Man this positivity train is rolling! It’s like Stuart Smalley all hopped up on Mountain Dew turned over one of my world famous new leafs (I prefer this to leaves). It’s catching too. I took my own advice yesterday and wished all sorts of people a good day, had a productive AND got 7:42 mins worth of sleep (2:42 REM mins which has to be good right?). My watch told me this. I’m doing all the tech things! Finally, if you’re keeping score at home, this is like my 4th day in a row to post stuff!
That twitch you have is telling you that there’s a shoe about to drop. That surely Mr. Mostly Anguished can’t be this unanquished, but nope. It’s so far true, but fear thee not. It just took my brain seventy seven minutes to remember that my dad died two years ago today. Thankfully it mostly feels like a Wednesday with potential.
I touched on not celebrating (or is it dwelling) on days like these and I’m sticking to that plan. Distance gives us perspective if we let it and I’m trying to keep mine. I could sit and dwell on the parts I feel are “unfair” and sad, or I could laugh at my dads ability to smash his shin 3 seconds into any and every home improvement, yard work, hooking up boat trailer, or just walking around. My shins are keenly aware of the power of genetics.
Today I’ll do my best to remember how my dad used to tell me to “Put on the afterburners.” prior to most swimming events I had. As I walk out to do a track workout this morning, I’ll keep that in mind as I slog along.
I’ll do my best to remember how much his patients loved him and how much he loved them. I’ll remember that “misery is optional.” Which, besides him saying “LET’S GO!” is one of the only real “life sayings” I remember.
I’ll remember his multiple year stint of swimming a mile every day in the pool in our back yard. Looking back now, his stroke was terrible and I’d have told him to keep his head down to drive his hips up. 102 laps of our pool. I’d also tell him he was short by 14 lengths to swim an actual mile.
I’ll remember his stint at “cycling” in the early 80s. He’d ride an out and back through Pass Christian, MS and invariably get chased by dogs. He tried spraying them with water and eventually settled on ammonia and a pellet gun. Can you imagine if you saw a 50 something dude riding down the street with a pistol packed in his waistband today?
I’ll remember he loved my mom, me, my siblings and all our kids dearly and I’ll try and keep things positive today because 4 days is a streak, and I can’t be breaking that with some Debbie Downer shit today.
Not on my watch. Not today.
#hugsandhi5s
