What it's About

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the death of my Dad. I began experiencing the repeat sadness Sunday night while I was still in PCB. I've since deduced that I have a 2-day rule when it comes to these things--I have anticipatory grief 2 days before. I didn't have it in me to be too sad on Monday because I was so tired from lack of sleep, but I didn't feel well, and so it helped to sit down and recap my trip to PCB since it was filled with laughter and happiness and all that is positive and good in the world.

Yesterday I returned to work, and while I felt mentally pretty much good, inside me my body was churning and wrestling with me trying to make me feel bad. I am very familiar with the physical sensation of grief. For me, it's like someone has cut a hole in my stomach, put a vise on my heart, and turned my arm and leg muscles to jello. I did swim in the morning, but made it short, as my emotions went from complete joy in thinking about my nice little vacation, causing me to laugh hysterically, to the feelings of sadness, which made it hard to breathe and I had to fight off tearing up in my goggles.

Around 12:45, I went for a ride on LGL. It was a beautiful day, and very unusual weather for November. We are having Indian Summer now! Because my muscles did not wish to work for me, I could not ride hard at all, but that was OK. It was just nice to be outdoors in the sunshine, and it occurred to me that I should always go for a bike ride on my Dad's death anniversary, since that is the exercise that he took up in his 70's to maintain some sort of cardiovascular fitness. So I rode about 1:30, and it did make me feel better.

I'd called my brother, Mike, before I left for PCB and asked if he'd want to go out for dinner yesterday, and he had, and I called him early in the day to be sure we were still good to go. I decided to also invite his daughter (my niece), Michelle. Michelle asked if her fiance, Jeff, could come too, and I said sure.

We all met at Pappadeaux's, which is near to where Michelle lives, and not far from me. Before Michelle and Jeff arrived, I ordered this great Bloody Mary, which included hand-stuffed bleu cheese olives:

It was tasty, tasty. Below is a picture of all of us, from left to right, Mike, me, Michelle and Jeff.


Here's just me enjoying my cocktail:

Here's Michelle with her Dad, my brother Mike:

Below are Michelle and Jeff, who are to be married on 9/20/2009, which they both informed me is the day after International Talk Like a Pirate Day. They said they tried to get their reception place and everything exactly on 9/19, but were unable to. But they said it's easy for their friends to remember far in advance when the wedding will be! I asked if they were going to dress as pirates, and unfortunately, no. But Jeff tells me that both Pirate and Ninja (apparently, there is a cosmic battle going on between Ninjas and Pirates) wear will be prominent amongst the guests! I'm excited for their impending marriage, as it's been quite awhile since anyone in my immediate or extended family has gotten married, and it will give me an excuse to sew a really nice dress or two.

When all was said and done, basically we just got together and had dinner together. Mike and I talked a bit about Dad before Michelle and Jeff arrived, but over dinner we just had normal conversation. And that is the point. Life is about being with people you love. Period. All the other crap like what you do for a living, hobbies, administrative nonsense, are just filler. Of course, the more of those things you can do with people you love, the better.

Which is why I've been filling my free time over the last 7 weeks or so being with people I love, even though many of them do not live near me. It is the best thing, and it's what gets me through all the other times when I can't be with them for whatever reason.

This morning I registered for Ironman Kansas 70.3, and now I need some of those people I love (none of them pictured above) to register, too, or make time to come and spectate! I had wanted another 1/2 Ironman in my schedule before IMLP, and now I've got it! I'll have a jam-packed schedule beginning with Triple T and ending with Ironman Canada (see my sidebar for the schedule), but I'm now getting excited about all of it since I'll be with people I love at each of them!

It's ironic that someone made a remark about me to a friend of mine on the order of, "Do you want to end up like her?" What does that mean? I think I'm "ending up" in a good way! Sure, there are my Crackheaded adventures, not all of which I make public, and sure I can be a bit of an exhibitionist at times (although I always say that when I no longer look good in skimpy attire I will stop that noise), and it is true that I absolutely love to laugh and giggle and get other people around me to laugh and enjoy themselves, but what's wrong with any of that? At the core of all this is that I love being with people that I love. And it's important to me to find as many of them as I can. We all need to feel loved and give it back. That's it. That's what this thing called life is about. And when you think about someone you loved that is gone, keep living and loving.