It wouldn’t be fair nor right to point out to my baby sisters that dad was readmitted to the hospital just a few days after I left LA.
There is no real relationship there but sometimes we search for such things and hope that there is some kind of mystical and magical connection.
Ya know like the story of the Israelites winning wars as long as Moses was able to hold his arms upright.
I have spoken to the universe and whatever powers may be and asked for assistance never expecting a response but hoping nonetheless.
Can’t hurt to try, can it.
Try Not To Crash
I won’t carry fond memories of Friday July 13th, 2018 forward as it was a day that in many ways lived up to the negative hype we have often heard of/about.
Everything was harder than necessary and it took a significant chunk of energy out of me, so much so that I didn’t do most of what I hoped to do post work.
Hell, I had hoped to coast into the weekend with the joy of having just gotten paid and the knowledge that I somehow kicked ass from 1,500 miles away.
But being a semi-superstitious person I didn’t say a word of such hopes aloud ‘cuz I didn’t want to jinx anything.
Not to mention that by the time 3 PM had rolled around I knew it was going to be impossible to do what I had hoped and that I was going to have to strap in and strap on to get through the remainder of the day.
It mostly worked….mostly.
There was a three hour nap post work and than the “It is 2 AM and it feels like 10 PM” thing that was followed by a 5:30 AM wake up.
All of which led to the plans for Saturday being restructured on the fly.
*****
At 5:15 I walked into the gym and threw out my initial plan for my workout.
The idea had been to take it easy and ease back into things. I would have done so had I not just heard from my mother that my dad had to be rushed to the ER.
That led to a nice adrenaline surge which I used with great success on the bench press and treadmill.
In the midst of my run this came on and I decided it was a sign and decided it was time to make a run for the border.
Who knew Oklahoma was so damn close?
The answer is lots of people but I hadn’t realized that the Winstar casino was only an hour away or I might have already visited it.
Just before I left to drive back to Dallas I felt a wave of exhaustion hit me so I wandered over to their coffee station, downed two cups and told myself not to crash.
The Teaching Moments
My daughter watched this, looked at me, hands on her hips and told me I ought to remember sometimes girls can do things boys can’t.
I loved watching the fire in her eyes when she said it. I loved listening to her tell me about how she played soccer with the boys and at school and how irritated she was by their not expecting anything out of her.
Well, I wasn’t happy they didn’t expect anything but I was pleased that she never questioned her ability.
*****
I look for teaching moments with my kids. I look for opportunities to help them learn something useful and practical.
Things that will help make life easier and simpler as they sail down the river.
It is not as easy as it once was, partly because of their ages.
They see me as an ordinary man now and know that I am not a superhero. I don’t have superhero speed or strength.
Can’t fly, can’t leap over tall buildings.
But I have some life experience they don’t have that I try to share with them and because they are teenagers I sometimes have to sneak it in.
I have been thinking about this more lately because they are getting more glimpses of their dad as an ordinary guy,
They see me trying to figure out how to deal with a father who is on the tail end of the journey and a mother who is trying to figure out what to do about the man she has lived with for more than 50 years.
I struggle with whether to let them see everything or just parts of it.
Their ages impact it too as one is turning 18 in a few months and the other is 14.
Is it better to let it all hang 0ut? Will they learn and understand more or will it be too much.
I don’t know that there is a right or wrong answer, I just know I am uncertain.
Would they think their old man is silly because it all kind of reminds him of this?
There Are Stories To Share And To Hear
Someone asked me if I was aware of how much I share here and I laughed because I know exactly how much I do or don’t put on the page.
Very few have enough knowledge to have real insight and even those that know some of the bigger secrets don’t have it all.
There are stories to share and to hear but only in person…if at all.
The point isn’t to titillate, taunt or tease with that.
Consider it illumination of simple fact about the who, what, when, where and why of it all.
I write because it is the equivalent of breathing for me. If I were to lose my air it would be unpleasant. And I write because it helps me make sense of the senseless.
Sometimes the words flow freely and I feel confident that I am sharing something meaningful and sometimes it is less so.
Midway into the ride back from Oklahoma I had an idea for what I thought would be brilliant, but I lost that thread somewhere out on the road.
Can’t say if it fled during the conversation with my middle sister about our father or if it happened when she mentioned deli and I made a mental note to go to Deli News.
The only constant among it all is that I have put the proverbial pen to paper and pumped out these words you are looking at.
You may think them garbage, brilliant or muddled.
I don’t know.
All I can say is opinions vary on what is good, great and or awful writing and writers learn early on that what we consider amazing isn’t always given the same shrift by others.
For now all I can say is I am fighting to figure out the best way to manage the stress because it has to be at the root of my exhaustion.
And if babbling on this page alleviates some of that, well then be prepared for more babbling.
There are other ways, but for now some aren’t accessible so I guess this will have to do.
