We Made It!

I could’ve quit but I didn’t.

It’s not like it was such a big deal. I didn’t paddle a kayak across the Atlantic Ocean or ride my bike from Jersey to L.A. I didn’t climb Mt. Everest or swim from Cuba to Key West.

All I did was blog every day in November. Nothing extraordinary. Words on a page. That’s all. I put words on a page every day in November.

I won’t even say it was hard. It wasn’t hard. But I will say that there were times when it was a wee bit difficult.

I had a huge project to finish in November.

I had cochlear implant surgery in November.

I had Thanksgiving in November.

I had the Green Bay Packers in November.

And anchoring it all, I had blogging every day.

November was a month that took a little grit. It’s November 30th and I’m all in one piece. I got everything done that I was supposed to get done. I was a trouper.

I finished my big project after much frustration and angst. I had my cochlear implant surgery, had my head bandaged like a WWI veteran and slept sitting up. I weaved my way around my house, making everyone nervous about whether I could make it down the stairs on my own. And then I drove my car to the bank.

We made Thanksgiving dinner and it was pretty decent. There was a full table – in more ways than one.

I sat for four hours in the rain and watched the Green Bay Packers lose to the hated Chicago Bears and got tears in my eyes when the beloved Bart Starr and Brett Favre, Green Bay’s legendary quarterbacks were honored at halftime. Never mind that I sat on the floor of the ladies room under the towel dispenser during the 2nd quarter wringing out my drenched gloves and bemoaning my fate.

It was a month of a lot of little nadirs. And a lot of trusting that everything would be okay. And it was. A lot of family members watching out for me, putting a strong arm under mine, spotting me when I started to waiver, being normal but not. So many good hands I was in. They helped me get well fast.

A couple of times this month, I heard my dad talking. “There’s no quit in that old gal,” he’d say. Usually, it would be about a car or maybe about his 80-year old mother rowing her boat out to the middle of the lake to fish for sunfish with a cane pole.

“There’s no quit in that old gal.” I’d like that to be said about me. Not about blogging. About me.