The Desire to Keep Going Straight, 7

My life has had a clear pattern of finding patterns and routines and perfecting them to suit my needs.  Once I find something that works for me I am very resistant to changing it, whether it be a certain type of food, a brand of toothpaste, a 15 year old t-shirt, a route to work or infinite other things.  I like knowing what to expect from situations and one way to do that is to craft guardrails that keep things inside boundaries.

Despite this hard wired desire to live my life primarily in this manner when I venture out of the routine via cross country road trips, a cruise, vacation or many other random events in my life I always find myself discovering new moments that I hold onto and cherish.  It’s a weird dichotomy to me.  Over the last 3-4 years there has not been nearly enough of that deviation from the path straight ahead for a number of reasons. I need to try to be more mindful of what I am doing with my time as it becomes an ever more fleeting resource with the passing of each year.

One event that definitely threw me far off my path was the passing of mom, which happened on this day in 2014.  I still think about that day and wonder how mom would be if she was still with us today.  I wonder what sort of thoughts and advice she would have for me as I move through life at this advancing age.  I definitely see an increasing amount of parallels in my journey and hers.

The soon to be reformed Tropical Storm Fred is forecast to roll by our area this weekend with the promise to bring a lot of moisture with it.  There is still standing water in certain areas of the property so a major dumping of rain is not welcomed, at all.  The winds should be no worse than what we get with typical thunderstorms so if there is any silver lining, that is it.

I have a number of things to do this weekend, we will see if any of those plans get washed away.  I am excited that my next electric unicycle is only a few days away from arrival.  Gone are the days where I would buy several new EUCs every year.  This is the first wheel I have bought in 2021 and probably will be the last.

I leave you with a picture of the front doors of the Everglades City city hall building, for no particular reason.