Dear Dad

I am very sad today. It is my deceased Dad's birthday, one year after he passed away. I've known that this past week and the next 2 weeks would be difficult. I got through my own birthday pretty well by immersing myself in something I love--exercise--and am blessed that I have several most excellent friends who gifted me.

Yesterday was filled with a lot of activity. I still am in cleaning/rearranging mode in the house as we are just finishing one bathroom and in 2 weeks the laundry room gets redone followed by the upstairs bathroom. I rode 1:45 and swam :20 yesterday after getting a bunch of stuff done, and after that I got groceries, made dinner and managed to even watch 1/2 hour of TV! Then I decided I wanted to do some dancing, but after about 1 hour of that I just stopped and sat down and remembered that today is Dad's birthday, and it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I managed to fall asleep, but I woke up at 2AM and have not been able to get back to sleep. I lay there thinking and thinking and thinking. So I got up and did a bunch more cleaning.

At one point while I was laying in bed thinking early this morning, I figured out what makes me the most sad is that I can't tell my Dad about the really great things happening in my life right now. I'm finally fixing up my house, I had a decent triathlon season despite not training very well, I'm making the rounds visiting various friends around the country and most importantly, I'm in love. The economy is going to shit, it's going to be winter any day now, but at my core I'm happy! I feel like I've arrived at a point in my life that is really, really great, only I don't get to share it with my Dad who happened to be like my best friend. So I'm going to try and write what I would say to Dad if he were here now:

Dear Dad:

A lot has happened since you passed away. I tried my best to do an expeditious job of handling your Estate, although there are a couple of details left to go. I got lucky in that I was able to sell your house before the entire market totally bottomed out! It's funny that you always called Mom a packrat, but when me and the boys were cleaning out the house, we found a bunch of stuff of yours stashed away as well!

The lawyer you used to set up your Trust is an idiot. I ditched him once I realized this. I found a different lawyer that I really like except I do need to pester him occasionally to get things done as quickly as I want them done.

I felt like crap for 4 months after you died, but I knew you wouldn't want me to mope around forever, and I did make myself keep exercising even while I felt like shit, even if it wasn't as much as I usually did. It's like I told you when you got back into exercising--you just need to make small, incremental changes and be consistent. I have never been really confident in my physical fitness--usually I need someone else to tell me that I'm kickin' it (do you understand that term?).

About April or early May (whenever your house sold), I decided that it was time for me to try and live a "normal" life ("normal" being what's normal for me), and I got back to my triathlon training in earnest and manufactured "races" for myself just so I would have some goals before my first official race, which was at the end of May. We had a cold, wet spring, and I finally learned to suck it up (I usually call it "HTFU" which stands for Harden The Fuck Up) and ride my bike in colder weather than I ever had. Which is a good thing, because you remember I bought that really expensive bike a year ago, and it has been used like crazy!

At my first official race of the year, Triple T, I ended up sharing a cabin with 5 complete strangers! It worked out really well, though, because they were all pretty fast people, and 4 of us in the cabin got hardware (that's triathlon speak for awards). As a matter of fact, it turned out I was the oldest woman who raced, and there was no one else in my division so I automatically scored hardware. I guess that means technically I may suck, but I can tell you I wasn't anywhere near last finisher in any of the races. This time I did the race by myself (remember last year I did it with Cindy on a team?), and it was more difficult, but I still enjoyed it. I thought about you a lot while I was out there suffering, and for once I can say that I was actually suffering. When I did the races in 2007, and it got really hard on Sunday, I was thinking about Mom a lot. This time, I was thinking about you.

I got some good training in after Triple T and really enjoyed doing it. I did my usual race rehearsal weekend up in Madison, and the weather was screwball and I ended up not riding 112 miles like I should have. But it was good enough for this year. I was letting myself be not up to par because I wasn't able to train well over the winter--God damn you dying!!!

