Just because a calendar year went by doesn’t mean that everything that was ever to be completed as part of the restoration tour came to pass. Like it is with a house, you’re never actually finished restoring it, because there will always be more that needs to be done. You will always find things that you overlooked or that need your attention from time to time. So it was yesterday.
Last night was the annual Moonlight Ride, a bike ride for Springfield’s Discovery Center. Last August, it was the first organized ride that my wife and I had ever been in. We had only started cycling in May of that year, when I got Ceecee her first road bike for her birthday. The moonlight ride is a seven mile untimed ride that has groupings for advanced riders, leisure riders, and families with small children. As beginners, we thought it would be fun to participate in something that wouldn’t be intimidating.
Unfortunately, earlier in the day of last year’s ride, we hit one of those bumps in the road that came with the early days of being back together. We had been living together again for almost three weeks and we were very happy to be restoring our marriage, but we were still dealing with a lot of the junk that went along with having previously split up. On this particular day, we had met for lunch at the mall (we were both still working our second jobs – Ceecee at Dillards and me at Macy’s) and the conversation had gone down a painful road. We were both upset as we went back to work and it seemed that the ride wasn’t going to happen for us that evening.
She got off work earlier than I did, and when I called her, she was still angry about the way I had spoken to her and the things I had said at lunch. I’m not sure how it ended up working out, but by the time I was off work, she had bought me a new headlight for my bike and gone and registered both of us for the ride. All I had to do was change my clothes and grab my bike. I was relieved and grateful, and we really enjoyed the ride.
Yesterday morning, as we were out running errands and I was thinking about the evening’s ride, I remembered all this. Yes, August 6th came and went, and yes, the restoration tour concluded on that day as scheduled. Beyond that, I saw an opportunity to add another to the list of restored memories. Will there be more? Maybe. Will we ever stop working hard at love to make sure we never reach a place like that again? Not as long as I live and breathe!
The Restoration Tour 