When you are lying on the therapist’s couch talking about what changes you intend to make in your life you might share a story about dropping a 35 pound weight on your foot.
If you read the consequences of truth telling or maybe that piece about America and the broken foot you might be familiar with the tale.
Been lifting weights for more than 40 years now and have never dropped one on my foot before so we’ll assume that we’ll never do it again.
Besides it is much sexier to tell you that within the next couple of weeks I’ll get my liver scanned and that is just precautionary. Got the heart scanned last summer as a precautionary step too and have had blood work done a few times since.
Things look pretty good overall.
I attribute it to genetics, luck, four miles a day of cardio and regular weight lifting. I don’t look the way I used to or want to but I am getting closer.
Most importantly I feel pretty good most days. It is a joy to feel my body respond to the weights and to see cuts in my arms come back to life.
Letters I Have Written Never Meaning To Send
That might be one of my favorite lyrics and it is something I definitely relate to. I have written a few letters with specific people in mind with no intention or ever sending them.
Some were apologies and others were expressions of my feelings. Some people don’t want to provide you with closure so you have to figure out how to give it to yourself.
I may be slow to get there, but I always do find it.
Sometimes I have to remind people that I may be slow to give up on them or things it shouldn’t be misinterpreted as fear of letting go. I have done that many times in my life and expect to do so again.
We don’t always get the chance to do so on our terms or to get answers to questions that we think of as being important.
It is part of why I blog. More than a few posts include things I want to put to rest, clarify or simply set aside.
There is a reason why The Consequences Of Truth Telling- Five Years Later resonates with me as does Did He Die In The Fire among other things.
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Been attacked multiple times by people who say they don’t hate Jews, they dislike Zionists. I shake my head at how dumb they sound.
Replace Zionist with another group like Asian. Mexican or Black and see how that sounds.
Granted there are some who don’t recognize the Jew haters use the word as a beard to hide their hate behind. There are also some who have a very different definition of what the word means than I do.
Several of them have tried to tell me I am wrong and that I misuse the word and engaged in the kind of goysplaining that makes me wonder if there is a point in engaging with them.
If I see an opportunity for open dialogue I am not adverse to taking a moment to see if we can reach a place of common understanding but that rarely happens with the goysplainers.
When they think they know more about being Jewish than I do and aren’t part of the tribe it almost always means their minds are closed.
He Was So Young
I remember when Randy Pausch started to get some attention online and in the news in 2007. I was 38 and he was 47.
At the time I thought he was kind of young to die but definitely getting older. Now that I am almost a full ten years older than he was I shake my head and think about how young he was.
Pancreatic cancer got him just like it got my father, but at least Dad made it to just short of his mid seventies.
Randy made some very good points in that last lecture that stuck with me, like the quote above or “The person who failed often knows how to avoid future failures. The person who knows only success can be more oblivious to all the pitfalls.”
That is smart and as someone who has fought his way through adversity before it resonates with me. It is a lesson I have taught my kids.
Age is a funny thing and most assuredly relative.
I was told by an ex that we might have to wait until our fifties for life align the way we wanted to. At the time it sounded really old and I remember wondering what life might look like then.
Age jumps out at me again because Steve Jobs also died at a young 56 coincidentally also because of pancreatic cancer.
Fourteen years ago 56 sounded really old to me and now I snort because it is just another number, though it does seem strange that sixty is almost within spitting difference.
We never do how much time we are going to get. Last year we said goodbye to another one of my fraternity brothers and a high school/college friend became a widow
That almost brings us full circle to the beginning with the cardiologist, GI doc and discussion about life in the gym.
As soon as I wrap this up I am going to hit the treadmill again. Four of the toes on my right fruit look like I have been stomping on grapes. They are little sore but there is nothing that makes me wonder if I broke any.
Not much slows me down, other than the dysfunctional digestive system and for the most part that is under control.
Epilogue
We got four more of our girls back today. Four more came home and we pledged to continue to fight for the redemption of the rest.
These four are basically the same age as my daughter. I cannot imagine the hell they have been through but I am glad they have lots of life left to look forward to.
Glad they have lots of time to work on recovery and use them as a reminder to be grateful. Life can always be harder.
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