Random Thoughts

This is 59. Birthday photo 2025 - National Arboretum in the rain It is a strange age. It’s older than my sister Annette ever got to experience. It is on the verge of “old”.   Or wait, is it old?   Is it just that what “old” is keeps getting pushed back further and further, so actually we hit it a long time ago? I don’t feel “old”. But, as always for a decade or so, I feel “resolute”.   I feel “accepting”.   I feel realistic . I know my time on earth is limited, and I know I have used up over half of it. Some of it I wasted – watching movies but not really paying attention, sleeping, dusting (though to be honest I have not wasted much time on that one, one look at our house will tell you that). Some of it I relished - skiing down mountains, splashing in waterfalls and ocean waves, looking out at cornfields, clouds, and forests from high in the sky. Some of it I suffered – watching loved ones die, witnessing friendships fading away,...

I don’t want to give the impression that I walk around everyday in a daze and feeling sad, but I don’t want to hide anything, either.   When people you love die, the grief goes on.   It is not something that fits neatly into a timetable.   The 3 days off work they give you for a funeral doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the number of days, months, and years you will grieve. So, no, not all day every day. But yes, parts of most days.   Maybe the sadness is triggered by a memory.   A photo.   A scent.   A location.   Or maybe it is always there but only bubbles to the surface when triggered… Today was no different.   Started out fine (albeit sleepy and rushed).   Productive and stressful work.   Rushing about trying to complete a big project.   Working on not one but two computers trying to tie together all the loose ends before a big “production number” at 5:00 pm.   In the middle of the mess, my sist...

So, this is 53. Birthday SUP - first time out on the paddleboards this year I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions – but if I DID believe in making promises to yourself that you wanted to keep for a whole year – I would do them on my BIRTHDAY instead of New Year’s.   A birthday is something personal.   It is YOUR day.   It is a clean slate.   A new beginning.   Starting fresh. It's nearly impossible to use a camera timer and get two people in one SUPing photo...  That didn't stop up from trying! But instead of resolutions about what I will do going forward, I think it would be wise to take a look backward and see what 52 (and the years before that) may have taught me. I have been open and honest – 2018 SUCKED.   It was a very hard year for my entire family.   It started with David breaking his collar bone, which turned out to be the very least of our worries and poor David in his arm sling was tossed to the bottom of the ...