I went to Lake Placid again. Last year, I stayed with my then coach, and had a blast, both because he was there and also my friends Cindy and Shelley were there. This time, I got to stay with Shelley and Cindy in a house, and we had just the best time! Shelley wasn't racing, but she took really good care of me. Cindy had her best Ironman ever. Mine not so much, but I did leave part of you on top of Whiteface Mountain and also in the transition area once I finished. I'm going back again in 2009, and I know I'll sense your presence. You'll laugh at this, but when I was almost finished, I had you in a little crack baggie (a tiny arts and crafts Ziploc), and I did still pass some people on the run even though I was slow that day, and when I would pass them I would secretly say to myself, "You're slower than a dead guy!" I know you would have laughed at that remark which is why I'm telling you about it. I felt pretty miserable during the entire race, because I'm so damn small and the constant rain made me hypothermic and I was peeing constantly, and also I was sad because I was thinking about you all day, but knew I had to keep going so I could leave you in various places! And I hadn't trained like I normally would, but you know it was all okay, I was still glad to be doing an Ironman and to have you with me while I did it, because you never got to see me actually at one of those races. Not that I race--I pretty much suck, but I do the best I can for the amount of time that I can train.

After Lake Placid, I felt like I had achieved some closure on your death. I had planned another NothingMan, and unlike last year, I was really looking forward to this one. Isn't it funny? I thought I was all mentally fucked up in 2007 before that NothingMan, and this year you were dead and I thought I was OK? How does that work??? But I think the difference is that I knew my Lake Placid race was more a catharsis to me than an actual Ironman race. I enjoyed it solely for the fact that I was with good friends the entire time. What's funny is that I actually trained pretty hard after Lake Placid for nothing! I think I was just happy to feel good again, and I mean really good. Ironman training is normally a rollercoaster of emotions, but throw in your Dad going dead on you and it becomes even more interesting! But really I'm grateful that I have been doing the Ironman training for 8 years now (even though you thought I'd bail after like 1 or 2 years initially, but then you figured out it did something for me), because it has made me into a really strong woman (I know you said you thought I already was and that's true, but it never hurts to get stronger, right?), since if nothing else, it made it a little easier on me to deal with you being gone.

So I'm getting ready for this NothingMan thing, which we were going to do from my house. Oh--I forgot--in early August I finally got off the stick and scheduled window and door replacement for my house. So I started moving all my crap around so they could get to the windows, and wouldn't you know it, when they were in the middle of painting the exterior the rains came again! I forgot to tell you that we had pretty regular rain through early August, when it mysteriously stopped for a few weeks, but you know what they say--start painting your house and it will rain!

I made one of my infamous deep-dish pizzas to have some after the NothingMan. I remember how much you liked them. I also remember that before I began cooking for the entire family that you weren't that much into the spicy food. Or should I say, Mom didn't make any spicy food! But it seemed that whenever I cooked for you, you loved it, even if I went a little nuts on the heat or spice! I always did like cooking for you because you appreciated it for the effort and the care, and you always took your time savoring whatever I made, unlike the rest of the bunch who typically just wolfed things down! Anyway, I thought about you while I was making that pizza, because I knew you wouldn't get to enjoy any of it. But I remembered fondly that I had made one last year for you and me and how much you liked it.

The days before the NothingMan the rains were coming rather hard. I wasn't looking forward to doing another Ironman in the rain after Lake Placid, but at least I knew what to do differently so it wouldn't feel as bad. And boy did it rain! I got some seepage in my basement, and there was a lake in front of my house, so the guy I did the NothingMan with and I had to punt a bit since it was going to rain all weekend. Oh--by the way, Michelle was going to be bike support for us, but as it turns out, we didn't need her. We swam and did almost half of the bike ride on Saturday. We drove to Fermilab because it would have been unsafe to ride on the roads since they were all flooded. It took a long time to get there because we kept hitting flooded intersections. Once we were in there, though, it was pretty surreal riding in the rain, riding through rivulets and seeing way more egrets and herons (flying right over us, too!) than I've ever seen in there! I voted to stop after 54 miles because it was getting dark (we were slackers and started late, but it was all ad hoc so it really didn't matter).

We did meet up with Michelle at Pappadeaux (that reminds me--I still have a card for there courtesy of you that I need to use up), and Rob (the guy I did NothingMan with) told her, "Thanks for Nothing!" You would have laughed. Anyway, I am happy that Michelle had volunteered, but also glad she didn't have to come out in the rain with us!

