etc.

without referencing earlier posts too much, it has become all too clear that times change. this idea seems well articulated by so many of those people at a particular crux in their life; some pivotal event irrevocably changing the course of their path. it may take some finding, some investigation, but usually you'll come across some reason for the changing times. bob dylan told us that it was more of a feeling than a definitive statement. i myself have found several different meanings in the drifting and crossing of paths, the old diverging from the new; it becomes hard to discern what is having a tangible effect on your life and what is merely some superficial event occurring to an otherwise stable existence.


how long has it really been, i ask myself. because at times it seems like i started last summer and others it feels as though i've never been anywhere else. since i started working at discover bicycles i have have had four birthdays. i have gone through three years in college. i have gotten sick from drinking twice. i have had one summer job. karen o perhaps might have said it best: in time, time is gone/never lasts/stops who he was/well i was wrong/never lasts. it appears that the owners of discover bicycles, two personal friends of mine, have decided to pursue other interests in life. there is one obvious conclusion to this. the shop, it would seem, is for sale. i have tried to write, rewrite and rerewrite what this all means, how the conclusions were reached, where it leaves me, and how this is one of those aforementioned pivotal moments. nothing i type seems to cut through the fog, nothing doing justice to four years of memories and steady employment. the one thing i will say is that shane, during the work day, pulled me aside to tell me what he and julie had decided to do. i was in the middle of helping some customers and had to return to them attempting to focus on the bike sale. i struggle for a few hapless moments, gave in and excused myself. looking directly at the floor i walked to the bathroom in the back of the shop. i don't think the tears were coming because i'd just been fired. because i hadn't. the tears weren't coming because i didn't know what i'd do for work next summer, or even for the school year. they might have been coming because i got defensive and didn't want the shop to fall in the wrong hands - someone who didn't know its importance to some of the people who'd becoming rather attached to it. they might have been coming because i thought that was the most appropriate response. but they were definitely coming because of the time i'd spent there.

there is no perfect eulogy. there is nothing to say that i haven't already thought of. i cannot expound on feelings i've already settled on. i cannot, in other words, save the bike shop so i cannot let myself think about its future. it's silly. ghastly, even. to be this way. filled with the latest in gpp, genuine people personalities.

-e