Nelson’s constant coughing and skewed blood numbers have led doctors to pursue the possibility of thyroid disease: thyroiditis. There’s no endocrinologist on The Big Island where they live, so they’ve been waiting in line to see the one endocrinologist in Honolulu, on the island of Oahu. So island-hopping is the order of the day.
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April 4, 2022
Today, I’ll fly to Honolulu, because an endocrinologist appointment opened up for me to get my thyroid looked at. It’s nice to have something different to do, but I don’t love leaving Annso and little Will alone. She’s more than capable, but it’s nice to be together. Good thing it’s just an over-and-back and no quarantine garbage to deal with. Thank you, Lord, for that.
We had a staff meeting in common room 5 just a few minutes ago with the 8 extenders, John, and I. They are good folks. I called the meeting to help Annso and I phase out of a few night-and-weekend things. When you’re single, you have the time, but now, time is just too valuable to sit in a meeting or at a small group for a whole evening, when you could be at home with your family.
Going to Honolulu is a trip, literally. I look forward to it only until I get there. The novelty of going to Starbucks and walking Waikiki or Ala Moana Mall have long since disappeared for me. Rob and I used to smoke and talk for hours on the benches outside the Animal Pit Starbucks.
We would talk about questions that are answered now, about women. Would we remarry? Where would we settle? And now we know those things. We were overage adolescents who became men, to some extent, and now we have families of our own. Those talks seem like ages ago now, 12 years actually, but they added up to this, which is great. I wouldn’t trade the life I have today for anything.
Sometimes a fleeting feeling comes across my brain if I hear a part of a Guns N Roses song, and the feeling is there—that nostalgic, “nothing can happen” feeling. The feeling of being young forever moves across for a fleeting second. But everything beyond that is just chasing after that first feeling, just as they say it’s like with the crack pipe. You never get that again, but the obsession is chased and sacrificed for, nonetheless.
After returning from Honolulu:
On the flight back, I read more in A Man’s Search For Meaning, and one of its main things is that when a person suffers, no matter how much he is pressed, as long as he decides to be brave, dignified, and unselfish, these cannot be taken from him, and therefore, freedom itself, cannot be stolen.
Suffering can be used, and the way a person handles it can be seen as useful, and therefore meaningful. And if a man sees his existence as meaningful, he keeps the will to live, despite terrible suffering that would take it from him. No one can take a person’s will to suffer meaningfully, unless they give it up on their own.
On a more down to earth note, Will just screams and screams. Apparently, while I was gone, things were great and he was sleeping every 3 hours like clockwork, but now that I’m back, he won’t sleep or eat. He’s a wreck. I think we should let him cry it out longer, but Annso goes in after 5 minutes. Who knows why things like this happen, and hazarding a guess is probably futile. The important thing is that we are unified, and that means I give in right now, and we do it her way.
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“Comfort one another. Agree with one another. Live in peace.” (2 Corinthians 13:11)
