Like A Slow, Steady Rain

"The future hangs over our heads
and it moves with each current event
until it falls all around us like a slow, steady rain
just stay in when it's looking this way" ~ Bright Eyes, One Foot In Front Of The Other

Up for a rambling, three-hours-worth-of-airport-layover blog?  Let's get to it...

Thursday was my birthday, and since 31 is a prime number then that must mean I'm officially in my prime, right?  Good, thought so.  I joked with a few people that I was going to listen to Aimee Mann's Thirty-One Today and Ryan Adams' I Taught Myself How To Grow Old on repeat for 24 hours and call it a day.  All jokes aside, it really was a good birthday.  My cell phone, emails, and facebook blew up all day long with notes from friends new and old, near and far.  After work Josh and Brie treated me to some of the best sushi in Lafayette, and by midnight it was time to go to bed and let all the 12/19-ers have their time in the birthday limelight. 

2008 is down to its last 11 days.  While surveying all the clouds this morning and sipping on American Airlines coffee this morning, I was trying to figure out this year.  354 days in, and it's still a head-scratcher.  Above and before and around everything else, this was the year Tammy died.  I'm a little tempted to shout a few million Fuck Yous at January 25th and heartless blood clots...but I'm not an angry person.  And if our roles had been reversed, her response would no doubt have been a classier form of grief.  So no shouting for me.  Instead I take the keychain fob out of my pocket and look at the swirls and loops that make up her right thumbprint.  It's preserved against a piece of silver and much more tangible than the memories running through my head.  She's not here anymore, but she left a lot of fingerprints.

I spent time in 14 states / territories this year.  Ohio, Kentucky, California, Texas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Louisiana, and Mississippi.  Thank you, bank travel.  Oh, and I drove through Arkansas and Tennessee, too.  That was part of my 30 hour non-stop drive from Syracuse, NY to Houston, TX.  That was a fun day.  The next day I saw a hurricane.  Well, I was in town for a hurricane.  I literally slept through it.  Sorry, Ike.  Oh, and I saw a blizzard this year.  That delayed my start at the Kentucky branch I opened.  For some reason they don't name blizzards in Ohio.  At any rate, the last time I checked I have just enough Marriott Reward Points to buy a small island in the Pacific.  Another month at a Residence Inn and I might get my name engraved on a room card.

Not all my travel was work-related, though.  Late February / early March I spent driving north up the California coastline with the sunroof down in a rental car.  I saw miles and miles of ocean all the way from San Diego to San Francisco.  In May I won four tickets to a Boston Red Sox game, so me and some work friends spent the day exploring Boston and the night cheering on the Sox and singing Sweet Caroline with the Fenway faithful.  It was wicked awesome.  This was also the third consecutive year I got some much needed r&r at Lake Texoma with Curt and Tripp.  Not much competes with swapping beers and smokes with old college friends.  I can also highly recommend catching a concert at Jones Beach up in Long Island.  I saw Sara Bareilles, Maroon 5, and Counting Crows (who else?) at the Nikon Ampitheatre.  Beautiful setting for a show, and I got to dip my toe in the Atlantic Ocean beforehand.  As Chris O'Brien sang it - "I'm breaking like the days / I'm dragging like the days / I am smoothing like an ocean stone."

I like to think that I grew to appreciate my friends and my family more this year.  Hopefully they can tell.  It's definitely been the year that I've seen the least of all the people that make up my world.  Continuing from last year when I started this crazy travel job/life, I have made some great friends through the bank as well.  Trading experiences from one place for those in another, there's no way to know if you came out ahead.  But that's true no matter who you are or what you do or how often you change addresses...at the end of the day though, I can live with all the good and the bad that made up 2008.

Comments

[gina]

i'm still bitter that you were 20 minutes away from my house i didn't get to see you. damn job. damn being an adult. damn everything. well, almost everything. you got to experience the wonder of jones beach amphitheater

[KC]

DBrown,
I've been out of the loop and just ran across your blog again. I know my words don't help anything, but I just wanted to let you know I am so sorry to hear about Tammy. My jaw just dropped when I read this blog. I won't pretend I know what you and your fam have gone through this year. Praying for you guys and those sweet kiddos...