What a Wonderful World

It occurs to me that I must, at times, sound more than a little unstable. In a way, I find that thought both amusing and disturbing. Why I find it amusing I cannot say (that disturbs me), I find it disturbing because if I would happen to slip off the deep end one day, there would be no one there to catch me. In fact, no one would notice except Don and God help me if it happened during coaching season or when he is preparing for a race of his own. He would have no time for that, at the moment I am quite convinced it would please him if I quietly slipped away. I know I am being irrational, but sometimes I just have to get it out in the open. Do you see? Then I can move on.

I regret to say these feelings are nothing new. I always feel this way during coaching season. Don knows how I feel and somehow or other, we manage to muddle through. A few hugs and a couple of hours of attention and I am good to go for another 3 or 4 weeks. That is why we made a rule when he decided to continue coaching, I get one day a week. The rest of the week he can come and go as he pleases, knowing there will be a meal, a bed and fresh laundry when he needs it. The problem this year, aside from the headaches, is that we are not getting that one day a week. Between coaching, social commitments and headaches it has been impossible. To be fair, I really do not believe hospital days count as my day, even if we are in a dark room alone.

There is a point to all of this. As I sit here in my easy chair listening to a voice that always makes me smile, singing my theme song (I live and breathe every word) I just cannot help wishing that I had had the opportunity to meet Louis Armstrong. I read somewhere that he had never had a Christmas tree until his wife surprised him with one in a hotel room while they were on the road. He lay there in that bed, slept in by so many, held his wife close and and drank in the sight of the Christmas tree lights. I am positive that at that precise moment he had to think to himself, what a wonderful world. In my opinion, his version of that song epitomizes life. No matter how bleak or gloomy, how sad or lonely, it is a wonderful world. And I am thankful to be a part of it. When all is said and done, my passions; Lee Child and Reacher, Cornelia Read and Madeline Dare or Lisa Gardner and Bobby Dodge, Louis Armstrong or New Age music, whatever a passion may be, I think it translates back to the basic fact that passion is also known as living.

There is always hope.

Betty