If you like, see also: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.
When I decided to return to my hometown for a year to build a roller-derby league, I only really had one social rule: Absolutely No Dating. I had good reason to avoid the dating scene; I had big plans to move to the West Coast once I had gotten rid of almost everything I owned, but knew I would get attached in the meantime and wind up in a complicated romantic situation.
You can see where this is going already, can’t you.
If you’re catching up, see Part 1 and Part 2.
If I knew how we got from there to here, I think I really would write a book about it. But as time has passed, the nights at the rink, the hours of board meetings, the legal paperwork, the radio interviews, and the photo shoots have mushed into a frenetic blur interspersed with beeps from my stopwatch.
I had never worked so hard in my life, I can tell you that. I doubt any of them had, either. I didn’t do any of this myself, of course; this is just my story.
Part 1 is here.
A few days after my new roller-derby league’s first practice at the rink, I moved into my new apartment, a decrepit studio roosted atop the tiny row of shops on Main Street. My mother had been right: it was exactly the sort of outdated decor I’d find endearing, complete with hideous linoleum. (Floral and geometric? How exotic!) The place had no shower and a kitchen sink that sprayed water in three different directions (none of them “downward,” sadly). But my parents had kindly applied a stunning new paint job to it, and I noted its crystal doorknobs, arched doorways, deep cast-iron tub, and built-in cabinetry with approval.
I scored this wee residence for a pittance of $500 a month, including heat and water.
At the time, I was trying to take a picture of my bike, not my apartment. That’s probably obvious.
This felt like home, for sure. It was the realm outside those walls I was less certain about.
So, this one time, in March of 2010, I decided to return to my hometown, after residing for years in a much bigger city, to start a roller-derby league.
The day I bought that car, I knew what I was going to do with it: I was going to fit my entire life into it, and I was going to drive it a very long way, all by myself.
Right after I let my mom talk me into a variety of cheesy poses, of course. First things first.
I called it Operation Hobo: a quest to pare down my possessions to a scant 75 cubic feet of cargo, give or take the passenger seat.
I’m happy. Profoundly so. I want to say that I’m happier than I’ve ever been, but I have a tendency to think that at any given time, that same way you always think you’ve never been in love before just as soon as you are, again.
But I am happy, and the most striking thing for me is that for once, I’m feeling that way on my own, as plain old me. I have not accomplished very many desirable cultural markers. My marriage failed, and I’m childless. I’m not engaged and I don’t own a house. I don’t have an iPad or an iPhone or an iAnything. I don’t have a lot of money, and my wardrobe is downright pitiful. I am happy for very little reason at all, as far as I or anyone else can tell, and that makes me feel safe, insulated from the ups and downs of those two most revered economies, love and money. If you can be happy without a reason, there is nothing to guard.
Should you ever become misinformed and start perceiving yourself as a kind-hearted individual who feels that all human beings have inherent worth, rest assured that you can always correct this delusion simply by doing some dating.
The unfortunate truth, as you will surely discover, is that you secretly think you are better than almost everyone, and that you are so convinced of your own amazingness that you will probably be forced to die alone, wearing a smug and superior expression that will hopefully remain more or less intact despite spending the days subsequent to your expiration alone with your hungry, unscrupulous cats.
When a small child you have never met
picks up her foot to step off a curb
and into rush-hour traffic
approximately thirty feet from where you are sitting,
right now,
idly drinking your iced coffee
and letting the pattern of the metal patio chair beneath you
imprint itself onto your thighs,
and you look up from your newspaper just in time
to see the sole of that one tiny shoe leave the earth,
you will work so hard.