Work deadlines and work travel, plus awesome family togetherness took the PCX out of my mind completely. The holidays came and went like a passing storm, and I was suddenly back in the office again. My first day back, a coworker sends me a random craigslist link via our office instant messaging client. It's the same PCX.
I like to fix things. It's why I work in IT. I thrive on cleaning up other people's messes in the computer world, hopping from customer to customer, fixing their problems, and making their day better for it. I absolutely love solving problems and seeing things done right, even more so seeing users happy, smiling at the restored order and functionality.
But, there's some problems in life you can't fix. A bit over a year after my son was born, and at the same time I more or less disappeared from this site, my wife was diagnosed with MS. It hit us REALLY hard. We're super-young; we had our son when we were 25 years old. It really made priorities in life change. Between being a father and helping my wife through her disease and depression, I hardly had time for work AND college, let alone riding. Furthermore, there was a real risk of future money problems. If my wife's MS got worse, we'd have to sell the house and get an accessible one. Money was one that I could fix by downsizing, part of that was my PCX. It was a mistake, but the V-Strom would let us drop to one car if we needed to.
Those hard times have passed. My wife's prognosis is amazingly good. She is literally back to 100% mentally and physiologically, and is one hell of a fighter. Her MRIs show virtually no ascertainable damage to her brain. The treatment is working perfectly. Despite that, we shifted our life priorities. I started applying myself fully at work, resulting in two promotions in the last two years while doing what I love -- fixing things. I graduated college. The concern of dropping to one car or needing a new house is long gone for now, and we're putting good money into savings for those potential eventualities. Even if we can't fix MS, we are bigger than it. Our lives belong to no one but ourselves. The disease can't decide things, we can control our own path. We win.
More months pass, and we talk about having a younger brother or sister for our son Noah. We decide to go forward with it, and a month later, were preggers!
I couldn't be happier. We love each other more than ever, we have an amazingly ridiculous toddler with a hilarious attitude, and have another coming in June. But, I promised her before we got pregnant with baby #2 that I would not commute on my motorcycle anymore. With a toddler, and me loving being a dad, all my camping has shifted from motocamping on the V-Strom to camping out of my Honda Element. I haven't commuted on the V-Strom in more than 6 months, and it's been over a year since I camped with it. It just sits, because it's not a family vehicle. I look at it fondly in the garage, and really, REALLY want to take it on errands around town, but it's too big and heavy to easily get out of the garage for a quick grocery trip. But a PCX... Now that is a machine made for errands, easy to get out of town, easy to park and turn around, and great for zipping around town. Plus, I know I can travel far and wide on a PCX if I need to -- I've done it dozens of times! Sure, I can't go on the highways, but it's not like I can put a toddler and an infant on any motorcycle anyways.
I made a decision I'd have to apologize to my wife for later, grabbed the pupper, and hopped in my truck. It was time to go pick up something to fix.
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The bike was actually better than I thought it would be.
I didn't let on that I felt that way, and given the buyer was talking the bike down, I asked for lower than his price. He accepted. I was too excited to take a picture; I just grabbed the title, and loaded my new PCX into the back of my Element.
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We rode off into the sunset, getting home far after midnight. Unloading was super easy, especially since I'm used to shoving around a big V-Strom.
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And so, the PCX was at home in its new stable. It needs work before I can ride it, but I have a PCX again.
I immediately went online that night, and spent $300 on a new seat identical to my old one, a windshield, and a bunch of replacement fairings... Then apologized to my wife.
She understood, but made me promise to never sell this one. I agreed.
and ya'll love each other More than Ever! Yeh!
