PlazaJen: Passion Knit

Today would have been my dad's 63rd birthday. Oddly enough, I have dreaded & feared this day, that it would find me crying & upset, and so far, I have just been subdued & mostly normal - as normal as I ever really get. Given that I thought Christmas would be no problem and his birthday very difficult, I'm starting to see that my own ideas of what will affect me aren't really great predictors. Maybe I got some of it out last Saturday, thanks in part to Grey's Anatomy ("Welcome to the Dead Dads Club. You're not in it until you're in it." So so true.) I think grief sometimes is about as clever & predictable as "Deal or No Deal". In that it's not really that clever at all, it just has the illusion you're in control. You get a number, it opens, and it's either good or bad. We have "lucky" numbers and ideas about what we can or can't control, and in the end, it just is what it is. A mix of good, bad, and in-between. Last week I cried my way to work because I had a flash of when my father was teaching me to drive, and I saw him, scrunched up against the door, grabbing the handle overhead, shouting "BIKE LANE" as I drove our extended, windowless van on the highway for the first time. (I put us in the bike lane a LOT out of fear and not knowing where I was in the road.) God love him. He taught me so much and that's my greatest sadness, that he isn't here to keep teaching me & I have to find my own way.

On an upnote, and one that gives me a reason to smile, my dear dear friend Kristin also celebrates her birthday today. We are going out to lunch and we will blink blink blink with our new Lasiked eyes, and we will laugh and remember why each and every birthday is worth celebrating.