Today marks a year I have been living life on the road. ONE YEAR?! What? I know, that’s what I said. The fastest year in history. Or it’s probably just as my dad used to say when I was growing up, “The older you get the years go by faster and faster.”
It’s been a short year of firsts, a short year of changes, a short year of growth. And I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.
Moving forward life is going to look a lot different for me, just as it will for all of you. We have and are experiencing some of the craziest times of our lives. As much as I would like to equate these crazy times that are fun, that’s another story for another time. We’ve all had ups, and downs, and everything in between through this. My hope is that you, my friends, come out on the other side a little wiser, a little kinder and a little better than you were before. And for the love of god I would just like to come out a little more graceful.
A day in the life of owning a Labrador Retriever is never dull, nor idle. At 4 and a half when in the hell is she going to slow down? Never. That’s when. Our days consist of eating, chasing the ball, eating, chasing the ball…you get the picture. Where we happen to be parked at the moment and have been for a while, just behind our site is a little overflow of water. The water goes out of the dam at the lake, through the culvert, into a pool of water, then out to a little stream.
Throw after throw, she runs past the tempting body of water, deciding if she wants to go for a swim or chase the ball again. Decisions, decisions. After about 10 launches of the ball into the field on the other side of our site, she takes a break. Into the runoff she goes. I retreat back to the camper to finish whatever I was working on before she peer pressures me into this game.
Instead of returning from the stinky water ball in tow, she is nowhere in sight. I walk over to check on her and I see her, but I can’t find the ball. She walks me back to the edge of the water and stares at the concrete lining the churning water. I search and search thinking maybe it had sunk to the bottom of the increasingly browning water. That can’t be. I walk a little further and there it is. It’s not just concrete surrounding the festering pool of sludge, there is a cinder block in the mix. That ball had managed to get wedged into one of the openings and I could barely see it just below the water’s surface. I carefully step toward the block to ready myself to retrieve this 75-cent toy, because it’s not like she doesn’t have 20 others. The rock shifts, my hand is crammed under this block and I’m thrown forward with no warning and I FELL FACE FIRST INTO THE DAM(N) WATER!
I’ve been hard at work trying to come up with just the right word. After several failed attempts, I have finally settled on Tincanaversary. Because let’s be honest, isn’t that really what it is?
