What Doesn't Kill You...

Otherwise Known as... Blogging as Procrastination...

Friday afternoon, prior to leaving My Small Town High School after what was quite possibly the busiest, craziest week EVER, I loaded my backpack with all kinds of projects and such to work on over the weekend. 

It's three o'clock on Sunday afternoon.

I haven't touched the pack.

I do have plans to do at least a bit of my homework... when I complete this post.

Maybe.

What I have done is put together a thousand piece puzzle depicting the Peanuts characters on the Bridge over the Tokaido, a classic Japanese scene originally depicted in u-kiyo (woodblock print).  I have owned the puzzle for 10 years; this is the second and final time I have put it together.  I say final because it is now glued, set to be framed and hung on my wall closest to the east.  Mt. Fuji is in the picture, and Japanese lore claims that it is good luck to have Fuji hanging on one's eastern wall.  

GDA came over Friday night for tea, and helped me with the puzzle.  Despite our breakup, we have remained friends, and it was nice to have the company.  He left around 11:30 and I promptly went to bed.

Putting together a puzzle on a Friday night, with an ex-boyfriend, well past bedtime.... I live a wild and crazy single girl life.  :-)

Both weekend mornings I have gotten up and gone running, completing a stretch session and a good number of pushups upon arriving at home.  Running on the path at My Small Town Lakefront is much nicer than running on the sidewalks of Sportsman's Estuary, largely due to the breeze coming off the water.  There was no breeze this morning in the Estuary, just air thick with humidity.  Yesterday I could literally see the water droplets.  Not heavy enough to be fog, but far from a clear fall morning.

I know fall is coming.  It is October, after all, and the stores are postively groaning with Halloween candy. 

Yesterday I was fortuitous enough to be running errands at the same time that This American Life was playing on NPR.  This is my favorite radio program, and I do believe that yesterday's show was the best I had listened to, ever.  That is saying a lot.  The show opened with a comic who had just found out she had cancer, less than two months after losing her mother, and other less-than-desirable life events happening to her.  Tig Notaro speaks to her audience, doing her standup routine, telling them the truth of her life.  And she makes it  funny.  Her display of strength and courage in the face of undeniable adversity is amazing.

I buried my dad in January, and am about to celebrate my first birthday and holiday season, without the most important man in my life.  I am a little bit terrified.

But I'll be okay.  I know that I'll be okay, eventually. 

I know that life goes on, but my world is a little less joyful without my dad.  And I am SO tired of tearing up when I think about him.  Everyone says you get to a point when you have a memory about your parent and it makes you happy... but I'm not there yet.  I'm still in the weepy stage.  I am so ready to not be weepy.

That said, I'm back in full form at work, which is very important.  And the rest of life... will fall into place sooner or later.  I just have to be patient, and allow myself to go through hell... and keep going.

And, you know, that which does not kill us makes us stronger.  I fully expect to be able to lift a Mack truck in 2013.