Sunday, June 14, 2015

Heroes: Papa Harold


A few days after I came home from my mission, I got the flu.
Spent the whole day on the couch feeling ill and anxious.
#party
When dad came home from work that day, he suggested that I accompany him to shovel dirt at my sister's house.
And though that sounded like the worst idea ever, I went.
And it was like magic.
I sweated out all my impurities and felt good as new.
Manual labor man.
Whooda thought?

A few weeks into life at home, dad came home at 3:30 pm to find me laying in my bed, looking like a zombie.
Dad: What's wrong?
Me: Nothing.
Dad: Oh yeah? Most people who are okay aren't laying in bed at this time of day...
*throws me car keys*
Dad: Go to the gym.
And again, he was right.
I felt much better after that.

A few months later I decided to do a sprint triathlon.
Dad did too.
He never left my side.
He biked in front of me to break the wind.
When I fell off my bike and started to cry, he tough loved me into getting back up and carrying on.
During the run, (mind you, my jog is the speed of most peep's walk) he jogged backwards so he could keep pumping me up.
He wouldn't let me stop.
He stayed with me until we crossed the finish line.

That's how my dad rolls.
And I could not be more grateful.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Heroes: Shirlay


 Sometimes, life just really sucks.
Just really bad.
And that's a fact.
And admitting that is an okay thing to do.

More facts:
Misery loves company.
When your life sucks, it's oddly comforting to spend time with someone else whose life sucks.
So Shern and I (dear friends since pre-pubesance) were especially useful to each other in the early months of 2014.
We were both miserable.

So we ate out.
A lot.
Comfort food man.
It helped.

So one night we're driving back from Liberty Market and we start LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY.
Why?
Cause we were so unhappy.
Things were really bad.
And we laaaaaughed about it.

And that helped.

We were each other's date for Valentine's that year.
It was great.

My birthday was fraught with fruitless hope.
Shern did everything she could to make it not horrendous.


I will always love her for that.

We've had years and years of amazing friendship.
Those months represent the epitome of that bond.

And though there's no way I'd ever go back and repeat that time,
because of Sheridan....
I'm glad they happened.