Luck or Fate?

Last summer my wife bought herself a relatively new car. I pushed her to do it, knowing how she wasn't mechanically inclined and terrible at keeping her old car checked for air and oil. Her 2003 Suzuki Aerio had over 120,000 miles on it. Getting her the 2010 Toyota Yaris was the right thing to do.

The dealership we bought her car from wouldn't give us much for the Suzuki, so we decided to keep it. Since then I have been driving it when the roads have been good, getting around 30 miles per gallon gas mileage. Not bad for an old car. My vehicle, a 2001 Chevy Blazer, only gets 13/17 miles per gallon city/highway, respectively, so it was a savings to the business whenever I could use the Suzuki instead. 

The Suzuki was needing a lot of work done, so we made the decision on Saturday that we should sell it. Yesterday, my wife took her Yaris into our local Wal-Mart for a needed oil change and to have the (4) snows removed and original (what came on the car) all-weathers put on. One of the mechanics working that day was someone my wife knew from her school district and someone who in the past had told her that if she ever wanted to sell it, he would be interested. You see, he has one just like it: exact make and model, except his is black where ours is silver. When my wife mentioned that day that we had just decided to sell, he told her he wanted it. We asked him to come by that afternoon to see it again and talk about the repairs that needed to be done -- only a formality, because it was obvious to us he was already sold. Had he the cash with him, the care would have gone with him on Sunday. Content with the car and the price, he promised to come back this afternoon with our asked price, in cash, and dealer plates to drive it home.

Thirty minutes ago we became a two-car couple again. That's the shortest time I have ever experienced between wanting to sell a car and having cash in hand from its sale. Was it luck or fate?

Still Sucking It Up

I weighed in this morning at 176 pounds -- the second day in a row. That's good enough for me to assume it wasn't a fluke. This is one pound shy of my minimum weight loss goal, for a total loss of 19 pounds lost in over two months time.

Unfortunately, I still can't fit into any of my jerseys without looking like someone body painted them on. Sick. I will have no choice but to buy one large size jersey and accept the loss of use once I shrink down to fit the others. Ugh. I am not made of money, just unnecessary fat.

Some have expressed concerns in my methods for weight loss, so let me alleviate those with this update. As of a few days ago, when my wife and I started walking together, I have added snacks and increased my caloric intake to compensate for the extra activity. A few times over the past several days I have eaten a little too much, yet I have still lost about a pound or two over the course of a week's time. Obviously, I have succeeded in kicking up the metabolism through walking, and before that through the added zip and doo-dah I have been utilizing throughout my day. Once I start riding, along with the walking, I will have no choice but to revert to three meals a day, more calories, and I will do so gladly.

I suspect my minimum goal weight of 175 will be reached by the weekend. Once that happens, the next goal will be 165 pounds. I still won't fit into my jerseys with class, but at least I will be able to zipper up the collars. This next goal can't be reached by burning fat alone, as I will be adding the denser weight of additional muscle over time. I may even see an increase in weight, or the appearance of a lack of weight loss, even though there will be physical signs that the fat is still coming off. 

Along with the weight loss has come other beneficial changes. Without a doubt I feel better about how I look. I feel quicker, faster, more alert than I have in years. Meeting a major goal head on has opened the doors to others, as well, ones I had once thought to be out of reach and locked up tight. HOO-rah, people. I am finally sucking it up like a Marine.

The Stench of Compassion

In the last couple of years of high school, and for another couple of years thereafter, I hung out with a 'gang' of friends. Every one of them was a couple of years younger than me. We hung together, laughed together, cried together, and we promised to always be together, forever. With time passed and the responsibilities that come with maturity, we fell apart, each of us going our own way to make something of ourselves. The irony is that some of us never left the community and we still managed to lose touch with each other. In a city of only 7,500 people, one would think that to be impossible.

Several years ago I found out through the local paper that my friend Steve, whose family lived a street over, had died of complications from kidney disease. I was in my forties, then. It hit me. Hard. Because he was so young. Because we used to be close friends. Because... I had let time pass between us with no effort to keep in touch. I was upset and ashamed. So much so that I couldn't attend the funeral or calling hours.

This past Sunday I received a call on the home phone. I never answer the home phone--the calls are generally from solicitors, from the wife's cronies or the girls wanting to talk to their mother. This one time I happen to be walking by and felt compelled to pick up. The Caller-Id displayed one word: 'Private'. I avoid answering these, let them go to voice mail and decide during playback whether to call back. Not this time.

The call was from my diseased friend's mother. She wanted to know if I was still working on computers. I went through the usual battery of questions to triage the problem, then set the appointment up for the following Monday to take a look at the ailing PC.

It was a nice change, having only to drive around the block to get to an appointment. The house looked the same, though quite a bit worse for the wear. Time and some neglect changes our possessions just as it does our bodies and minds. It was the same house I used to pick Steve up from when we were going out to the YMCA to shoot some pool. It was the same house I spent a week in, back when I had left home after a bitter disagreement with my dad.

