Two Loves

I didn't have too much time to dwell on Megan's abrupt career change. A digital signal processor that my modest-sized company made became a best seller. Digital Devices soared into the stratosphere of success. Every air traffic control system, air force, navy, or airport in the world suddenly couldn't get enough of them to process radar signals. We couldn't hire fast enough.

I got what I called a 'field promotion' to head the database program when my boss moved over to work with the manufacturing group. My pay took a couple of jumps over the year too, part of it a healthy bonus in company stock options. While I wasn't in the mainstream at the moment, I knew that I was the seed corn for the company's future. I redoubled my efforts at work, and with it came longer hours and weekend work.

Much to my delight, I was able to capture one of the company's computers as a dedicated machine for my data base efforts -- an IBM System 370. The machine was huge and filled the corner of one building on our campus, complete with air conditioning requirements and all. Nonetheless, the dedicated machine enabled us to quadruple our research efficiency, as well as sell our surplus computer time on the timeshare market. We were trying to build the perfect database machine.

One of the requirements of my new job turned out to be travel. I started to travel all over the United States to meet with just about anyone doing database research or related computer interface work.

At home, Megan seemed just as happy with my increased absorption with my work and my trips every other week. She admitted it made her feel less guilty about devoting so many hours each week to her studies. Because of her nature, she signed up for an overload each semester. We both agreed that this was the time in our lives to put our heads down and focus on our careers.

We made it a priority to spend some quality time together each weekend. With her exams or my travel schedule, this didn't always work out. In those cases, we'd declare a make-up time some other evening. We'd take day trips around New England and try to do something interesting: canoeing along the Charles River, touring the mansions in Newport, touring Mystic Seaport, or walking the beach along Maine's coast while we had lobster rolls for lunch. Being with Megan was always romantic, although I suspect neither of us got enough of each other.

Our lovemaking suffered as our roles at work and school changed, and thus, so did the feeling of intimacy I felt with Megan. I tried to gage if we were 'in trouble,' and decided we were not. I knew our life was a temporary situation that would pass when she finished her program. Besides, mentally I had about all I could handle.

When we looked around at the few close friends we had, we seemed to be doing better than most. A couple of our friends had split up after only a couple of years of marriage. Others were struggling with the emerging dual income-dual career life style. For the time being, we were unique insofar as Megan's return to school, but we could see that ultimately we'd be facing the same pressures others in our cohort faced.

Our friends that had children were fairing no better. Well-educated women that had embraced the feminist movement of the '60s found themselves stuck at home with a swarm of children under the age of six. I had to admit the situation seemed unfair if the husband didn't help out in some way. Without adult stimulation or something meaningful to do, not only did skills atrophy, but also the psyche withered. A few women in this category managed to breakout of the child-rearing roles thrust on them, but many seemed hopelessly resigned to the milieu of diapers, potty training, and an empty stay-at-home existence.

I started to run. I needed exercise and jogging was the big craze of the era. I started, thinking that the two miles around our apartment loop and some neighboring streets was a superb accomplishment, until one day as I finished my run I found two neighbors trudging home from a ten miler. After being so significantly one-upped, I started to increase the mileage on my runs.

I found a group at work that liked to run at lunchtime. We had showers and a small gym at work, and a comfortable course of several miles around the roads and trails of Lexington and Concord. A few months later, not only was I running five to seven miles at lunch, but I'd also lost twenty pounds and gotten in the best physical shape I'd ever been in. Some weekends, depending on Megan's schedule, I'd run ten or twelve miles or do a ten-kilometer footrace in some nearby town, usually supporting a needy charity. I started to amass a collection of t-shirts from all my races.

The Boston Marathon became the ultimate accomplishment for runners about that time. I decided it'd be fun to run the full race. I pushed my daily runs up to ten or twelve miles, and my weekend runs up to eighteen miles or more. I wasn't particularly fast, but I was consistent in maintaining a pace between seven and eight minutes a mile.

As mid-April got closer, those of us from the company planning to run the marathon made weekly sojourns to one or another portion of the race course between Hopkinton and Boston. Soon, we knew what the entire course was like, including the terrible hills in Newton and near Boston College.

Megan urged me on in my training, occasionally accompanying me at the start of a weekend run and then cutting out to go home and study. She became my cheering section the third Monday in April when it was marathon day. She dropped me in Hopkinton, and then went into Framingham to meet me with my special brew of energy drink.

I think there were over twenty thousand runners that day. I couldn't even cross the starting line from my position in the pack for seven minutes after the gun went off. That was when I started my watch. The pack thinned out pretty quickly. I found Megan in Framingham and then in Wellesley and Newton as she hopped the course ahead of me. She cheered and yelled appropriately as I tore by each meeting point, grabbing a disposable bottle of my secret potion from her hands.

I finished with an official time of 3:20 --fewer than eight minutes a mile. I hit the wall on the hills, despite my potion, and suffered my way across the finish line in a mix of pain and elation. I cried I was so overcome with emotion at my accomplishment. I think I'd also depleted every electrolyte in my body. Megan found me and wrapped me in a blanket. I collected my souvenir medallion and went home feeling wonderful. I was on a colossal high -- an endorphin high. I'd finished in a respectable time.

Megan shared my joy, and much to my surprise and pleasure she'd arranged a surprise party for me that evening. A parade of our friends arrived with joke gifts for me that celebrated my first marathon. Surprisingly, I thought her hand in arranging my celebration was one of the warmest and most touching things she'd done in our marriage to that point. I felt such love from her, and such love for her. The whole evening I couldn't let her out of my reach. A couple of my friends even jested that we were clearly still on our honeymoon. After the party, Megan and I made love; it was one of our peak experiences up to that point.

Each semester, when final exams came, I'd declare myself to be Megan's slave. I started my servitude over her first summer back in school, fixing meals and keeping the apartment unusually neat. I did all the shopping, arranged our slim social life, and tried to find all those things that I could do to make her life easier. I made a trip to a local stationery store and made sure she had a supply of every conceivable study aid: the new Post-It notes, highlighters, pads of paper, and more pens and pencils than we'd ever use in our lifetimes.

By the time the fall term came to an end in December, I was more geared up to be her servant. I had romantic meals arranged, carefully synched with her arrival home from her classes or study sessions. I bought her warm fuzzy pajamas, but only let her get in them one evening after I'd given a full body massage complete with warmed oils.

Another night, I had a bubble bath for her, complete with candles floating in the tub. I toweled her down with a new fluffy warm towel. We made love. The meals I made were tailored to her palate, although I cheated a few times using the takeout service from a few of our favorite restaurants. I made sure her car was always full of gas and clean, and searched for dozens of other ways to be helpful and supportive as she took her exams. No task was too small so long as it made her happy.

In the spring, just after Megan's last exam, I swept her up the next day and we flew to the Virgin Islands. I didn't tell her where we were going until we got to the airport, but made sure she'd packed all the right clothing for the resort we spent a few days at. We sailed, snorkeled, swam, sunned, and made love over and over. What a wonderful vacation. People at the resort thought we were on our honeymoon and did special things for us. We didn't dissuade their opinions even though we'd been married almost two years by that time.

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