SOMETIMES, IN A MARRIAGE, ONE PERSON IS A BRAT

Today that person was me.

That photo is from 2020, when I’d just started to run, but today I went running with Dave, after work, which made me feel like I was heavier, less adroit at running, sweaty-as-hell (as I was in that photo), as well as gross, obvious, tired, cranky: you name it. Yes, I felt like I look in that photo. Even the smugness. I look smug there I think. Even the smugness, because it’s my turn to be the marriage brat, because after-work-running is fundamentally incorrect.

I like to run before I get a shower in the morning, before most of the world is awake, and certainly before I’m cleaned and dressed.

Dave has tried to run with me, so I don’t get eaten by coyotes or tossed in some psycho’s van. (Tossed? Do I imagine that I am light enough to be tossed?)

But he doesn’t enjoy running in the morning. He enjoys still being asleep in the morning.

So today we did running after work, which is when he likes to do it. And it is the totally wrong time to do it.

I have soooo many failings as a human, and not understanding the other person’s POV is sometimes one of them.

When a person runs in the morning, it is cool; it is quiet; it is mostly unobserved by the world because people are still locked away inside, or in sleep. There are few cars. There is no one getting high or wearing too much cologne. And, when a person is done running, that person takes a nice morning shower, as God intended, and goes on with the day, and, hopefully, forgets even doing the dreaded exercise.

When a person runs after work, that person has to interrupt work to do so, because when is work ever really done, am I right? I mean, there is still stuff today, right up until dinner, but now the person must stop. AND the person, who is probably nicely dressed, must get undressed, and then redressed, in the grungy running clothes. AND then sneak outside, past the child and the pets, none of which want to be left home alone, and then, somehow, avoid talking to the neighbors, avoid all the after-work traffic, avoid all the pedestrians, and run: in the heat, and in the after-work car exhaust, with people watching, and trying to say hello. Oh, no, no, fucking no. A runner will never feel sweatier or more fat and discombobulated as a human as when said runner has to run past people on the street who want to talk. NO!

And then that poor beleaguered runner must return home, and shower and dress yet again, the hell? or spend the night sweaty and gross, and the whole system is just screwed up.

Dave likes to run at night, which is weird, and we all agree on that.

And I don’t, which is not at all bratty, and makes perfect, logical, reasoned sense, right?

Or maybe I’m wrong.

And I am the brat.

But, I guess I’m Dave’s brat, and I love him, and he’ stuck with me and all my opinions.