I had seen Steve's father on the streets, at the Post Office most often, but not his mother in a very long time. Her face was blotched with redness. Her voice had changed--strained. When she answered the door is when I noticed this right off, that and the strong stench of dried, old animal urine and dander that waifed over me. The smell was overpowering, to say the least. I have been in many a home that smelled as bad, even worse, have been within homes not fit for habitation, filthy beyond belief--I am, now and have always been, the consummate sales person: a professional who aptly puts aside such things and deals with the matter at hand. She preceded me to the room with the ailing computer and for the next hour I did my work, discussed my findings as I went along, explained that the job would entail bringing the PC back to my shop, and what to expect upon its return. All of this while breathing in the signs of neglect, apathy, decay and death.

As I knew it would, Steve's name was brought up. Either enough years had passed since his death and their advanced age made it possible that they didn't remember I wasn't around after it happened, or they had forgiven me long ago. I minimized my end of the discussion, neither adding or taking away from her narrative. Eventually she segued into her own physical issue: cancer. That explained the complexion, possibly a result of the chemo treatments she was taking. Her matter of fact explanation of her colon cancer and what had been done already didn't mix well with the smell of the place. It appeared to me that it had not only rained upon my friend and his family, but poured hard without compassion or care.

After I post this I will be setting up the appointment for the delivery and setup of their PC for early this afternoon. The amount of work needed to complete the setup at their home will necessitate being in that environment for at least an hour, maybe more. I wish I could avoid this, but this is, after all, what I do. I am the consummate professional. And this is for a family who took me in for a week when no one else would have. This time it's about compassion, as well as professionalism. And maybe, too, this is payback for not being around when Steve and his family needed me, all those years ago.

Being Enough -- Another Step to Writing Fulfillment

This week a fellow writer and I took another step to becoming co-authors of at least one of the books I have already started. The plots on both are not well formed and the writing on either  minimal enough that she will be able to take ownership and have equal voice in wherever the story(ies) will go.

Co-authoring is a kind of marriage. To make the writing seamless, we will have to have synergy, a minimizing of egos, and common goals that will bring us to the end of each project successfully as one writer, not two. With my new partner in writing adventure busy until mid-July -- she has a wedding to plan and attend, not to mention the get-away honeymoon to enjoy afterward -- we have minimal time to meet until then. I am inclined to think this is a good thing, giving us plenty of time to settle into each others mindset and personality. A slow entry will insure we are in sync before we need to drive the writing process in earnest. I welcome her help, her expertise, most definitely her added imagination, and I am content to wade into this relationship instead of diving in head first.

Writing is a lonely enough task at the best of times. Having a partner to push me and be pushed by me, to share universes and adventures with, to give me structure where I lack it and be accepting of what talents I can offer back, is what I feel I need most right now. For the first time in years that proverbial brass ring is in focus and appears to be in reach. Kudos to my my writing friend. May I be all that you had hoped for in a partner, and maybe just maybe a heck of a lot more.

The 'I's no longer have it

A few weeks ago I went for a much needed eye exam. It had been almost three years since my previous visit, and back then it was the typical kind given to someone whose sole purpose is to get their eyeglass prescription updated. This time I set the appointment with an eye specialist, because I knew my eyes were changing in a direction that was of great concern to me.

The exam was thorough. It didn't reveal anything new to me, other than needing to increase the power of my lenses. I still have a small mole inside one eye, supposedly benign. I still have the early stages of cataracts, though I was told at the time there was nothing to worry about for now.

The very day I started wearing my new glasses (I opted to go with new frames and lenses; top of the line materials, at that) I noticed increased magnification, but not improved vision in the reading and intermediate area of the lenses. In the distance area above, I couldn't focus beyond roughly 30 feet. A couple of days after I decided to call to setup a follow-up appointment to have my eyes rechecked. That appointment was this past Thursday. Today, I feel compelled to write about the outcome of that second appointment and how it affects my life now and will into the near future.

After some testing done, switching between the old glasses and new ones, one eye closed the other opened, alternating back and forth, the doctor concluded that my right eye (the one with the cataract) is affecting my vision to the point where I will have difficulty focusing regardless of the way the lens is cut. The cataract is clouding vision in that eye. It will always be blurry. It will get worse over time. I asked why I could see distance better with my old glasses. He suggested it is a problem with my brain retaining the old prescription and that time and usage will re-educate it. In retrospect, it did take some months to get used to the distance change with the old glasses, back when they were new. Because the cataract is at an early stage, a health insurance carrier will not pick up their share of the cost for surgery. The eye has to get much worse. 

