Flashback 2006

Two years ago today I celebrated my birthday a day early riding roller coasters, sliding down drop slides, and enjoying the tubes in the water park. It was fun. Quite fun. Especially since trigirl82 didn't really like roller coasters, but I persuaded her to ride every single one with me. It was great. Ha. You're welcome.

We spent the day with a handful of people, most of them people I didn't know, but people that we had gone camping with in Idaho. Pretty much trigirl82, myself, and my good friend Jesse spent the day together riding the rides and eating junk food. Yummy.

You never think that when you say goodbye at the end of the day, you might be saying it forever.

Within the next 12 hours Jesse was dead. Hit by a semi-truck.

I don't agree with people when they say it doesn't get any easier. I think it gets easier...in a way. Life always goes on when people die. The time that was taken up by that person, gets taken up by other people. There are moments initially when you want to pick up the phone and call that person because something you heard, or saw, or thought reminded you of them, but then you realize that they are no longer a phone call away.

Life is unpredictable. It's random at times. It doesn't make sense a lot of the time. It's just life. That's the way it is.

I'm not one to grieve forever. Grieving forever doesn't solve anything. It doesn't bring that person back. It doesn't change the things that were said or not said when they were around. I can't help but to remember though where I was two years ago. What we were doing. How fragile life is. If anything, it inspires me to want to be a better person and not to sit around waiting for "someday" to do the things that I'm putting off. Someday may never come. We don't know. Then it will be too late.

Now is the time to do the things that we want. My dad rode is bike across the United States this summer. Why? Because he wanted too. It's never too late. I signed up to run 50 miles in a few months. Why? Because I think I want to see what my body can do. I like the pain. I like to achieve something that other people say isn't possible. I like to at least give things a try instead of being the person on the sidelines of life saying, "I could never do that." or "I wish I could do that." or "Someday I'm going to try that...in two years when I'm more prepared." Trust me people. I don't feel prepared for half of the things I do in life, from walking out the door in the morning, to finishing Ironman, to running 50 miles. But, if I don't try for it now, I may run out of time. I want to be the person that when I die people will be able to say that I tried things in life. I attempted things and whether or not I achieve them, I will at least try. I want a list of things that I want to do in life when I die, but I want that list mostly crossed off. There's no time like right now to start breaking out the red pen and crossing items off. Here we go.

Looking back makes me appreciate the people in my life that I still have, even more. I'm blessed to have an amazing husband, a super fun kid, a family that loves me, and a few friends that I still call friends. (Seriously, I'm not great at making friends, but the ones I have I love:) I tend to be very sarcastic and angry sounding, but on the inside, I'm really just a pretty nice person who really cares about people. I know, hard to imagine. I like you guys. That's all.

Thanks for being an inspiration Jesse.