Still truckin', doing new things. Still hurtin', that won't go away any time soon, but also finding some joy here and there, now and then. Have a fellow traveller and new friend now walking this trail with me. It's not a romance and won't be anytime soon if ever, but it is a friendship and it's good.
Attended the first major league ball game since childhood. That was fun!
This week I will attend the Minnesota State Fair with family visiting from overseas. I have never been to the State Fair. I purely hate crowds but I'm trying lots of new things. They don't all work. Most of them don't work, but some do and that's what counts.
I have learned that ya can't change the average or mean value of grief. It will be what it will be, everyone's case being different but it cannot be denied. Some contrive to stay near the mean because the lows that come after highs are painful. I've been there, done that. It's numbness. They (we) even look numb. My new friend/fellow traveller and I choose to go for some joy here and there, now and then. If it costs us, then it does but we're still alive and healing. Please don't miscontrue, that joy has nothing to do with romance or sex and won't for quite a while if ever. It has to do with laughter and companionship and just purely enjoying each other's company on our comparable and parallel journeys. We talk freely about Buck and Mary because we'll never forget or stop loving our late spouses. That's how it works.
That doesn't mean that there's no life after; she's been widowed before and had a close, treasured, and now sorely missed relationship with her most recent late spouse. It does mean that no new relationship can replace previous ones that were good. It doesn't work that way. He or she who seeks a replacement is bound for trouble. Finally got back on the trail I like here in Fridley. It's been closed after the trainwreck. It's still closed but we peons have revolted. The actual site is blocked off and few take issue with that, but that's only a few hundred feet of trail going under the failed bridge
-- which is now repaired and bearing heavy daily revenue-producing rail traffic thru Fridley, with attendant noise and stink of diesel thru the adjacent neighborhoods, but the damaged surrounding park landscape is still a mess, nearly no remedial activity is evident, and communication with the community is nil.
Blocking the trail a quarter mile away is absurd. They put up yellow tape, walkers and cyclists cut it down within minutes. They kipe our field-expedient bridges over the water-filled ditches (planks, etc) we replace them. They put up no trespassing signs, we ignore them. That gap in the fence and trail thru the weeds has been there for years, signs won't change community folkways. The gaps in the fence are clearly deliberate, the fence is made that way!
Burlington Northern Santa Fe, get busy fixing our trail that you broke. You had your revenue-producing line back in service within a week, a nearly heroic accomplishment, so there is no doubt that you have the ability and wherewithal to repair the damage to our park.
I'd been pushing hard on the alternate route. When I feel bummy (as often to usually happens about midafternoon) I push even harder. Today I found that I'd cut six minutes off my previous personal best for that route. That's about 12%.