Progress and past lives

(update on the car accident kiddo: he's out of ICU! PHEW. Long road to recovery, but he's on his way.)

This weekend the kids slept over with grandma, and I painted, painted, painted. Two layers away from being done with the fabric, and then I can work on the background.

Two afternoons of progress

And then out of the blue, my inbox dinged and I had a message from one of my best college friends, the marine who rented a room from my aunt for a few years. We used to ride his motorcycle down to Kailua to drink mocha milkshakes at the hippie coffee shop with his military biker buddies. Once, while collapsing on the comfy old coffee shop couch, I noticed a couple of girls staring and whispering from across the room. They turned out to be the recent-ex-girlfriends of my high school boyfriend, who evidently shared pictures of me because I was the infamous bitch who trampled his heart. It was the most fortuitous moment of my teenage life that I happened to be wearing a cool leather jacket and surrounded by marines when they spotted me, the Harlot of Legend.

As the friend and I chatted and caught up on 15 years of bad decision-making and marriage, I took down the old box of photos from college - not the nice album, or the love box, but the careless pile of blurry classmates and summer breaks and family gatherings. It was studded with landmines: laughing lifeguards; Mike at his most tanned and golden-curled; me at my saddest and fattest. Rough stuff, young adulthood. 

me at 18, in Sarasota, Florida, before most of that

I pulled out the photos of the marines, carefully tucked the happy lifeguard pictures to the front of the pile, and then thumbed to the very end.

From the late-college-era I found a homemade envelope containing a card I never sent. Look at this thing. It is a marvel of youthful angst.

so rusty and artistic

mood lighting over a table that we should be sitting at SOB

Oh, self.
Mail the card, lose the weight, and go be a painter. 

The good thing about knowing what you should have done is that it makes it easier to decide what you will do from here out. I think this is just called a mid-life crisis, but it is a traditional and time-honored way to get this shit done. Go to the places! Learn the skill! Send the email! Take your ibuprofen and do the goddamned push-ups!

I would put "learn to ride the motorcycle" on that list, but I have crashed enough bicycles to know with absolute certainty that I would pitch myself over the handlebars almost immediately.

But I'll paint until my arms fall off, and try to get on a plane more often.

 let's mark the Era of Good Decisions with a selfie in the toilet, that is fine

What's on the wish-fulfillment to-do list, folks?