Not much has changed in my life since Friday. I have become a YouTube Premium subscriber, opting for the monthly subscription so that I could cancel it immediately if it didn’t work as desired on my AppleTV. I am glad to announce that it does, and I am loving watching without annoying ads.
On Saturday morning I walked with Betsy and later in the afternoon hung out with my friends Hank and Chip at Chips’s house.
Yesterday I stayed at home all day. I should have been extremely productive, and done some exercising and cleaning/organizing/decluttering, but instead I read and worked on a jigsaw puzzle for most of the day.
My back still bothers me, but at least it’s back to bothering me the way is has for the past six month instead of the way it did last Monday.
There is not much on my Federal Holiday agenda today. I may drive somewhere since traffic should be lighter than a normal Monday.
In local news, I heard the Taco Mac group has purchased The Vortex locations.
Wordle: four, my starter was PROSE
Connections: three mistakes, Blue > Yellow > Purple > Green (Green killed me today)
how am I 1st? (I guess I’m the only one working & all the early birds are sleeping in?)
Busy weekend – Friday night Mexican & margaritas with friends
Saturday – long walkabout downtown – Westside Beltline Connector trail to Wild Leap.
Wild Leap is a huge & great facility – I hope they can afford this space & get enough people to frequent it. (Old Norfolk Southern building, but right next to where all The Gulch construction is starting)
Saturday night a spur of the moment dinner with Kevin, found a great (new to us) Italian restaurant in Sandy Springs – Il Giallo – it wasn’t cheap, but it was excellent. Sat at the bar since we didn’t have a reservation, had a most excellent bartender.
Sunday spent the afternoon in Norcross at a Celebration of Life for a Parrothead friend. A few of my old 90s friends attended, it was great to see them, even under the not so good circumstances. So many of our core 90s group have moved away, and trying to remember all of our shenanigans is getting tougher & tougher.
Wordle in 3 and Conniptions FAIL! Barb, you’re exactly right, you’re the only one working and I was sleeping in.
Saturday we looked at 3 horses. Debbie only rode one and it wasn’t to her liking, so we headed South. We went via Columbia and Aiken on the off chance someone had a pony there, but there were none.
Sunday, we were awakened to the sad news Good Neighbor Steve had passed. His stomach cancer was just too much. A really good guy gone way too soon. 2 other friends in the hunt world also passed, so it was a tough weekend.
I managed 17 on the gravel bike despite some seriously muddy conditions. Dinner last night with Meg and her daughter Ella.
No plan today except getting ready for the cold tomorrow night and beyond. Maybe a haircut.
-FP
I’m so sorry for your losses, Steve. It’s eerie how things run in threes sometimes.
There always seems to be a lot of deaths in January.
I feel like people hold on for the holidays, then – they feel like its ok to go.
(That’s what I think about my friend Bonnie that just died)
We saw Steve and his wife at opening hunt, and he was so thin I didn’t recognize him. Barb, I think there’s something to that theory.
It’s only January, but I already know my word of the year, which is denouement: the final part of a play, movie, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved.
It turns out that my recent “monumental decision” was far from hyperbole. I won’t spill all of the beans here, but let’s just say that one of my long dead grandmothers visited me in a really vivid dream recently, which got me off of the fence with regard to whether or not I should open up a limited line of communication with my long estranged, but now inarguably elderly parents. My mother has been spam calling me for months, to the point that I blocked her, so she took to calling my “wife”, including at work. So, clearly something had to be done. The limited line of communciation was via text, through which at first they did some of their usual shuck-and-jive, which I was expecting. I countered and parried, which lead to on Friday my 79 year old mother disclosing something that happened when I was 4 fucking years old that good god I wish I’d known about decades ago. But now I know, and so much of my life makes so much sense now.
My therapist is a veritable rock star, and at her behest I had an emergency therapy session on Friday (after just having had a scheduled session last Wednesday). That helped a TON. I spent hours on the phone with friends and select relatives to process what I had learned. Saturday is kind of a blur at this point, I do remember taking a long nap. It did include lunch at Havana Sandwich Shop, which never fails to please. Saturday night we had dinner at Roasters in Sandy Springs with Minty, she was able to meet my brother who flew in on Friday. The disclosure from my mother affected him too, in both direct and indirect ways, and it definitely gives him a lot of clarity about his life as well. It’s eerie that this finally surfaced when we’re together so that we can process it together.
Yesterday was a blur too. I did make it to the 9:00 AM ballet class that I’m taking this month. I got to class and told the instructor “I’m a bit spacey today because I’m processing some distressing news.” She was very kind, and at the end of class said I’m making great progress. I do agree. This was the second session of 4 that I’m currently committed to, and I’m starting to develop some muscle memory for some of the positions. After class I was flat on my back for much of the day, basically feeling paralyzed. I did feel well enough in the afternoon to take Mike to Deepdene Park, and that was good for us. My son went with us because my daughter was at work. My friend Jamie is an absolute nut for frisbee throwing, and a while back I started keeping a frisbee in my car. I figured it had been a minute since my brother had thrown a frisbee, so we made use of the perfect field at Deepdene. It dredged up a memory for him from 40 years ago of the last time that we threw a frisbee together. It was good stuff. Dinner was at the Varsity with my kids and Mike. I have been doubling down on the comfort food.
Ostensibly my brother had flown down to help me paint Rachel’s room and my bedroom. We’re running a bit behind on that plan, but we’ll get done what we can get done, and I’ll hire out whatever we don’t finish, because I sure as hell didn’t see Friday’s disclosure coming. It absolutely explains why I became Lurker, and so much more about my life. I have been maniacal about therapy for about a decade now. Just last Wednesday my therapist was telling that I’m done with therapy. I didn’t make a big deal out of it, but I knew I wasn’t. After what I learned on Friday, the long missing puzzle piece has fallen into place, and yes, after one more leg of therapy to process and integrate this new information, yes, I’ll be done with therapy. I’ll probably still do periodic check-ins because, well life, but it’ll 100% be for dealing with the present, and my past will be a wrap.
I had a 60 day or so Wordle streak that went out the window on Saturday. I haven’t played today, and I’m not sure if I will. I’ll get back to it.
What a long, strange trip it has been. It’s not over yet, by a long shot, but my god, I am glad that I don’t let up.
that’s a hell of a weekend David.
Hang in there……….
Hope you can get some of the painting done.
I had a dream about painting – so I guess that means my mind really wants me to get around to painting my bedroom.
Oh wow, that dream! Thank you, Barb. I’m taking things one day at a time.
Youtube premium is a game changer, you will really enjoy it. I’ll even wager that you will seek out additional channels to watch since it is so much nicer.
David, sounds like you got some clarity on your past. I hope you are able to process it and regain your inner peace. You are a good dude, break those chains holding you in the past and focus on the future. There are so many adventures to be had. Best of luck.
Thank you, Bob. There have been so many layers that I have had to dig down through, but time and again, once I can name whatever it is that has had a hold on me, poof, suddenly its control over me vanishes. If I look at my life like a video game, the decision to open up a line of communication felt like I had reached the boss level. Little did I know. Yes, I can finally be at peace now. I have some work ahead of me to process and integrate this disclosure, and then I will be at peace. This was the final rock that needed to be turned over. No wonder my recent trip to the Grand Canyon felt so spiritual.
Wordle in 4, could have been 3, but the 1st letter was too many options.
Conniptions today – got green, but the others stumped me