39 1/2

I forget what age we are when we stop saying that we a ½ our age. Lily will be seven in a couple of weeks and she still replies “6 ½” when asked how old she is. Today, I am 39 ½. Cyndi celebrates half birthdays with the kids every year with ice cream. We tried to get Gelato today which would have been cool. But the place was closed. Maybe tomorrow.

It was six months ago today, that I began blogging about a year in my life until I turn 40. I’m not ready to admit that I’ve learned anything yet, but I know I have. I’m happy with the direction this project is taking, satisfied with the occasional feedback I receive from friends and family, and content with my writing life. I’ve never been so diligent in all of the years I’ve been writing. Something has always gotten in the way, life itself, mostly.

When my dad died, I had the goal to write something about how I was feeling, again for a full year. I asked my brothers to do the same thing. I even went out and bought them each a dozen notebooks and pens—the ones I like to use when I write—and tried to encourage my desire in them. We were going to celebrate the effort by driving in a convertible from Chicago to Los Angeles along Route 66; something my dad always wanted to do later in life, but never got the opportunity to realize. Neither one of them got past a day or two in the task. I, myself, didn’t make it past a few weeks. There are a ton of “dead father memoirs” out there, and my project didn’t seem unique enough as a solo effort.

It was unfair for me to expect my brothers had the desire to write at all, let alone on a daily basis. Writing is my thing, not theirs. They didn’t ask me to take one of their passions and make it my own in an effort to get through the grieving process. I am not sure what either of them would ask me to do, really.

I guess that was half of the point. When our father was sick, we spent a lot of time together. Waiting in the emergency room, waiting in the hospital room, waiting in the ICU, and the rehab center, and the emergency room again, and the ICU again. Waiting. We were together every day for six weeks. It was the most time we had spent with one another since we all lived together under one roof. As good as that was for our relationship, it actually bothered me a bit. I was irritated by the fact that illness brought us together; that the fact that our father lay dying in a hospital bed pushed us to see each other more frequently than we did. It shouldn’t be that way. We should want to be with our families when times are good, not just make the effort when someone is sick or dying.

But that is what we did. I suspect that’s what many people do. Time, distance, and healing has brought us all apart again. I think they both read this blog pretty regularly, which makes me feel good. It helps them understand the things I am thinking, and dealing with in my life. It helps them know me better. It keeps me in their thoughts on a regular basis, despite the fact that we are not always physically together, and neither one of us is sick.