I love German engineering

The car I mentioned in my previous post [I'm still getting used to the sound of a flat six...trust me, it sounds much more awesome when you stomp on it]:

confessing to the ether

Been in a funky state of mind...life is a mix of good things, bad things, and awkward things, and I think my brain is tired from keeping it all sorted out.

Good things: My car finally came in after nearly seven months of waiting [Porsche Targa 4S, with the Carrera Powerkit upgrade, of course]. Will and I are still pretty much retired, still loving spending time with each other, still appreciating life and what it took to get here. The landscaping is settling in nicely [yay for drought tolerant planting], animals [dog, cat, and snakes] are doing well. Been doing cool things with some very cool people [drives with good friends! lunches and dinners with like-minded people! indoor skydiving! car enthusiast gatherings! cheering on friends at motorcycle races! track days!].

Bad things: One of my closest friends continues to deal with the aftermath of a cancer diagnosis...I'm lucky to have them in my life, and it's so damned frustrating to see a good person have to go through this crap, and I feel helpless. In my own life, I keep running into the repercussions of my twice-broken and many-times-sprained ankle...some days it just locks up and won't cooperate, other days it radiates annoying sonar pings of pain from the sight of the most recent bone damage, and sometimes the muscles/tendons are just weak enough to keep me from being very graceful [cue zombie lurching]. A nasty bout of food poisoning that took both of us out for a couple of days, though poor Will got hit much, much harder by it.

Awkward things: This 3-4 month period is always odd for me [at least from 2009 and on]. A few close friends have fallen off the radar as their lives evolved...a natural progression of life, but it still aches. I've been missing my parents a lot lately...Mom would love the car and the back patio, Dad would love the house and the animals in the area, both would love Will and what we've built together. A thousand random things that still cause those pangs of nostalgia and loss, and for some reason they've been compounding lately.

Another awkward thing: A friend of ours is going through a divorce. Never pretty, rarely easy, and this one has some familiar circumstances: they'd been together for a decade or more, the other strikes up a close friendship with someone at work, ends the marriage, says it was a long time coming and they just need to be alone, then a suspiciously short time later is in a relationship with the work person. My friend is dealing with a lot of the same stuff I did, but with added complications: a child and life in the era of social media. I still remember that awful night when I found some pictures online that I wish I hadn't, confirmed suspicions I didn't want confirmed, and learned that someone else was using the same pet name for him that I did...now multiply that by Facebook and the resulting web of friends and acquaintances and it gets really, really painful for my friend. The weird Venn diagram of "people who knew about the affair" and "people who didn't" and "people who enabled it and covered for them" and "people who aren't okay with it" and "friends caught in the middle" gets even worse when social media is involved. They are amazingly resilient and will come through this an even more brilliantly independent and self-aware person, but damn, it sucks to see them going through it. And it sucks to see the same stories repeating over and over and over...

So yeah. Good stuff with some weird stuff thrown in, which then makes you feel guilty for being down when there is so much good stuff in your life. Luckily I've got myself surrounded by folks who understand that you can be down even when things are good...that makes it easier to feel it, acknowledge it, and then move forward. I can honestly say that this period in my life is one of the best for the people I have around me...good, strong friends who have traits and abilities that I admire and I aim for in myself. So now, in large part because of lessons learned from my past, I can appreciate what I have in the present, even when I'm feeling out of sorts. It's not so much a "quit your whining" situation as it is a "whine as much as it takes to get it out, then enjoy what's out there".

[And sometimes "enjoying what's out there" can be as simple as a mid-afternoon nap on a grey and drizzly day. :^) ]