Good and Bad; Ups and Downs

In the great pattern of my life, every moment of great joy has to be followed by a lot of crap. It is just the way things always seem to work out. In this case, it was joy over how all of one of my son's years of hard work paid off in Holt last weekend.

The crap is that the same son was having his first asthmatic episode in years in the wrestling room just a couple of nights later. He started wheezing and couldn't get up off of the mat for a few minutes. That same day I had called to work due to allergy problems. The next day the same son had was running a fever and had a nasty infected area on his knee, complete with oozing pus. So for his thirteenth birthday yesterday, I got to take him into the doctor. His breathing was OK -- they checked his lungs and he's just a little under average for his weight and age in how much air he can move in and out (I shudder at that, considering he's a top athlete) and he was put on antibiotics for the skin infection. I kept him home for rest of the day, and made him his favorite dinner and let him just relax and have fun all day and evening long. I even let him stay up until midnight since it was his birthday, even though it was a school night. The excitement came when I had my own asthmatic episode, and the kids had to run to get my rescue inhaler. I was laughing really hard and my lungs didn't want to work right. There are a lot worse ways to go than laughing yourself to death, if it ever comes to that.

Bill had his soccer banquet this week. It was bittersweet for him, as he is now a former Big Red soccer player. One of his fellow seniors, a gifted goal tender, has been offered a full soccer scholarship at a local university, and that was great! The coach said that pound for pound, Bill was the most aggresive and tough soccer player we've ever had in this town. They always did like to put him into games to knock opponents on their butts! They gave special medals to the seniors this year, something they've never done before. When these young men were freshmen four years ago, the team did not win a single game. But they stuck with it for four years, and in this, their senior year, the team won most of its games (had the best record in the history of the school) and was state ranked for the last five weeks of the season. So the medals were a way of saying thank you to these players for sticking with it. It's easy to stay with a championship team. It's not so easy to come back after a disaster like their freshman year.

I have tried one last time to try to work things out with a friend who things went sour with last December. This will probably be the last time I try. The person is very dear to me, but how many times must one person have to be rejected? Hot and cold, friendly and not, and the most mixed signals in the world. I do not know how to take this person, I do not know how to fix things, I do not understand this person. I do not understand where this person is ever coming from. But I do miss our friendship. I miss the laughter. I miss the kindness. I miss the smiles.

edited: Just heard back from former friend. Rejected yet again. That is it. There is no point in trying anymore, or ever again. One more load of crap to balance out the joy. I am not angry with this person -- we each did a lot to hurt the other, and most (if not all) of it was unintentional. A lot of snowballing pain and the like... This person simply might not be ready to try again to be friends. If this former friend wants to be friends, or needs me for anything, I will be there. But any further attempts have to come from that end, not my end. I have tried, but have obviously struck out.