Indianapolis

Life has been kinda weird lately.

Well, it's not life, it's me. I'm dealing with a wave of sentimentality which has, quite frankly, left me wondering.

I see my children moving beyond my sphere of influence. It leaves me with an odd mix of pride and loss. They're supposed to move on. That's the goal; that's how it works. I knew that going in to the family game. And I do not regret it. Still, it is genuinely absurd, in a fashion, as I find it actually happening. They're still my kids. In some part of me, they'll always be the small people I had a catch with, read stories to.

I'm at a trade show in Indianapolis. I first came to this show with my father years ago. I go now on my own. I can't help feel but that I'm stepping on his toes. He did this, not me. This was what he did, not what I do. The friends I have here are, and they are very good friends to me all of whom I cherish, all great and wonderful people I say with no little honor, his friends. They are mine I feel almost by default, because they were his. They are mine too, I say with emphasis, because we share a bond and know each other on our own, for myriad reasons. Maybe I feel that I inherited them. That's okay. If that connection, Pops to me to them, makes them my friends, I like it. They're still my friends.

I see, as shallow as this is going to sound, my curling career slowing to a close. I've throw a lot of stones in the last thirty five years. I've played with great folks in two great curling clubs. This year I've felt physically the best ever when thrownin' them stones. The legs, they hold me up. Yet I see the end, the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm not going to play for too many more years. You gotta know when to fold. That time ain't too far off for me. I know this.

If I could enunciate my feelings best right this minute, they are that I can't escape the thought that I am opening the last door to my future. I have turned the page to the last chapter of my life. I am staring at the autumn of my years. Don't worry: I have had no premonitions of doom, no insights that I am soon done. I think I have some time left. Still, the page has been turned.

I look forward to living that last chapter.