1000 Days or 1 Week?

Hi Readers,

A very bleak day here so what better thing to do than bang out a post?

Added to this, I've been pretty much housebound for the past fortnight after my shoulder operation. Originally I thought that I'd only be in a sling for a week at the most, but as things turned out I needed a few more things fixed than anticipated and had a reco, so now I'm in a sling for 6 weeks and no driving for 6 weeks. Hence, I'm very much stuck at home for a while. Last week I managed to strap it up tightly and got out for a few walks, and this week I've worked out how to do a session walking on the treadmill, so at least I can still feed my exercise addiction!! The past two days I even managed to work out the local bus system and took myself into town to check out a few things. In 26 years of living in Bendigo this has been the first time I've ridden the buses, save for a trip last year when I caught the bus into hospital for a previous operation that I was getting done.

One thing that really struck me yesterday was the complete disrespect some other travellers have for the bus- feet on the seats, leaving food wrappings on the floor etc. It took all of my patience to not have a crack at them!!!

Also, earlier this week it was my birthday, a day that I generally don't pay much attention to anymore, but others do. I don't seek this attention, but I do appreciate the best wishes offered. I was not planning to do much at all, save for maybe ordering in something nice for dinner, but two very close friends told me they were bringing some pizza and drinks around for a catch up, so that was a great way to end the day.

Nat and Nev even supplied the Birthday Cake!!

Anyway, enough of that self indulgence and now to the point of this post.

Once again it has been inspired by something I read last week that has been nagging at me since. 

I don't know if you are like me sometimes and you find it hard to remember what you had for dinner last night or what you just did an hour ago.

But for some reason you can remember with great detail things that you did 1000 days ago, or even longer!!

This really got me thinking, and I think that the reason I can remember things I did so long ago are because of the way that they impacted on me at the time, or further down the track.

Have I touched a chord with you?

I taught for 38 years, and sometimes I really have to stop and think about where I was teaching in certain years, but at the same time I can recall with acute clarity different things that happened at different times. What year they occurred is irrelevant, but what actually happened is something that hasn't faded with time.

For example, an incident that I'm sure I've shared a number of times. 

I was teaching a junior class may years ago and we were making ice cream as part of a maths lesson. This young girl in the class came up to me all excited and says "Mr K, the numbers all make sense to me now!!"

That was the one moment that completely changed the focus of my teaching career and taught me the importance of trying to make learning meaningful, relevant and enjoyable, a mantra that I carried with me right up until my retirement nearly two years ago, and even now as I continue to do relief teaching. It forged my passion for the teaching and learning of maths, but I must admit that some of the changes recently adopted in the way the curriculum is delivered would not allow me to teach in the way that I always had, so maybe I would not have lasted much longer anyway. I'm not having a crack at this new process, it just doesn't align with what I believe in, and that's okay! 

During my teens, 20's and 30's I played a lot of football, at different clubs and in different towns and cities. Some seasons have been totally forgettable, and even with some of my most successful seasons there may only be a few really significant moments that remain crystal clear.

I remember over a period of 2-3 years I had this regular opponent who played for Hepburn while I was playing for Buninyong. Both teams were pretty much top of the table in that time and each time we played each other there was usually a fair bit of bad blood. Hepburn did have a bit of a reputation for playing it rough, so maybe we took them on a bit, who knows?

Anyway, this bloke, and I'll only use his first name Bevan, always seemed to relish trying to get under my skin. I can still vividly remember his face, but the one thing that sticks in my mind was that he always played with his socks pulled up really high and his shorts looked like they had been painted on. In one game in particular, even before the ball was bounced he started pushing and shoving as was common, but next minute he has me in a massive headlock. I hadn't even acknowledged him or said anything to him, but he was ready to hurt me as soon as he could. As he was a lot bigger than me I knew I couldn't beat him physically, so I decided to mess with his mind.

When the ball was away from us I'd be saying things to him like "Hey Bevan, how come you're wearing little boys shorts, did you leave the adult ones at home?" Or "Bev, are you playing in the Little League at half time because I can see you're wearing the Little League uniform". This really got to him, as soon he was pushing his socks down, albeit only a little bit at the time. And he kept pulling at his shorts, as if trying to stretch them and make them look a little bigger. I also told a few team mates to give him some lip about his tight shorts and socks, and that tucking in his jumper made him look like a doll, and this  really messed with him. I think we lost that game, but at the end as we were walking off, instead of shaking hands he just hissed at me something like "Next time you are going to wish you'd never lived!!" 

I can't recall what the next game was like , but I remember this game for how successfully I got into his head and resulted in him playing really badly. I still don't know how I played, but I clearly remember how much I upset him!! 

That was about 38 years ago, but I remember it like it was last week.

Back in the day I would run and run and run. I was totally hooked on it and loved it so much, which is probably why I just miss it so much. So over more than 40 years of training and competing, and just doing it for fun I can barely remember much about each session. That would be impossible I know.

But specific moments stand out for different reasons. The dates I am unsure of, but I can only guess roughly when these things occurred as they involved one of the boys, or a specific place.

