We’ve been having a few hard days. You wouldn’t know it from the outside, but inside our hearts and minds it’s been inexplicably harder the last couple days. My bad day was Friday–which happened to be the day of my first client meeting for the new job…bad day for a bad day, although hopefully no one noticed and the meeting did go swimmingly, although that had little to nothing to do with me. Carissa’s was yesterday, when I should have coerced her into coming to paint the new office but instead she was left alone home with her thoughts.
It’s sort of like this: everything is going really well. Really well. Except for that one thing. And that one thing colors all the other really good things with if only, if only, if only.
It’s sort of like this: I still think this with frequency: Why? Why me? Why her? Why us? The most comforting logic as of late has been that these things have no logic, no reason, no prejudice. I imagine it is the sort of thing a young man of old would experience on the battlefield. There are life lessons most people never learn anymore. There are a few still who are forced to learn them. This is a wisdom I could have done without. There are lessons we learn because of our own moral decrepitude–I have had many of those. These other lessons of which I speak, they are thrust upon us most unwillingly. It is almost like we are not allowed to live as the rest of you live. We are forced to wrestle with the angel. But our story will not be written in any holy books. Our story is barely written in your memories.
I rode the Sunday morning ride as usual this morning. I’m not sure I’ve missed a Sunday this year except when I was out of town one weekend. This morning was particularly humid, however. So much time spent getting sweat out of eyes. Kit soaked in seat weighs heavy on the frame. Not to mention the difficulty it creates in the unmentionables. No matter how you prepare the Area in Question, if sweat cannot escape it, discomfort is soon to follow.
The Sunday morning ride, as usual, clocked in at about 50 miles.
So of course I followed that up with a commute by bicycle to my new office to continue (however briefly) the painting effort.
After an hour or two I joined the rest of my family for a chicken coop tour. Apparently this is quite foreign to most city dwellers, however we have been considering having chickens for a little while now. And there are enough people already doing it in East Dallas alone as well as enough interest in the practice to justify what appeared to be a very successful and popular event! Almost every stop had not just a fantastic coop but also a flourishing garden. Obviously I already live in a house with amazing food. But we’re always on the proverbial hunt for something that can make our table even tastier.
So many thoughts in between all of these, but I have not the time nor the inclination to collect them. I’m most frequently reduced to a shrug and frown and slapping of hands onto the plow. Then, later, a toast, a laugh, a story.