We finished riding on Sunday morning indoors, mostly because I am such a wimp. And also Rob noticed I had two bike trainers. Anyway, it worked out well, and then we went and ran 27 miles along my normal running routes. We stopped back at my house for chicken broth and other stuff (we were eating olives and cheese at one point! Isn't that funny? I've never eaten food like that while running!) a few times, and then when we finished we had some of that pizza, and it was good!

I think that a lot of the strength I've acquired through the years has been from you. You never coddled me. Some people like that, I guess--not me! I really liked being praised when I had gone over and beyond, not just for the usual that you expected from me. I know you always expected excellence from me academically, and for many years, that was easy for me to achieve. What's been harder for me is to extend that excellence into other areas of my life, but you knew from our conversations the past few years that I was really trying to do that, and during and after NothingMan I thought I had really gotten to a special place in my life, and it fucking sucks that you aren't here to witness it. I think you'd notice that your little "Sheel" as you used to always call me, has finally come to terms with herself and is happy in her own skin and is able to give back to others, or at least I'm trying very hard. As much as I miss you, I know other people have far worse troubles than me. My life is pretty good. I know you know that it is a personal choice to choose happiness and to choose to do those things that contribute towards your happiness.

I remember how bemused you were when I first started doing Ironman. You didn't understand why I would do such a thing. There has always been a part of me that thought you wouldn't consider me applying my talents unless I was wearing a white coat in a laboratory! While that is something I could have chosen to do, I didn't. Do you know why? Because I knew that it was important for me to develop many different aspects of myself. The intelligence was just there. I used it to do the school thing, and to carve myself out a fairly decent career. But you know that I have always wanted more. You were pretty upfront with me that the person I chose to marry wasn't a good fit for me. But what you don't know is that at the time, I'm not sure anyone would have been a good fit. Because I was still working on developing those other aspects of myself that I knew I needed to in order to save me from myself. What do I mean by that? I can easily intellectualize everything I see, hear, feel, taste and smell, but I have always had this intense need to let myself "safely" run away with all the attendant emotions. My emotions have always been something to keep put away at a safe distance lest I disturb the force in my life that drives me ever so intensely.

But the thing I learned while training for Ironman is that those emotions are there and need to be let out, and so I began a search, as it were, for a way to allow that to happen while keeping true to my core sense of self. And you know what? I got it! And thank God I did! You know why? Because it prepared me for Mom's death and then yours. And it prepared me for even better things. I think I am finally able to be a good friend to others, and that is something that's extremely important to me. I have the tendency, just like you, to be a loner, but I've known that is something I've needed to bust out of, and I think I've finally succeeded. I am not always good at it, but I am on alert most of the time to not just retreat into my own head.

You probably know this, but up until now, I have not really been in love with anyone. I mean, how could I be, when I couldn't be 100% comfortable with myself and first be just a good friend to others? Don't get me wrong--I am far from anything resembling perfection (and oh yeah--another thing that Ironman is good for is letting go of your perfectionistic tendencies), but I do tend to want to perfect things, and trying to perfect oneself is a losing proposition! So, in getting divorced and subsequently forcing myself to go to pieces before reassembling myself, I found out what's truly important and have strived to focus on that.

What's truly important? Acting with integrity, being a good and true friend, and being true to myself. That's it. I have friends that I really think I can give a lot to, and getting to near closure with your Estate has eased me up tremendously so that I think I can do that. I hope so, at least. And then what happens? Someone pops into my life and I fall in love. How bizarre is that? You'd probably say it was ordained or some other prophetic statement. I think you'd tell me that I really hadn't been ready. God--you were patient with me all the time I was so unsettled! You always told me I'd know when I'd found what I wanted, and you know that while you were alive that that hadn't happened. Well maybe now I have. But I hope it's not a matter of having wanted, because I have been trying to strike overwhelming desire from my vocabulary! Not that desire in and of itself is bad (like all the discussions you and I had on that very topic), but it's almost like we desire to desire, and that is what screws us up.

I'm really sad today, but really happy I could share this with you. I hope that wherever you are (Whiteface Mountain, for one place!) that you can sense me. I know you are still here guiding me, and I don't think that will ever stop. I know you were always proud of me for my academic accomplishments, but now I hope you are proud of me just for being me. I love you.