Of course, that doesn’t mean that I’m always very good at showing her that. I struggle with life at times and I have days where I’m down or out of sorts and I’m not the best to be around then. Even so, I love my wife then.

Nobody is perfect and there are times when my wife says or does something that annoys or bothers me and I may not react well at such times. But I still love my wife when that happens.

I love her totally.

We met in an internet chat room. That’s not such a big deal these days, but it was reasonably novel when it happened to us in the late 90s. I was hanging out being a smartarse and she swanned in capturing the attention of everyone in the room by dancing to jungle drums. She certainly caught my attention.

We got to talking about Russian literature and before we left for the night we’d exchanged email addresses. We corresponded for a while and I was completely and utterly in love with her before I knew it. It didn’t take me long at all.

After a few months I worked up the courage to ask if she’d mind if I visited her sometime. She agreed and we made plans to meet.

When I flew into her city we’d never seen each other before, not even a photo. We’d emailed each other brief descriptions of ourselves and that was all we had to go on. Even so, as I walked down the stairs from the airport arrivals gate I swear that J was the first and only person I looked at. I just knew it was her. Right from the start.

I’ve always loved my wife. And I still do.

My niece is either going to grow up not being scared of anything, or somewhat emotionally scarred.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not forcing this stuff on her. I’m pretty sure her parents put that bear in a cupboard somewhere and she’ll probably never see it. Maybe she’ll find it when she’s 14 and rebellious and ask her mum where it came from. Her mum will tell her it was from me and suddenly I’ll be the cool uncle.

But that’s unlikely.

In any case, it should be a good party.

That’s not too bad. But it could be a lot better. For a start, we could do with highlights of the Giro d’Italia and a few more criteriums and classics like the Dauphine Libere and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. On top of that, would it kill them to provide even minimal coverage of the World Championships?

Look, I know that broadcasting rights cost money and there probably really isn’t enough sponsorship money in the country to pay for all of that. All I’m saying is I’d watch it. I’d watch it all, and I’d be sympathetic towards any sponsor that ensured I was able to enjoy the coverage.

Instead I’m left late at night, bouncing around the interweb trying to find live video streams or, at the very least, reasonably up to date comment threads. It’s very frustrating. Especially when you can see pretty much any other sport in the world live on free to air or cable. Why is it so hard to get decent cycling coverage? Why?

It’s just not right.

I certainly hope so. The place we’re renting is being sold out from under us to a developer that wants to, well develop the property. Which means we’ve got to go soon, new place or not.

So soon we’ll be one of those mortgage stressed couples you read about….. what fun.

I could be wrong. They might be horrible, cheap, nasty shoes. They might be horrendously expensive shoes that don’t fit properly. I wouldn’t really claim to know about shoes, especially not women’s shoes.

So there I am, noticing shoes and then…… nothing. There’s nothing I can do with that. I can’t pull down my headphones and call across a crowded train carriage, “Excuse me? Miss? Those are some very nice shoes.”

Well, technically I could, but I don’t feel comfortable doing it so I don’t.

I don’t know if it would make the world a substantially better place, but I hope that one day I can tell someone they have nice shoes without fear of reprisal.

I don’t know you well enough to feel like I should assault you with my opinions on subjects that matter (although you may have noticed that I feel pretty free to throw around my opinions on subjects that don’t matter – like film, music and books).

I’m too private to want to bore you and embarrass myself by discussing my personal life. I don’t really want to spend my spare time going on and on about politics, sport, history or any of the other things I could think of using to be more “topical”.

I’m much too shy to want to show you any of my more “serious” attempts at writing. I mean, I want to show you. I just don’t want you to laugh at me, and I always tend to assume that you are laughing at me.

So here I sit – bored, tired, dissatisfied and uncertain. So much to say, and yet, so determined not to say it.

If I were even slightly good looking, I’d be a beautiful paradox.

My point is that I was unemployed, not bringing in any sort of steady income and in the incredibly luxurious position of being able to ride my bike and write every day. I could do two of my favourite things in the world every day. I can’t explain how fantastic that is, you’ll either know what I mean or you won’t. Either way, that’s alright.

Unfortunately I’m not ridiculously wealthy. I’m not even moderately wealthy. I’m not rich. I’m right smack in the middle of the middle class. This has meant that eventually I needed to find work, and I did find work. Good work with good people. I enjoy my work, my workplace and the income I receive for my work.

But the office is in an awkward part of the city and just a little bit too far away for me to ride my bike (I still hold out hope for the longer days of summer). Instead I spend an hour on the train in the morning and evening. My work day is long and I work hard, and when I get home I’m tired.

I don’t write well when I’m tired.

I miss my bike and I miss my writing.

Time is my most precious resource and I need to do some active managing of this resource.

It’s not that we’re not aware of them, but rather we determine to do our best in spite of them. We try ever so hard not to let on how many of them there are or how debilitating they can be.

Unfortunately, sometimes we’re more vulnerable than others. We might be unusually tired or perhaps stressed by work. We might be physically unwell and lack the energy and physical reserves to cope with holding it all together.

We might just be in a bad mood.

The simple truth is that we’ve all got weak spots, and in spite of our best intentions and in spite of the best intentions of others, our weak spots will be probed.

But more than that it’s a sheer act of will. A grim determination to repress it. To hold it in check. To protect you, to protect me, to protect us all from the raging power that struggles so desperately to break free. If you don’t have this in you, then you’ll never understand what is at stake. You’ll never know how extreme and desperate this struggle is.

The war within. It rages unabated and endless. There is no winning in this struggle, there is only the struggle.

It’s hard, almost impossible to identify where this began. It may have been in the years of torment as the poor kid at the exclusive school on a scholarship. It may have been in the twisted logic of ideology that you were raised with, even though it was never yours. It may have been in the contradiction of self that sprang unexpected from adolescence.

In the end, where it began doesn’t matter. In the end. There is no end. Not to this. There is only the struggle, there is only the raging, fiery torment of retaining control.

Control. It’s easier to pinpoint where that came from. Control didn’t appear, control was built, made, constructed. Control was slowly forged through the determination of will and the firm application of discipline.

Even today, control slips. It needs constant attention and maintenance. Without that the cracks appear more frequently and linger longer.

Occasionally the balance tips a little further one way or the other. On the good days, this is excellent news. You are vital and charming, entrancing and engaging. You are a living personification of joy.

The bad days vary. Sometimes the poison seeps slowly, like a gas leak that isn’t noticeable until the effects are felt. By then it may be too late to do anything about it. The day is lost. Sometimes there is a violent eruption. The wall takes one shot too many and crumbles in a second, allowing the raw power of the beast to spew forth. The day may not yet be lost, but it will be a day of blood.

A day like this needs to be a day of retreat. You need to retreat deep into yourself, you must climb right into the middle of the storm and begin to rebuild the wall. This is a day of work, restless and fierce. But whatever the cost, the work must be done. Without the work there is only annihilation.

The eternal struggle is not a battle to separate the two, but rather to keep them together so that a whole, no matter how imperfect, can be maintained. It’s an exercise in self-control. From start to finish. Everything’s at stake.

*Note – this isn’t self-referential at all, so try not to read things into it that just aren’t there.