I received this sweet message in my in box: "It's quiet here. It's TOO quiet. Do hope all is well & if not, that you are doing what you need to do to take good care of yourself. Come back when you can, you are missed."
Things are good... well, I won't lie, they've actually been tough. One night in February, I was out having margaritas with "The Boy I Asked Out On Craigslist." He had been one of my Adventure Bowl adventures and truly one of the best adventures yet. But he was divorced and reeling from it and I was tired of dating guys who were getting over girls who were jerks. The girls not the boys. Though a guy not being able to get over a jerky girl often made them jerky themselves.
I had recently pulled out of the Adventure Bowl, "Start Going To Therapy" and the therapist had sort of insinuated that perhaps I had been too quick to throw this particular divorced fish back in the pond. So we were having margaritas and talking and laughing and flirting and now I was thinking too, perhaps I had made a mistake.
Only, cute, tall, smart guys, even when they are jerky with jerky exes do not stay single for long. He let me know, though I had released him back out into the dating wild a month ago, he was already seeing someone. For a month.
Then he grabbed me and kissed me, leaving me to feel even more confused than ever.
But there was no time to explore this because at the same time I was making out with this jerk (now a confirmed jerk because he was seeing someone else, yet kissing me) my Dad was being transported by ambulance 3,000 miles away and would spend the next three weeks in intensive care, organs shutting down, desperately fighting for his life.
So that is why I have fallen off the face of the Earth.
And how are you? Please tell me, distract me from myself. I mean it!
That said, it's not like I have not been here before, sick and sad and worried over a sick parent. I'm just getting tired of it, frankly.
However, I have not given up on the Adventure Bowl and it has saved my ass through this especially cruel few months. One adventure especially has changed my life: "Join Crossfit." When you are feeling mentally broken down, there is nothing like pushing yourself way, way, way beyond your physical boundaries.
And finding those boundaries are meant to be broken. I have spent a lot of time, drenched in sweat feeling completely broken on the floor of a gym yet with a smile on my face, shocked by what I can now do, physically.
There's some news regarding my Dad that I can share soon... and I will, I promise. Life lately has made me feel like "broken on the gym floor" is a very familiar place. But I'm definitely seizing strength from it. Getting mentally tough in ways that really surprise me.
This all might sound vague - so I'll put it this way, that Adventure Bowl has saved my ass once again. My Dad getting so sick and nearly dying would have for sure put me to bed for way longer than 100 Days. But a "new" (yet still very imperfect) me has emerged since starting these adventures and I beat back the sadness that threatened to take me down.
Summer is upon us. What adventure will you partake in? What is the thing you are dealing with right now that you most wish you had the strength for? I'd love to know.
And Karen, thank you for the sweet comment that got me to write this post ;)
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