Enjoying the Ride

Moving from the only home we'd known in our married life this spring required us to downsize in ways that once would have caused me oceans of anxiety. Certain material goods were so intertwined with my self-identity. As avid, life-long readers, our bookshelves were overflowing, although our reading has mostly been on a screen for years. We bagged up hundreds of books and spent hours driving around stocking every Little Free Library we could find. The remnants of my passion for road cycling took up a disproportionate amount of room, an entire closet of spandex and lycra, more extra wheels than a grown man could hold in both hands. And of course, n+1 bikes that I hadn't ridden in an embarrassingly long time. My local bike shop sold everything for me inside of a week on consignment, netting me a laughably small check. As it turns out, living without being surrounded by dead trees isn't bad. The shelves that once held every Stephen King book ever written now are filled with framed…