Track season came to an end yesterday. I followed up my final high school track meet of the season by driving to UCLA and watching a professional meet with my friends from the USA Track and Field Foundation. I even got to hand Parker Valby her big fake check when she won the women's 5,000. That's what she called it. I liked that.
By the time I got home it was past nine but I was feeling restless so I wandered over to the neighbor's, where a friendly poker game was in session. I didn't play because I know my limitations when it comes to poker. Just ate pizza and hung out, enjoying the smell of cigars. I gave up cigars a long time ago. Calene wouldn't kiss me after I smoked them, which took the romance right out of things. Better to give up cigars than the seductions of a beautiful woman.
Three months in, I'm trying to be consistent with my habits and routines. The urge to rebel like an adolescent has thankfully not visited me. I wake up at the same time, chug the same horrible concoction of protein powder and collagen, feed the dogs. I'm writing again, which fills the morning. Practice fills the afternoon. It was my habit to treat myself to a beer before coming home when Calene was fighting the cancer, a respite where I would also edit pages or read. Caregiving is draining under the best of circumstances. That was my time to gather myself and recharge so I could be my best in the evening with my Queen.
But now we have the end of track season. The four-week gap until the start of cross country means a break in the routine. It is the routine that sustains me, just as my dogs and coaching and friends who come alongside me and check to make sure I'm handling things. So in the absence of coaching I need a place holder for the afternoons to keep my mind distracted. I am a man who can do anything he wants right now, free to smoke all the cigars the world can offer. A still small part of me fears I will unravel if left with too much time on my hands.
My plan is to use those afternoon hours to go full Henry David Thoreau. Four weeks of nature and meditation. Let the hikes get longer. The runs more consistent. Movement and solitude spurs the thought process.
This could all be mental masturbation. No profound breakthrough might come from this time, which is quite beside the point. It's certainly not meant as a time to process, because I am learning that managing grief has very little to do with managing a therapy issue. It's pain and numbness and brain fog and loneliness and total confusion about how life is meant to be lived. I'm experiencing it anyway. Might as well drop a few pounds and sweat a little as I figure this out.