Running Through Life

Tomorrow is Boston. Tomorrow is my birthday which is the bigger event? I mean Boston is 115 years old, whereas I will only be 48. Boston would consider me a kid, a youngster. And I consider Boston old. Really old. And a little senile in dropping their qualifying times by 5 minutes. But I should respect my elders.

April 18 is a big day for a lot of runners. Some of you are lucky to be running Boston. A lot of us will watch for incoming results. Will Shalane have her big day? Will Ryan?

I will be trying to steal glimpses of the race from the conference room of work. Not everyone there understands the magnitude of this event. Not many understood the magnitude of my birthday. But some did.

For them I am glad.

It has been a bad couple of weeks for me. Work and personal. Turning a year older has nothing to do with it. Get old or die. Do we really have any other choice. But spending a birthday alone is not what everyone wants to do. Not what I really wanted to do.

So friends, such good friends that I consider them family, made sure that I wasn't alone. Hooker started it Friday night. My Hoooker - where would I be without Hoookers. Elliott and Henley took Saturday night and fed me. Spent two nice nights shooting the shit (guys don't talk, girls do) and having a few brews. It was good times.

Today was different. Mommy was taking me to dinner at 5. Red Lobster. Mikey loves some seafood. Today started atypical with a hearty (yes, not healthy) breakfast of bacon and eggs. Finish laundry, read, look at all work that needs done in TV room still and ignore that work.

Plans to see a movie later and meeting Hooker to pick up some stuff. But instead I was treated to a surprise party in my honor. Burgers, brats, dogs, party favors and cake all just for me. I loved it. There were Hookers, Elliotts, Morses and a Henley.

What's a Henley, don't ask, just be thankful there is only one.

It was a great time. Because of these people (and others) I continue to survive. I don't just hang on, but I thrive and I live. I in an existence that is codependent on them, but it is a symbiotic relationship. One that benefits both parties, though I do believe that I get the most out of it.

These people are the stuff of legends. They are knights of my round table. The shoulders of Atlas that hold me up. They are my Eureka and Nostradamus foretold of their coming.

Because of them I am.

Thank you

- the beginning of the end