Timing Is Everything

A few weeks ago, my home office had become overrun with Eddie’s Road and TeamStrange business.  I had little stacks of stuff everywhere and two cats who loved to play on and in all the piles.

When Eddie & I shared this space we had a similar issue.  I love to think of myself as organized but I know it is really a sham.  The fact is that if I don’t stay on top of it, it could quickly look like a scene out of Hoarders, Buried Alive.  So back then I bought some of those cute, fabric box-like containers, labeled them – one for Eddie, one for me and proceeded to throw stuff in them.

Eddie’s was quickly overflowing and remained that way until the day my other jobs had outgrown the top of the desk.

I took the containers and emptied them on the guest room bed with a plan to go through all of it “soon”.  Soon finally came this morning.  Jon is coming to visit and this is his room (when it isn’t inhabited by Cassy or Ardys).  He should expect and will get a tidy space.

About timing –

In recent weeks I have been quite stressed out and struggling with some things.  Work, Eddie’s Road, TeamStrange, Jake, the serious illness of a friend, and a lot of confusing stuff related to this whole, damn grief process and let’s not forget that the estate is still not settled which rests on my shoulders as the administrator. 

There is no question that I am overloaded.  And like a lot of people, when we become overloaded we start to question our abilities, our intellect, our decisions and our outlets.

Sometimes we turn to friends, family, pharmaceuticals, and all sorts of vices to help us through the stress.  My sisters (who are my closest friends) were out of town, then I was out of town, I’ve never liked taking drugs of any kind and I have my limits when it comes to alcohol consumption (who likes feeling like crap the next day?).  I’ve always said that I would make a terrible addict.  So, I muddled my way through the last few days feeling like a complete failure at life.  Like we say in the south – I was having a pity party.

But company is coming and I had a guest room to clean.

With a large cup of coffee and an empty trash can, I went to work.  I’ve said it before – when you start going through Eddie’s things there is no telling what you will find so you must be methodical about it.

Most of these items were from the last year of his life.  One of the first things I came upon was a neat, Ziploc bag that held all of the receipts from our trip to Key West and The Dry Tortugas.  Our engagement.

I had to walk away for a few minutes.  Drank some coffee.  Took a deep breath and went back in.

It was like tracing all of his thoughts for an entire year.  He wasn’t working then – an agreement we had come too after the adventure in Niobrara.  He was examining his past and thinking about his future.  And it was all laid out there on my guest room bed.

There were a few artifacts that I think Jon will want to look at.  All of the route sheets from Butt Lite 1-IV (those should come in quite handy in the next couple of months).  The never opened newspapers that contained his obituary.

And then this letter from one of his many friends:

Dear Eddie,

            Your romanticism for riding inspired me.

Your ruthless persistence of questioning conventional motorcycle perceptions liberated me.

Thanks for being an individual in the face of a world of conformity.

You made me violently laugh at myself.

You made me laugh hysterically at you.

Thanks for giving me the courage to rip up the bible of what motorcycle riding should be.

Thanks for fueling my imagination to dream of what motorcycling COULD be.

Thanks for seizing every day we spent together riding.

Thanks for being a part of my wife and my wedding.

Thanks for being such a good friend.

The timing of going through the remnants of Eddie’s last year couldn’t have been better.

I needed to be reminded of how amazingly lucky I was to have been loved & adored by this gifted man. 

Sometimes I look at people I know who have had the good fortune of being with their partner for decades and I am envious.  But then I realize that the only thing that really matters is the quality of the relationship.  I know many people who have been married a long time who aren’t the least bit happy.   Marriage shouldn’t be a contest of endurance.  It should be about being better as a couple than you are as individuals.

Thank you, Eddie for reminding me that I am the luckiest woman on earth and that being with you made me the best person I could be.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect – then and now.