Last year at this time I sat pretty much alone in an Athens hotel room going through the motions of a football season. It was the first after I'd found myself suddenly single and I was sad. I'd also just left a long career and wasn't certain of what would be next. What had previously been a time of family and celebration was suddenly sullen and a reminder of all that I'd lost.
Last night however I was dancing in a heap of sweat as part of a mosh pit in a club called "The 80's". All of the music was from that period so I danced like a virgin for the very first time with an angel who is a centerfold. Surrounded by my children, old and new friends. Standing on a stage we may as well been college students again though each of us have long passed that part of life. The joys of youth were again exploding in my heart.
This morning my hotel room looks like a bomb exploded in a laundry basket. Clothes are everywhere. The pullout couch is fully occupied. Body parts seem to be sticking out of everywhere. Coolers are leaking on the floor and evidently a liquor store was robbed and the entire inventory stuck underneath the window. After finally extracting myself from a lovely nights sleep washed in dried sweat and pleasantness, it too me fifteen minutes to find my travel bag.
Desperately needing coffee, I quickly showed and made my way down from the fifth floor of the Holiday Inn and stumbled into the restaurant. Everybody else at the Holiday Inn had the same idea at the same time so there was a long line. I recognized many of the people around me as the parents of the people that we had been dancing with last night.
"What a difference a year makes," my friend Ted Hardgrove once told me as we visited a program in Orlando that had worked hard for a year to make themselves eligible for support from a giant foundation.
Sipping coffee in a crowded and very unlonely room ... I marvel.
My extended family back on Tybee is waiting for the return to the endless celebrations that just will not end. The work that I'm doing is full of demands and needs which are increasingly becoming fun and challenging again. Bar Church wants me to do stuff. Our band, Fresh Live Lobster, needs to practice. Goddess wants to walk. Shirley wants to have dinner. Stacy and I have planned drinks. The Bored meeting needs to ... move to Marlin's in spite of Roma getting a new chair!
There is a game today too.
But I marvel at the explosion of happiness, joy and love that surround me. I've learned to ride it like a wave. The wave controls the speed and the direction. I enjoy the ride. Waves don't last forever ... nothing does ... but for now ... "Tubular Dude"!