Whenever I have listed the challenges I believe I must face as a budding writer, at the top of the list it has always been 'Education'. The reason is simple. I am not a college graduate. My vocabulary is mediocre, at best. My grammar needs polishing up. Today, I see clearly (no pun intended) that it is now 'Complications from reduced vision' that tops the list. For some time now I have noticed a growing number of typos in my writing, regardless of whether I am making a one sentence comment on a social site or composing a lengthy correspondence. I never used to be like this. Missing words. Duplicated words. Grammar, punctuation. Even the wrong choice of words, choices I know well and never had a problem with, like the difference between 'your' and 'you're'. It's frightening. I thought it was mental. It still might be that to some extent. After this last visit with the specialist, I see that my inability to focus on what I am reading is hindering my ability to comprehend what I am actually typing onto the screen. The proof of this has been right before me, if I could see it clearly.

Where does this leave me?

I have had a sense of urgency in meeting my destiny as far back as I am able to remember. In my more recent years of middle-age-dom, I have let that slide, have allowed it to become muted by apathy and changes beyond my immediate control. I have always had this fear that I would run out of time, be begging in that very last breath for one more minute to complete what I have sandbagged on or couldn't finish up to that moment. That sense of urgency is back, in spades. Someday I will have that surgery and all will be well again. Right now, I need to deal with what I have and I'm seeing there is no more time to waste waiting for the future to be better. I'm running out of time. The 'I's no longer have it.

First Step

Earlier this week, a new acquaintance on my primary Google+ profile contacted me about writing articles for his on-line webzine, a site that caters to cyclists over forty. He had caught my reference to starting up a professional writing career in one of his posts on Google+. Like myself, he was a mature cyclist trying to get back into a sport and way of life he abandoned over time. I replied with what I would like to offer, which included more than an article or two, but also the possibility of an ongoing blog on what it is like to be an older cyclist in today's fast paced sport. He agreed to my proposal. I left him with an assurance I would compose an initial offering as soon as I started riding again, which at that time was assumed to be later in the week. This was an unexpected development. I couldn't ask for a better first-step into the world I wish to live in.

When I first wished to become a writer, back in Junior High, I wanted to do so with short-stories and poetry analogies, with articles and columns for newspapers and magazines. Becoming a novelist wasn't outside of my interest, but it was beyond my belief system at the time. One couldn't self-publish back then without using a vanity press. One needed contacts and a high level of writing skill. I couldn't see any of this happening for me. Now, the opportunity to contribute to a webzine, even without compensation, is the kind of start I had hoped for and needed. 

Even as a teen I envisioned a focused level of professional writing in areas I felt I could compete in. A novel or two on the New Times Best Seller list was a long term dream I didn't want to think about. The reality I embraced was one of a columnist, a purveyor of short-stories and poetry wherever they would sell. Over thirty years have passed since I first dreamed of being that writer. A first-step into that world has been offered to me. Isn't it about time I take it?

Standing On My Own Two Feet

Things happen. Not always good things, as this week has shown us with the bombings and scares around the U.S. It's not just here, of course, not just in this country. Fear has pushed liberal, conservative and libertarian extremists all over the word to fuel violence with their vitriol and ignorance driven hate. Tolerance is a buzz word no longer in vogue, it would seem. Individual rights are condemned by those who only support those of like mind and persuasion. Somewhere in the middle of all this muddy minutiae is truth and justice, but I doubt if it can make it to the surface, let alone stay afloat. Forget about the value of human life, that is, life of all ages. But that's not what this blog entry is really about. What I want to talk about is change, opportunities that have arisen from the ashes of trauma and loss.

Recently I lost access to my best friend. I have struggled with this to depths I can't explain and some would not understand. Do you know what a best friend is? If you can tell me that you have more than one best friend, you don't know what I am talking about. This is one person, who above all other people you know gets you the most, understands you like no other can, who connects with you on a level so synergistic that at times it's just plain scary. I am speaking of a connection that makes the time spent seem like minutes when it has been hours, makes the months and years past by as if it has been a lifetime. No one gets more than one of these at a time, or ever in a lifetime, hence the 'best'. This is what I had. I believe my friend had that with me. 

Losing someone so close, so special in my life hasn't been easy. It will take many months to get past the hurt. I dare say years. And yet, I have found drive from this, a commitment I wasn't able to muster before the débâcle. This is what my friend wanted of me, too. She said I needed to move forward or all that we accomplished would have been wasted, a loss greater than our memories could overcome. Only in the past month have I been able to understand the truth in what she meant. Only in this time past have I been able to admit to myself what needs to be done and feel I could drive myself to make it happen. 

I can't say that I am thankful I lost my friend for the better person I may become. Being determined to become someone she would be proud of,  someone I would be proud to be, may mend the hole left behind, but it will never refill it with the essence of what her friendship gave to me. I still have the scars of a lifetime of loss friends and lost loves, so I know what I am talking about. Once I love someone I always love them. Once a friend touches my soul I never lose the echo within me. The difference today: I will meet my destiny, and I will do it standing on my own two feet.

Sometimes, out of the tragedy of loss we find purpose. I hope she finds out. I need her to know I will not let the good times be wasted. I will become what she believed in.