How Distracted Am I?

I understand that some people with gas stoves have been known to leave the burner on and that sometimes it has lead to kitchen fires but I never understood how you forgot that you left the flame burning.

Tonight I got an inkling about how because I left the burner on, but on an electric range. It is a smooth top which provides some relief, but not much.

I should have turned it off, but I didn’t because I was distracted.

The first night of Chanukah, but it was just the younger Mr. Wilner and I. He wasn’t feeling great so  didn’t cook a big meal, hell I made scrambled eggs for myself.

We lit the menorah, said the blessings and I thought about how different Chanukah is for my kids than for me.

Because the truth is I feel like I haven’t given them what I wanted to and though it is easy for me to rationalize and explain why it bothers me there are moments.

It is not like they need much because they don’t, they have been very fortunate but there are moments where it is clear to me what hasn’t happened.

I Own My Mistakes

Part of why I despise Impotus Trump is because he is never accountable for anything and that irks me.

If you ask me to outline what lead me to feel disappointed in the gifts I have or haven’t given I can do it with ease.

Chances are you won’t hear me speak about in person because there is a short list of people I’ll open up to about this and because it doesn’t make a difference.

Any guilt I feel or don’t feel has no real practical application. It won’t make me work harder or change anything because I can’t go back in time.

All I can do is acknowledge I am bothered by this and let the feelings pass.

And I can say that I discovered I forgot to hit publish on a post or two I wrote the other day and tell you I know why I am distracted.

It is what happens when you step into the mystery and take on new challenges that require significant amounts of energy and attention.

The good news is I found out around 10:15 this evening that something I worked very hard upon came through.

That news was well met and I am grateful for it because the amount of information coming my way is enormous, it feels like a fire hose has been stuffed in my mouth and the hose is wide open.

*****

This moment feels like I am facing a burning building and I am running towards it instead of running away.

In concept this isn’t the smart move, even for a guy who says he dances in the fire, but my heart and head are in agreement this time.

Got to take a swing at this pitch and see what I can do with it or if you want a different analogy, got to hold out my hand and see if it remains empty.

My best guess is I am doing exactly what I need to do and this moment is going to lead to good things, but it is hard.

There is a part of me that wants to pull back and play everything safe and go from there.

Except I played it safe before and the world blew up and here I am writing about the disappointment I feel in how some things went.

I survived that and if this fails I’ll survive this too because it is what I do.

Too stubborn to just quit and give up.

How Fast Can You Go?

There are better pictures of me but there are very few in which I am standing in front of the Ferrari 458 I drove.

It is not to brag but to say I took that car to around 155 or so MPH which is not it is top speed because I didn’t trust my relationship with the car.

Got five laps and got progressively faster but didn’t have the time to get comfortable enough to push the limit on the track a little bit more than I did.

That is not something I am disappointed about nor something I regret because I did what I could with the time I had in the vehicle.

But it doesn’t mean I am satisfied because I know I can do better. I know with a little more time and little more practice I can push the car and myself harder.

Which is to say I settled for what felt comfortable at that time with the idea that I could get back behind the wheel and apply what I had learned.

Yet four years has come and gone and I haven’t gotten behind the wheel because there have been other priorities and now there is less time to go back than there was.

Which is to say I hear the tick-tock of the clock and don’t want to wait for some things because I learned sometimes waiting is an excuse for not taking a chance.

How fast can you/I go to get to that next place?

Probably harder and deeper but I can’t wait until I am 100 percent certain. Can’t wait, especially when I know I have a vehicle that is designed to take it.

BTW, you didn’t ask but I’ll tell you I got the chance to drive the car through blogging and if I had enough money I might consider buying one.

I think they go for about $230k so figure that in order for me to decide to drop the kind of cash required to purchase, insure and maintain one I’d need to be worth about $50 million.

At least I think $50 million is about right, enough to take care of a bunch of things higher on the list or priorities while still leaving change for other stuff.

It was fun to drive, but not the kind of car you want to run errands in.

Got to run and make sure I turned off the lights, locked the doors, hung up my keys and check the formulas on a spreadsheet.