The ‘cost’ of friendships
My friends are spending money because of me-probably a lot of it.
The day I reconnected with my best friend from my school days, I’d just finished a long bike ride. In the scramble to get all caught up, I mentioned that I’d bought my first trail bike almost 20 years ago, and that I spend eight or nine months of every year riding the trails around town.
She seemed interested in what kind of bike I rode, and where.
A few weeks later we met again, and she had news. She and her husband had purchased bikes-not just hybrids like mine, but higher-end ebikes, the kind with batteries that offer pedal assist, making it easier to go long distances and up hills.
“You inspired us,” my friend said.
In the months since, she and her husband bought fancy bike racks and cycling gear and have traveled all over Western Pennsylvania to ride trails.
“We’re addicted,” she said when she and I rode the Montour Trail together last week.
I am proud to say I turned someone on to my favorite pastime. And it made me think of how I was inspired to start my own favorite things.
The cycling has always been with me, from when I received my first bike as a gift for my First Holy Communion. Ever since, I’ve loved everything about cycling: the physical exertion, the nature, the wind in my hair.
Other interests were inspired by other people. I’d never given a thought to crew rowing until a babysitter canceled a job because she had rowing practice. Something clicked and within a few weeks I was on a team. My yoga practice was inspired by the first friend I made when we moved to Connecticut when my son was turning 2. My first friends were other mothers with toddlers, and a few of them talked about how yoga helped with their mental health. And so I signed up.
My list goes on: I never cared about knitting until I walked into a coffee shop and saw a friend showing her daughter how to knit. Something about the clicking of the needles, and their ability to converse while knitting, compelled me to buy my own needles.
What would any of us do with our free time if we didn’t ask our friends what they’re up to these days? I was unaware of the author Barbara Kingsolver before an editor at the TV station showed me the novel he was reading. She’s been one of my favorite writers ever since.
And although I come from a musical family and play piano, I’d never thought about guitar. That changed when I was asked on a date by a man who is a bluegrass fan. Sometimes we’d listen to records in his log cabin, and sometimes we’d go to bluegrass concerts. Although the relationship didn’t stick, the friendship did, and so did my new love of music made with banjos and guitars and mandolins. I bought a guitar and joined a group that gets together to play every month. Had I been asked out by a fan of Dixieland jazz, would I be learning to play trumpet now?
In some ways I’ve been a dilettante: I never expanded my knitting beyond a rectangle, and I gave up rowing.
But I’m improving on guitar, and I still love bluegrass. I still do yoga.
And I still ride that hybrid bike almost every day. My e-bike-riding friends thank me for getting them started, even though it’s been an expensive pastime.
I’m just glad I inspired them.