It Is Not Logical

They tell me today was Tuesday but after all that happened I cannot confirm nor deny that to be true.

Not because it was a bad day, but because it was action packed.

Felt a lot like I started running down the side of a mountain, not realizing that gravity and forward momentum would conspire to make my legs move faster than I was comfortable going.

Once you’re committed there is no going back so you focus and run hard because one twist of an ankle or misstep will lead to the kind of scrapes, bumps and bruises that leave a mark.

Those situations were much more enjoyable when you were 19 and you knew youth would make sore muscles and bruises fade within a day.

Don’t know why but somewhere in the middle of managing the mishegoss a memory of being at a roller skating rink flashed through my head.

It’s somewhere in the early 80s and I am standing on the side of the rink with some of the guys watching girls skate backwards to Dancing Queen.

One of the older guys skates over and tries to taunt us.

He mocks us for standing around and says something about how we’ll never get a girl to skate with us.

What Happened Next?

If life was like a movie we would have shocked everyone by skating out into the center of the rink and showing off moves that would have made the guys jealous and the girls swoon.

But life isn’t like the movies so we didn’t make anyone jealous or cause any girls to swoon.

And the worst part is the jerk who was taunting us didn’t trip and fall.

Probably grew up to be a very wealthy Trump supporter, but I can’t say for certain because I haven’t seen him in 35 years.

Anyhoo, let’s leave the John Hughes fantasy and move on to the sort of silly tales that keep all 983,833 of you reading.

I thought about starting by weaving a heartwarming story around the picture below but chose to go a different direction and say I just like the picture.

It makes sense to me, if you want to have a good life you need to have a little luck and love.

It Is Not Logical

The movie clip below is one of my favorites because it is one of my Go-To lines and it is perfect for some of what I am dealing with now.

Technically I was supposed to start my Thanksgiving vacation today but there was so much happening I felt obligated to work on certain projects.

In the midst of the chaos I closed my eyes and thought about how it felt like I was living out one of the word problems my math teachers used to assign.

Words and I are good friends and when I want to I am pretty good at making them work for me.

So I took a moment to catch my breath, lay out a plan and realized that somehow I had made it most of the way down the damn mountain I had been running.

Since I think in very graphic terms I pictured myself riding a horse at full gallop towards a group of less than friendly characters.

But I wasn’t concerned because I had the theme to Raiders of The Lost Ark and then The Magnificent Seven playing in my head.

And there is a rule that says you cannot lose or fail when those are playing.

Hell, I am pretty certain lightning was shooting from my fingertips and that had someone kissed me their legs would have gone weak.

One kiss and nothing is ever the same, or so those goofy poets said.

Anyhoo, when I checked back in with reality I was very pleased to see that a couple of the major challenges I have been facing were beginning to look like small molehills and not mountains.

I can’t guarantee that to be true for all of them and I know the one that I am most concerned about hasn’t disappeared or gone away.

The one that keeps me up at night is still there and it will be for some time.

Wouldn’t matter if I really was Indiana Jones, Han Solo or Luke Skywalker because it is one situation that won’t be resolved by force of will, clever problem solving skills or The Force.

Nine months in I think we might have seen some improvement, but that is questionable.

It really is one of those moments where I look in the mirror and say I have no idea what I am supposed to do but I know what I can do.

What Comes Next

If my pal Ralph wasn’t dead I’d have a long talk with him about life and I’d dig into the connection between luck and hard work.

That is because I believe they are connected.

We always need to work hard and to position ourselves for success but I have lived too long and seen too much to say luck never plays a role.

That is because it does.

Sometimes we marry someone who is a billionaire or sometimes we work for a company whose stock suddenly shoots through the roof.

Sometimes we are lucky enough to pick the right numbers or play the right cards.

But I tell my kids there is more to it than looking at life like that.

We were lucky enough to be born during a time where medical technology has wiped out diseases that used to run rampant and to live in an age where travel is simple.

Technology ensures we don’t have to work the land to feed ourselves or end our day when the sun goes down because electricity lights our homes.

We don’t worry about dying from exposure or getting sick because our water is impure.

There is some element of luck tied into those things.

****

I may not have had the sort of beginning I’d pick for a vacation, but I tonight I ate like it was Thanksgiving.

So I am going to wrap this up and go for a walk.

I haven’t decided if I am going out for some fancy Thanksgiving meal or if I’ll bake a few muffins or cookies and call it a night.

But either way I expect I better take steps to prepare for whatever sort of feast I do engage in.

Man, I miss my the metabolism I used to have, someone tell that 19-year-old kid to come home, all is forgiven.