Blindspots

I felt like taking time to think so I went for a daytime walk on the nearby golf course.

As I get to the deep back nine I started to wonder if I've been purposely avoiding thinking about Robin the last few months. In some ways it feels like I had consciously moved on from "dwelling on the past" to "working on myself" in the past year.

While walking I considered how in a long term relationship you can develop blind spots. If you've got certain weaknesses in "relationship skills" you don't always fix them. Sometimes you develop crutches and temporary patches which turn out to stick with you for years. If your partner is OK with the behaviors then there's no incentive to change them.

I huffed and puffed as I came to the uphill section of the course. As I looked around I noticed how much further I could see into the woods through the bare trees (leaves won't be out for a few weeks yet). There were houses and roads and other people's lives on the other side of the trees. In all the years I've been here I had never been aware of these sights.

As I thought about Robin I had this sense that she was along for the walk today - that she was traveling nearby me in spirit. As I walked along the golf cart path, I consciously moved to the left half of the pavement, inviting her to come on over and share the walk with me. It brought me immense satisfaction to picture her walking alongside me.

I began to consider how many people die everyday. If there are 4 billion people on the planet with an average life expectancy of 60 years, then 66 million people die each year. That works out to about 182,000 per day or 126 per minute. We're dropping like flies!

Lately I feel more aware. This surely must be how someone feels when they awake from being in a coma for several years.