A Series of Unfortunate Events

Having served in the Navy sometimes feels like it happened to somebody else. Except for when life reminds me through a series of unfortunate events.

Physical Training

One of the things I remember most vividly is PT (aka Physical Training) on the non skid aircraft landing surface of a naval vessel. PT was synonymous with being in the military. You are expected to be in ready physical condition for whatever life might throw at you.

PT on the ship was no joke. It was run by Marines, and they love to condition the body for peak fitness.

The real reason for all that PT

What they don’t tell you, but was very much the pink elephant in the room, is that all that PT was so your heart wouldn’t give out from the excess of adrenaline if there was a crisis emergency. Such as a fire raging out of control on the ship that you are trapped on like rats, and your visceral response means the difference between life and death.

A series of unfortunate events

For some reason, it seems that of late there has been case after case of people having their heart give out on them during PT. This has become something of an epidemic among young athletes, you see it on the news when a high school football player’s heart gives out on them during practice one day. It is so random that it makes it even more tragic because these people are in peak physical condition.

Failing at fitness

It’s seemingly unfair, especially when I see the overly portly wheeling themselves around in a scooter at the local Walmart. But don’t get me started on that.

I am not in the best shape of my life. I am terribly overweight. Sadly, I carry it too well, and I know if anyone found out how much I really weighed they would be horrified. I guess I carry it well? Perhaps it is because somewhere beneath these layers of fat there is the body of my former athlete, figuratively, dying to get out.

Nothing is promised – not even health

Today I learned that a former shipmate passed away two days ago. He was in way better shape than I’ve ever been, and he died while he was doing PT. It made no sense and it got me thinking. He was at most a year older than me. I’m no spring chicken, and I am so close to 40 that I see it looming on the highway of life about 3 exits away. The news of his passing made me realize that my time is not promised and there is no guarantee for anyone that they will make it to old age!

More motivated, but for how long?

I have never been more motivated to get shit done than this past day. I cannot afford to put anything off. On top of that, I really can’t spend another moment lollygagging about in the shape I am in. I am not trying to run a marathon, but I don’t want my heart to explode if I was being chased by a zombie either.

I have too much to do, too much to see! My kids– I can’t leave them alone! With only mr horrible to guide them to adulthood?! Oh the horror, I need to live!!

This situation has made me realize that I have to quit looking for a perfect moment, or more energy or more time. The perfect moment is right now.

Taking action and making something happen

So I got off my laurels and drove my happy ass to Home Depot yesterday to buy the lumber supplies to build the frame for my bed. Because I have been rolling about with my mattress on the floor for almost five months and I am sick of it. It was on my perpetual to do list, but after the unfortunate event that transpired this week, I got it done.

I knew I wanted to build it versus buying one because I couldn’t justify buying one for three times the price that I could build it myself AND not even have it be high enough to maximize on all the square footage of storage space underneath. Standard bed frames are just too damned low.

All beds are built like sedans. I like a jacked up bed, high like a truck so I have to climb to get in it.

Despite the fact that I could think of three hundred things I would rather have done, I hauled the lumber and the cut sheets of wood up the two flights of stairs to my apartment because I am not only building my bed, I was also building one for my son (he doesn’t want his loft bed anymore).

That was 8-2×4’s, 1-4×4, and two-4×8 sheets of 15/32 wood cut into various dimensions as per the detailed drawing I made. I was so tired by the end of all that work that I had no more energy to do anything, much less any homework. Not good. I am not terribly behind but I woke up this morning feeling terribly guilty about it.

Unlike Rome, this bed was built in a day

It took me a little longer than planned. First I had to unbox my compound miter saw after I had to ditch my original plan to use the circular saw that mr horrible gave me. That saw turned out to be a complete piece of crap and after messing around with it for 20 minutes and cursing his sorry hide from here to perdition, I had to rearrange a whole bunch of stuff to get the massive 12″ miter saw out of the box that I had crammed into a corner of my bedroom (because it was just too massive to fit through the patio door and it seemed like a good idea at the time).

But I got it done! All by myself! It’s not fancy, but it holds my mattress, it’s high enough for decent storage underneath, it’s sturdy, and it’s awesome.

Sisters are not doing it for themselves

I was surprised, though, by how many women found the idea of doing what I did, completely overwhelming and impossible. I discussed it in passing with three different women last week, one of whom was married and I thought for sure she was a capable DIYer sort of person, but no, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

They were all equally baffled and in awe at my skill set, and they each exclaimed in one way or another their amazement at my independence. Really?

I consider it just knowing enough to get the job done. Life with mr horrible taught me that if I ever wanted something accomplished, I had to learn how to do it myself, cause that sorry son of a bitch wasn’t going to do it for me. Nor would he offer, and if he did offer, or cave into my coercion (ball-busting as he called it), he was going to bitch while doing it, and then be so busy bitching that he’d muck it up with his half-assed attempts.

It is a wonder that he was in same military service as me. Sure didn’t feel like it.

Conditioned to depend on myself

His lack of dependability conditioned me to only depend on myself. I wish it hadn’t been that way. Who wants to be in a relationship where they can’t ever depend on their partner? Who wants to have to think twice about just who to put on a form as an “emergency contact”, the spouse or the best friend? Seriously. Those were choices I had to consider. And that was my life.

LEARN from my mistakes people!

Life is too short to wait until tomorrow.