Day: November 7, 2018

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Memories R U

I’ve been thinking about how much I enjoyed my balloon ride in Albuquerque a couple of weeks ago. Tie o’ the Day is here to tell you I had a whale of a good time.🤡 Honestly, I did. There are things you don’t even know you want to do, but after you do them, you can’t imagine what kept you from doing it for so long. My balloon flight is a perfect example of that. Why did I finally do it? Because I was there and the balloon was there. Simple as that. That single hot air balloon ride added a nifty story to the essence that is “me.”.

We should do more things like that, and for that reason: WE ARE HERE. We might be surprised sometimes about how important some things can become to us, when we didn’t even know we’d ever do them. Some of those because-it-was-there experiences might turn out to be boring, or we might even regret doing them. Or they could transform our perspective in a positive way. They could alter the course of our lives for the better. But how do we know how it’s going to turn out if we don’t get out of our comfort zone and try a thing or two we never seriously considered. I guess I’m saying to get into your “discomfort zone” and explore.

Jump off that intimidating too-high diving board. Decide where to go on vacation by closing your eyes and sticking a pin on a map. Go to a concert by a band you’ve never heard of before. Take a college course in a subject you think you don’t care about. Take up a sport you hate to watch. Strike up a real conversation with someone you don’t know very well. Ask an “enemy” to lunch. Volunteer to do good deeds you know you’re not very good at.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Face a fear. Experience something that isn’t something the “you” you think you are would normally do. It can be a bigly feat. It can be a teeny-tiny step. Whatever it is, it will enlarge your soul. You will be changed forever, if only in the sense that you’ll know yourself and the world better than you did before.

Memory is what you carry with you wherever you go, but you have to make memories in order to have them to carry. Get a very big backpack to haul them around. And don’t be selfish: unzip that backpack and share your memories with others. 🤠

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No Lectures Today

I’m wearing one of my truck ties as Tie o’ the Day, and I’ve got my gear shift Cufflinks o’ the Day for your viewing pleasure.

I’m contemplating my truck. Specifically, I’m thinking a blasphemous thought: It might be time to sell or trade in my beloved 98 Isuzu Hombre. I can’t believe I’m even considering the idea. But I’m not able to shift it right now, and maybe forever. Oh, Hombre is doing well for its age. My right shoulder, on the other hand, is not.

I’ve had arthritis in my shoulders for over decade, and moving the gear shift has been no problem. But whatever is going on with my shoulder now is something completely different. It hurts constantly with stabby, near-shocky bolts of pain. It feels like it wants to dislocate itself. I have a doc appointment next week, so I’ll get to the bottom of it, but my shoulder is as old as I am– and we all know what that means. Maybe it can be fixed. Maybe it’s just a new, unwelcome development of age. For right now, I’m more upset about not being able to drive Hombre than I am about my painful shoulder.

I never knew how important my right shoulder is. For example, I sleep on my right side, so I have not slept well since I can’t sleep on my right shoulder. Also, “my” side of the loveseat is on the right side, which means my drink and notebook and pen and nail file are to the right side of the loveseat. The pain in my right shoulder prohibits me from retrieving my drink, etc. from that side. Suzanne and I have had to switch butt-sides, so I can sit on the left to use my left arm.

I don’t know about you, but it’s a big deal to switch furniture sides, whether you’re switching places on the loveseat, the bed, or at the kitchen table. We have our seats. We have our places. We like it like that. I have no idea why people are like that, but we are.

Damn shoulder. I don’t want to not drive my truck. 😭