israel when, I'm hoping, it will finally be warm. I'm pretty sure Spring doesn't exist here. Sure it's lovely: the trees are blooming and the colorful tulips are opening, but it's 53 right now... and it doesn't seem to ever want to get warm!

Nevertheless, I had my window open this morning, and in the couple minutes I had to kill before leaving for work I was playing my other most thoughtful gift--a red violin--as softly as possible in the crisp sunny morning breeze.

blue oblivion

I shuffled over to the pool's edge yesterday afternoon, dodging puddles and little kids, sweating slightly from my brisk mile walk from the train station, the relatively warm weather, and the hellishly wet, warm locker room.

"Hey Lindsey," my coach declared from the pool with a wave and a smile. "You're the youngest person on the team now! You beat the youngest by four months!"

Evidently, I joined a swim team. I think it's safe to announce now that I've canceled my gym membership, filled out my forms, written a check, and been to every practice but one for the past two weeks. Apparently, in addition to being arguably the most out-of-shape swimmer on the team, I'm also the youngest.

I'm no stranger to being the youngest--odd, I know, considering I'm the oldest in my family. Regardless, by virtue of the fact that my birthday is on the late end of the Kindergarten cut-off date, I have always surrounded myself with people that are slightly older. And since graduating, the people I have surrounded myself with are older still--I'm the youngest in my apartment, the youngest in my office, the youngest of most of my friends (even those still in college), the younger in my relationship...

It doesn't matter, really. I was making friends at swimming who were 24 and 30 before anyone knew the difference. But still, there is a slight difference. I tend to group all of my peers in the same general age group, the 20s, but I constantly have to remind myself that while I'm figuring out what I want to do with my life and anticipating my one-year anniversary with my boyfriend, my 27-28-year-old friends might be thinking about marriage and kids. That, and they like to make fun of me for being as old as their younger, snot-nosed siblings.

But if my same-aged peers are not at work and not swimming and not living with me and are not my friends, where are they? Some of them are in college, some are traveling the world, some are in grad school, some are living with their parents--there's no way to know for sure.

Lucky for me, my age is not holding me back at swimming, thanks to my youthful muscles and my many, many years of swimming regularly before my couple-year hiatus in college. Regardless of how successful I am at it, I've come to realize that it's just plain essential for my sanity: I never realized how much I needed a time without cell phones and computers and dealing with people and expectations. It's an hour off three times a week, and it's small in comparison to the 40 hours per week I work and the 168 hours per week I worry, but it certainly helps.