Well, it seems everything’s working like it’s supposed to, and my thanks goes out to Marco for doing a fantastic job in moving the server over and patching everything in such a way that things actually work when booting up the server. That doesn’t happen very often. People are filling up the shoutbox, and I can start filling up my journal again.
Things have been a little, eh, hectic of late. There’s a lot of stuff going on and some potential life-altering decisions and changes to be made in the near future. I also am in dire need for a good hermitic seclusion for a week or so, as I’m getting a little stressed out by little things, lately. That doesn’t happen to me very often, and when it does I usually don’t notice before everyone else has, so yeah; an open apology to anyone I may have pissed off by being a grumpy fuckhead lately.
Destressing. I had my first MMA class yesterday and it was rather brutal. Mostly grappling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu this class, but they do also combine it with kickboxing, just not yesterday. I didn’t do too badly, although the other 8 or 9 guys that were there had significantly more experience than I, and I was summarily beaten each and every time I sparred with some of them, I did manage to get some to tap a few times, which, considering my knowledge of MMA is strictly by watching it.
I had a short conversation with the teacher while we were watching some of the others spar. It was about something random and suddenly he asks me if I was a student. Now, I know I can look (and act) a little young for my age, but c’mon! So I told him that I had graduated quite some years ago, and he asked me what I had studied. Business Information Technology, I reply. He proceeds to tell me that it’s so cool that I got a degree, and that most of the guys in his class weren’t so, eh, well-educated. I looked around and saw all these tall, muscular, Cro-magnon looking guys with arms made of concrete, and I figured I probably didn’t have much in common with them.
What surprised me, as this 100 kg guy was lying on top of me trying to choke the life out of me, is that the techniques used generally don’t take quite as much effort as you might think. It’s like a chess-game, though, because the slightest difference in your positioning, or your opponent’s posture, and you’ll have to forego on one technique and go for another. It’s going to take some time before I am comfortable enough to make those decisions without it being too conscious.
On to gaming; we recently, after a hiatus of a couple of weeks while I was on holiday and Dennis and Frank were on holiday, resumed the tail end of my 18 month D&D campaign, and I’m getting excited. I think I should be busy for another three or four sessions or so before either the characters are dead, or their adversary is taken care of, at which time we’re going to play a new game in which I hopefully get to play a bit. (Dennis, you better start planning your game, dude.)
I saw my mother yesterday and she looked pretty energized. While she can’t walk any real distance and so is confined to a wheelchair when she goes out, it’s good to see she can get up and down the stairs by herself and manages to get about and do her thing. She doesn’t seem so tired anymore, but she is feeling her arthritis quite a bit now that she’s off the pain medication. She’s still being chemo’ed and they’re going to start with the directed radiology soon and hopefully that will send the cancer into remittance.
And then last but not least, I think I may have to find some counseling regarding my father. People have been telling me left, right and centre that it might be a good idea, and I’m afraid they might be seeing something I’m not seeing. Perhaps I’m not dealing with it quite as well as I thought I was. On the one hand, if it lightens the load a little, that’d be nice, on the other hand, I don’t ever want to get rid of the sadness. I want to contain it, and keep it inside me to remind me how much he meant to me.
You shouldn’t worry so much about forgetting your father or what he meant to you, because even if you try, you will never succeed in forgetting him. He will always mean as much as he does. The only difference will be in how well you can handle his loss, emotionally. Once you deal with it, and confront it, you will be able to gain strength from it, rather than it being a weakness.
And I’m sure that he didn’t want you to cry for him. *kus*
So are you black&blue today?
And I too believe that you should stop thinking of counselling as a way to eradicate your memories of your father, love that you feel for him and the sadness for his loss. Counselling is not supposed to change how you feel, it’s supposed to make you come to terms with what you feel, thus, yeah, lightening the load you bear.
I’ll pick up on planning my DnD game when we all see each other this weekend.
Cro-magnon looking? Oh I wouldn’t worry about that. I mean, with the eyebrows your sporting I’m sure you’ll fit right in in no time at all. ;)