Day By Day

Today was the day I decided to change over my dry erase calendar.  Now, I am absolutely horrible at keeping that sucker up to date. And I don't know if part of it is lazy, forgetful, or psychosomatic. See, I used to be pretty good at keeping up on it.  Then August 2012 happened. I was a bridesmaid in my cousin's wedding and I had a very poor lapse in judgement that could have cost me my life had I been any less cautious. (Never mix medication and alcohol, even if you don't think you take a high dose and you don't plan to drink a whole lot..things very rarely work out the way you plan when you're caught up in a moment like that).  It's something I'll have to live down forever, especially when there are people who have vowed to never let me forget, be it an inability to forgive or it just being "funny" or I don't know what.  Long story short, it was a huge thing and I have a hard time even forgiving myself for it, but I'm moving on day by day.

I finally decided to change my dry erase calendar again in late March of 2013. It was "March-April 2013" and the last week on the calendar was the week of April 15, 2013.  This happens to be the day of the Boston Marathon bombing which affected a very close, very dear friend of mine. It really isn't my story to tell, but I can share how I remember the day.  It was misty/rainy and I had to work, which I don't do on Mondays.  I had to get a cell phone from the office in Green Tree with one of my residents. We went to Wendy's for lunch and got the Asagio Chicken Sandwiches. On the way back I was telling my resident about my friend is running in a marathon and I had signed up for text messages to get checkpoint updates.  He thought that was the coolest thing (I think it is the coolest thing too) and he wanted to do one too.  I had told him that he was going to be doing the Highmark Walk in a couple weeks, and that would be pretty close (1K fun walk = 26.2 miles.  Don't question my math....ever).

Well, the rest of the story probably tells itself. Sitting on the couch watching FRIENDS, keeping an eye on my checkpoint update text messages, I happen to hop onto Facebook. Somebody I went to high school with had posted something along the lines of "bombing at the Boston marathon? what is the world coming to?" I flipped over to a local news channel (probably having to check the TV guide to see what channel the news was on....Who do you think I am? somebody who watches the news?) and sure enough, I saw the replays on the TV, smoke in the air, people running -- away, not in any way "Marathony" -- and crying and screaming....and I was frozen... because when you only have one way to get ahold of somebody you care for and it is by far not the best, fastest, or smartest thing to utilize, you shut down.  Then, you go back to the message that said the person you are tracking has finished the race.  And you find a Facebook post indicating that the person is OK, considering, and you still subject yourself to the news coverage until you're convinced that FRIENDS is a much better thing to be watching.

As chance would have it, I recently updated my dry erase calendar again. It was fairly ironic, since I hadn't really paid much attention as I did it til I noticed what had happened, that It was pretty much a year later that I updated.  I had March-April 2014, which went up to the end of this week. Today, I updated it again...as a way to get myself back into the habit of knowing the actual date....being in the right year....so that when I am on the phone with somebody and I go "What is today? 2014?" and completely invalidate my entire credibility. But it takes a lot for me not to think that updating my calendar is related to traumatic events.  Clearly I change the dates before shit happens, but it's a tough pill to swallow.

But it's something, that every traumatic event....and by no means am I saying these events were only traumatic to me, mostly traumatic to me, or traumatic in any similar fashion to people closer to some of these events...can only be dealt with day by day.  And nobody should ever expect more from somebody. Everyone deals with everything in their own way.  You can't make me forgive myself for my cousin's wedding day debacle any earlier than I am ready to accept and move past it...I have to take it day by day. And the terrifying memories of Bostonians will not go away at the drop of a hat, if ever, but day by day they will find themselves. They will find themselves as they are, not how some terrorist decided to define them. They are Boston Strong, and they are truly heroic.

If I could tell the city of Boston one thing, it would probably have something to do with my post yesterday. Never Say Never. Don't give up on being you because without you, the world would not be the same. You're still here, you're a survivor, and you are exactly who you need to be.  As you take your place at the starting line next week, just know that you're amazing and your accomplishments outweigh your fears and doubts.  As you line the streets to cheer on friends and family, just know that you're amazing and your support stifles so much hate in the world.  As you move on, day by day, know that you're amazing, because you're Boston, and that's all you need to be.

Orion's Belt

Whenever I find myself outside at night, I'm always looking for Orion. I don't know why that particular constellation has stuck with me for the past ten or so years, since I took Astronomy in my freshman semester at Delta College.  But, no matter where I am I find myself looking for the three distinct stars shaping Orion's belt, the cluster forming his sword, Betelgeuse ("armpit of the great one"). Following his armpit, you find him fighting Taurus. Three more distinct stars. Following his shoulder, you run into --- I forget if it is Ursa Major or Ursa Minor. I believe the line takes you all the way to the North Star.  I suppose if I found my planesphere (as that is so much easier than the internet quite literally at my fingertips as we speak?) I could tell for sure.

Sometimes I don't realize how much I was influenced by this astronomy class. That is, until one of my residents at work walks me to my car and points to the sky asking me to find Orion for him, which we have done on several occasions I guess.  Like I said... I find myself always looking for Orion, so this must have happened hundreds of times over the past few years.... or at least a hundred times? We could follow a logical strain of events, but that would lead to math....and I hate math.

Today I talked with my buddy about why we couldn't see Orion tonight specifically.  Seeing as I didn't have my planesphere (which I went into great detail to explain to him, and he was very VERY good at humoring me or he really did follow exactly what I was saying), I opted to draw diagrams ... with my finger on the hood of my car, which neither of us could see because there was no condensation and the garage light was too bright. That led me to explaining light pollution and how if we really wanted to look at cool stars we'd have to find a really dark place so all we could see was the moon and stars.  Then I decided to use body diagrams to explain how the earth rotates on an axis as it revolves around the sun. I let him be the sun.  That was cool.  Especially when he started spinning in circles because I was.

I don't know why I decided to write about this today.  It was just a pretty cool experience I had, I guess.  There aren't many things I feel like I know enough about to go into such great detail, but it was one of those moments where you sit back after it all happens and think, "wow, I really did learn something that stuck." And I think it's cool that somebody actually SEEMS to want to learn something based on my knowledge of the subject.  I feel like I could have gone on and on for an hour about the stars today.

And to think, most people just think of Men In Black when they hear "Orion's Belt."