That's Life

I wasn't going to use this title because it's really too easy to tie to anything, not quite as much so as "My Way" (one of my least favorite Frankie songs of all time) but close. On the other hand, and I'm honestly not complaining, it's been a rough few months. On Friday -- after nearly three months of waiting for a referral and going to the cardiologist for check-ups and a variety of tests and medicine changes -- I will find out what is going on with my blood pressure. Alternately, I'll find out that the tests didn't show anything. Meanwhile, I've been keeping up with my eight-week class and squeezing in as much scoring leader work as possible -- which has been a lot. Because my company offered a hundred dollar bonus for each week I work more than twenty-five hours, and bumped that to one hundred fifty dollars for each week I work forty hours, I've been getting on the schedule as much as I've been able to. These incentives won't last long -- I think the final week is the first week of May unless it's extended again -- I'm grabbing them up. My work seems like my life overall in that it's always flood or drought, feast or famine. When I can get work, I work a lot. That helps sustain me through the inevitable dry spells. I'm lucky this year to have picked up two summer classes, so the drought shouldn't be too bad.

One of the reasons I'm working so much is that I want to take a nice family trip in celebration of my youngest son's college graduation. We're planning to stay five nights in some old-style beach bungalows on the Gulf of Mexico. I've been there before; the cottages are adorable and right on the beach. Hopefully all three sons, one son's girlfriend, and my granddaughters will all be able to go, and that presents its own challenge: lining up everyone's schedule to make it work. I'm still a bit hesitant to schedule anything (including travel with my friend in May) until I find out what the cardiologist says on Friday, but I'm going to do it anyway. One thing I've let get out of control over the past few years is not doing fun things because of what's going on with my body. Now I don't care. When I say that, I don't mean that I'm not taking care of myself. I mean that if I'm going to have problems anyway, I'd rather try to distract myself and create good memories with my friends and family than sit around and worry about those problems.

Good and bad, up and down, sick and healthy, feast and famine, flood and drought. A time to reap, a time to sow (yes, now I'm just being silly). But it's true; it's all a big rollercoaster of better and worse times, and the best thing to do is enjoy the ride. That's life!