Rant #3,238: In My Life

My 66 years on this earth have put me face to face with many challenges.

Being the first child, the first grandchild and the first great-grandchild, I immediately got saddled with a lot of hopes and dreams by my family.

I hope it all turned out all right.

And then through the yesrs, I had many other challenges to face, including the breakup of my first marriage and the need to constantly transform.and reinvent myself until I could find the right career direction.

I think I managed to circumvent all.of this, and sometimes things happen for a reason; you just have to see how everything eventually falls into place.

But nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for the past four yesrs, culminating with my family's move to new environs and the serious leg injury I suffered while helping us get to where we needed to be.

But while the leg injury persists, and probably will for months to come, our move is finally complete.

Just about every box has been emptied, just about everything has been put in its proper place, and I did just about nothing to help us get to this point, because quite frankly, I can't.

I still have to do our desktop computer, and hook.up everything to.it, but something I vowed that I would do this weekend continues to sit unattended, because I am still hurting from yesterday, when a mishap by the movers when transporting my records--just 45 RPM singles--forced me to spend three hours or so getting one section, in particular, in proper order.

I over extended myself, but once I got into it, I could not stop, and my leg was sore from doing this, so I vowed today would be a 100-percent rest and recivery day for me--

But all the while, my wife and son worked their behinds off doing other things to turn this apartment into our home, and while not everything is perfect, it is as good as it is going to get with just a few days here under our belt.

Some things we cannot find, and we found some things that we thought were lost for good.

Other things were damaged, but happily, most of our stuff moved to the new dwelling no.more worse for wear than they were in the old place.

But here I sit, unable to do anything, and on Friday, it really hit me.

I fell asleep, and promptly had the mother of all nightmares, as I dreamed of my accident but from a different vantage point, behind me.

So as if we had a camera on the stairs of the old house, I literally dreamed of what the accident looked like from that angle, and I woke up truly beside myself ... and I was kind of off the entire day, suffering from a depressed feeling about myself and just being down mentally the entire day.

That nightmare probably actually lasted milliseconds, but the aftermath lasted the entire day.

I kind of got out of it later in the day, but the fact of the matter is that I am doing the best I can do under very trying circumstances.

I am.in the new apartment, but I really can't fully enjoy it because I can't move around much.

But when I do see what was done by my wife and son, I am very impressed, in particular with the "can-do, must-do" attitude my family took.in getting this pretty much done without my help.

They had their own challenges, and they soared over them with lots of hard work and an equal amount of panache.

I cannot thank them enough for doing all.of this; I just wish I could have helped.

Perhaps this will.onecday be looked at as the largest challenge I have ever faced in my life, but my family has taken the bull by the horns and they did what they needed to do.

This was a very difficult period for us for a variety of reasons.

This was so difficult that my wife and I vowed that this would be our final move. Even before my injury, I think.our age definitely caught up.with us while we prepared for the move, eventually moved, and then when everything had to be sorted out as we finally relocated.

It was hard enough at age 66 ... but can you imagine doing this again at age 76, 86 ... this is going to be our final move.

I can't guarantee that ... I can only hope.