My husband and I went to Desoto State Park this weekend, our first camping trip alone in years. Brian brought our mountain bikes, which we haven’t ridden in quite some time. Unlike running, which starts out nice and then turns miserable, mountain biking is excruciating from the outset. We started down the trail and within two minutes I was cursing my very life and wondering how on earth he ever talked me into such a humiliating sport. Mountain biking is the worst. First of all, it involves technology; I can’t ever remember how to the stupid gears work and I have to ask him to help me figure it out every single time. Secondly, it’s counterintuitive. Just when things get scary (think: big roots, rocks, mud), you have to loosen up and peddle faster instead of tensing up or slowing down or giving up entirely. I kept thinking to myself: I sure do a lot of miserable things just to spend time with this man. When Brian first met me, I was a sensitive, choir-singing bookworm, who after a year in Arizona, had only seen the mountains from the car. I was obsessed with the Indigo Girls and Broadway musicals. Yet, he thought, “I can work with that.” And, I looked at him and saw a standoffish, outdoor adventurist, who couldn’t stand talking about feelings for five minutes. He was obsessed with Def Leppard and old cars. And, I thought, “I can work with that.” By the end of the biking trail, I had loosened up and enjoyed the ride. And, later that evening, he tolerated appreciated the sweet sounds of my campsite sing and strum serenade. In so many ways, we are complete opposites. But, on the other hand, we’re both curious, we’re both resourceful, we’re both determined, and we’re both better off for having chosen one another. Cheers to a life of compromise and adventure!
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