What I actually mean is,”I’ve got so many things to say, I don’t know where to start.”
I have a heavy heart filled with grief, excitement, anxiety and anticipation. It’s like a giant jar filled with oil, water, vinegar and spices. Trapped in a tiny vessel and despite a lot of shaking, none of it seems to want to blend smoothly.
A sort of ’emotional salad dressing’, if you will. And the only greens I have around here, lie in my overgrowing yard, brimming with weeds.
It makes me think about my dad. About Dee.
No-the weeds don’t make me think about my dad and Dee, it’s the salad dressing.
It makes me think about his hammers.
About how he built her casket.
Hold your shock.
When my dad and Dee, were told that nothing more could be done for her, that their days together were coming to a quick close-they had to make a lot of decisions. She chose cremation, but California law still requires you to have a casket. Sure, some places provide you with a cardboard box-but when you’ve got a carpenter for a partner, well…cardboard just isn’t your color. I was not privy to the conversation they had about it, but I surmise it went something like this; in unison of course: “Hell no, we aren’t paying thousands of dollars for a box you’re just going to burn!” So together they chose. They chose the most logical thing. For my dad, it was probably as equally painful as it was therapeutic. The decision couldn’t have been an easy one, but knowing my dad as I do, I’m sure he put painstaking detail into this wooden box.
He didn’t have to do it.
He chose to.
Knowing it would be hard, but doing it anyway. I like to think it was his way of loving her with everything he had, to the last possible minute.
Morbid?
Maybe to some.
To me, it seems romantic and beautiful and selfless. I mean, literally, your body is surrounded by something made by someone who loved you. They measured, cut, sanded, stained and sealed every single square inch of that box, before your body went into it.
It’s just a beautiful act. That’s what it is.
This morning, while leisurely drinking my coffee, I find myself acutely aware of how blase I can be with the ones I love. How much time and energy this sport and this dream suck from me. How, at this second, I’m looking at a box overflowing with birthday accouterments from March, that were tossed haphazardly into our backroom while our carpets were being replaced. The words, BOISE taunt me from across the room-how many times has Josh looked at that box, waiting for me to put my shit away? The guilt. It manifests itself in phantom ways on a multitude of ugly levels. This training and the time constraints, they make me feel simultaneously alive and depleted. Have I loved them enough today? Did I say it at all to any of them? When they go to sleep, do they know? The selfishness required to go to this place, the Ironman place-well, it’s just not easy. I don’t mean “easy” in terms of effort-that’s a given. I mean “easy” in terms of emotion. You spend a lot of time building physical callouses in the spots that take the most hits; your toes and feet, your sit bones-those callouses make the training more bearable. But the heart-well, it just seems more fragile than ever now.
Sure it’s easy to say, “I’m signing up for an Ironman!” But it’s a whole other animal when the rubber hits the road.
Going in, you know-LIFE HAPPENS. But you don’t expect big life events to occur-you don’t plan on them happening. No one plans for death. And nothing stops for death either. The big sphere we live on, doesn’t stop spinning because someone dies or because you’ve set out on an adventure that’s going to be grueling in nature. Once the dust settles and the excitement of the ‘MOMENT’ wear off, everyone carries on with their own lives. You’re not famous, you don’t have an entourage. I mean, can you imagine if people became someones entourage just because they signed up to do something? Only Mother Teresa deserves that kind of attention.
But here you are. The one who signed up. The one who handed over your money, made your proclamation, told all your friends, wrote a blog about it (hmm, maybe I was liking that entourage deal after all?), bought all the gear, made the arrangements and did all the training. Still in the end, despite all those things-which required a tremendous amount of courage I might add-it’s up to you.
You’re still the one.
The same one who’s made millions of choices in your life. The same one who’s learning that success and failure are as much in your control as choosing chocolate cake or fruit salad.
You’re the one.
You have get to do it.
You have get to go into the check in tent and get that blue wristband.
You have get to walk to the waters edge.
You have get to start.
So ultimately, it’s all about choices.
The choice to see things in a way that helps, not hinders, is totally up to you.
When my dad chose to build that casket-he could have seen it one of two ways:
1. Damn. The woman I love is dying. I’m going to curse the heavens for something out of my control.
2. Damn. The woman I love is dying. I cannot change what is coming, but I can honor her in this beautiful way, one last time.
Don’t get me wrong here-I know it’s not as simple as that, but what if we could just choose like that? What if there was some sort of power to be had, in choosing acceptance over argument? I try to do this when I can, even in a small capacity, because it makes me feel less helpless.
I am so thankful for my faith-I lean on it a lot.
Am I seriously comparing Ironman to the death of a loved one? I suppose, in some ways, I am. But it’s not meant to be cavalier-if anything, despite the number of times death has been present in my family, this time feels so different- the adjectives just aren’t so easy to find. Maybe my own “handful of days” out from my race, has brought me to a place of high emotional intensity. To those who know me, they are not surprised. But the chasm I feel, the secondary grief for my dad, is so deep and so dark, well…it’s just not possible to see the words that describe it.
So since I can’t, I’ll just shake the vessel and pour the dressing over this bowl of mixed emotional greens.
And I’ll do it in the sunshine.
And I’ll be thankful for the gift that is long grass and an abundance of weeds.