For example, long before they became trendy, I had a 3 wheeler running pram when we lived in Ballarat back in the 90's. Before I had this I had an old pram frame with a plastic seat from an old school chair screwed into place. I'd take the boys for long runs in this pram, they loved it, I loved it and it also gave Jen an hour or so of peace  by having me and one of the boys out of the house. Usually the boys either slept or just looked around, and just had the occasional bit of babble. But on one run in particular, for no reason, Sam would just not shut up!!! It was question after question, and as I was getting fatigued and trying to talk and run at the same time, he comes up with this gem..."Dad, why are you puffing so much?" I can still clearly remember where we were when he asked this question, running up a hill in Norman St in Ballarat, and I also remember a black car was in front of us. Why do I remember such detail? Probably because the moment just cracked me up and just stayed with me. I was doing what I loved with someone I loved and these are the moments in life that count. I can barely remember when I last ran, but this moment more than 40 years ago is still indelibly etched in my mind.

This other running experience, among countless others remains with me for a totally different reason. Most experiences stayed with me for the joy they brought me, the lessons learned, the challenges faced or the people I was with. Like most experiences, often what happens becomes blurred over time, but how it made us feel stays with us forever.

This time I was running through a thick bush setting, and I can't remember if it was in Bendigo or Ballarat. I was on a thin bush track, still wide enough for cars to access, but I was quite a few km's from any nearby houses. As I was running along, for some reason something made me stop and take into account of my surroundings. To this day I still don't know why I did this, and even now as I recall this moment I'm getting tense thinking about it. I stopped and just looked carefully around me, and suddenly I see a man standing under a tree to my left about 50 metres away. There was nothing else near him, no car or anything.    

This really startled me, so I gave a meek wave to which he didn't respond to. Then he began walking towards me, so I took off as fast as I could. A minute or two later I turned to look behind me and I could see him standing in the middle of the track just staring at me.

I just couldn't understand why he was there in the first place. At least I was using the area to go for a run. His presence really got to me.

 Readers, I was never much of a fast runner, but I can assure you that I got out of there in record time!! And it was a long, long time before I ever went running in that area again

Such a long time ago, but it still feels like last week. Or just now!!!

Just like I loved running, I had to find something else to feed my addiction once the legs gave out, so last year I started kayaking. This was all new to me, but since retiring I was able to find loads of time to teach myself all about it. So many things to master, like what equipment was needed, stroke technique, lake etiquette (wow, did I learn some things there!!) etc.

It wasn't until a few months of doing this until one warm morning I was out on the lake in Bendigo and I felt this amazing sense of contentment. I usually felt good when I was out paddling, but on this day at this moment I just came to the realisation, "How lucky are you?!"

Most days I'd be fussing and farting about whether I had all my gear, would the body hold up, would the old cranky guy chase me again and tell me how I could be doing it better, would I meet my targets etc.

When I took this photo I was really feeling the burn as the lactic acid built up in the shoulders, and instead of moaning about feeling fatigued, I was actually embracing the burn! Is that addiction or what!!!

I realise I don't look very happy in this shot, but in reality I couldn't have been happier!!!!

As I said earlier, there are times when I can't even remember the year that something may have happened. I have to backtrack and try find other things that may have happened at the same time to help give me some sort of chronological bearing. When I hear people relaying stories and they can pinpoint the year immediately I am just dumbfounded.

However, the day that Jen told me that the doctors were thinking that she had Leukaemia will stay with me forever. I can still recall the room at the hospital, the look on her face and the tone of her voice. Even the total emptiness and helplessness as they bundled her into the ambulance to take her to Melbourne immediately, and how I felt walking out of the hospital and wondering "What the F$%K do I do now?"

As you could expect, the next ten months are permanently etched in my mind as that was what my life was consumed by for that time. Various meetings with doctors where her status was very bluntly explained to witnessing her treatment are memories that I am convinced will not fade with time. I've never felt as lonely as I did after some of those meetings as I trudged back to my nearby accommodation. 

I'm sure that we took hundreds of photos on all our overseas travels, but I can still recall everything about this one. It was on a train in Italy. I was trying to catch Jen asleep and she woke just as I took it, spoiling my fun. It was an ongoing joke we had, always trying to catch the other asleep in public. But what made it eternally special is how it captured everything about her.♥️

The following two years back working don't provide me with any memories that I feel will stick with me at all, those two years remain a bit of a blur. 

It seems that the memories that remain with us aren't always great ones, and as much as we'd like to forget so many things the opposite applies.

I hear you saying that we just don't get to pick and choose what things will stay with us, but it reinforces that the things that do stay with us are most likely the moments that shape our lives. 

So what things can you recall from long ago that feel like they happened just last week? 

I hope I'm not prompting less than enjoyable memories, which will probably be inevitable, but perhaps you too might have some similar "Bevan moments!" 

I hope so.

So Readers, while I sit back now smugly recalling how I gave Bevan my best insults about his tight shorts and pat myself on the back for trying to make him feel so embarrassed, on the other side of the coin I keep thinking of the times when I could have, or should have done things differently in order for a better outcome.

While I sit here watching the rain outside, I can't help but thinking that some of my next indelible memories may be just around the corner. I don't think that the few party pies I just demolished will be up there, even though they made me feel temporarily satisfied. Maybe in a few weeks when I can get driving again could be the catalyst fr creating more of these memories? 

Time will tell.

I had a brilliant quote that I read yesterday that I was hoping to weave into this post, but I might just use it as the prompt for my next post instead.

Until my next post,

Cheers 😁