Dee Hathaway

This is maybe the fifth revision of this post since I started writing it over a week ago.  I don’t usually struggle with posts this much (and I wish I could say that the struggling and time delay will make it a better post, but alas… it’s still me writing it!) but I really think we can get it finished this time.  Whadya say?  Stick with me to the end?

Tomorrow will be the third Monday after melodrama (yes, more posts about melodrama)… and I have no idea what to do with my Monday nights anymore! For those of you who don’t know (and how could both of you readers not know? Is it cuz I never post anymore? It is isn’t it? <guilt>), melodrama rehearsals were every Monday and Thursday since the start of the year. Now back to our story.

I know there are a lot of things I could be doing, even should be doing with my Monday/Thursday nights. But mostly I just want to go play pretend/dressup/sheriff/love interest again. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since the last melodrama ended.  A year to the day, to be exact.   And it’s pretty amazing to think about how much has changed for the ol’ Dee over that year.  I’d love to give you a synopsis of all that has changed, but I’ve been working on this post for a couple of weeks now and need to focus a little. So let’s save the anniversary stuff for a different medium.

It’s been just over a year since the first ‘real’ post on deehathaway.com. Which means it was just a little over a year ago since I decided that I needed to give people something to Google me right back about. (sigh… good times)

I remember how that kicked off a lot of writing for me, and for a while I think I wrote almost every day, and now I’m doing good to write once a month. That has really bothered me (not enough to motivate me write obviously) until I came up with this post. So let’s get on with it mkay? (oh you thought we were already getting on with it, didn’t you? I really haven’t written in long time. You forgot how this works. )

You know that I love firsts, and I love lists. And I even love making lists about firsts. But it turns out that I love lasts sometimes too.

So as I sit here thinking about all the firsts that I have had over the last year (and a few seconds and thirds, and even fourths), I am also reminded so much of how I appreciate the lasts.

You know I was in the Army… (oh come on… if you don’t know that you are not stalking well at all!!)  well, that was just one part of my life.  One of what I refer to as my lives.  Before the Army I was a mechanic.  In the Army I was an admin and a geek.  After the Army I started my civilian life as a dry-cleaning machine fixer upper.  (no, really)

I have had a lot of different ‘lives’.  I have had the awesome opportunity to live in many different places, and to do many different things.  To have many firsts, and, thusly, to have many lasts.  It’s the lasts that I want to talk about here today (finally, we get to the point).  ((probably))

When I was in the Army, there was a little game that was played whenever someone was leaving. It was the ‘last’ game. For starters, you were ‘short’ (because you only had a short time there)… and the awesome SFC Burchfield would say “you’re so short you could sit on a dime and your feet would dangle”.  For your last couple of weeks, you got to say it was the last time you would… whatever.  For example.  (did I mention I love lists?)

* This is the last time I’ll drive an army truck.
* This is the last time I’ll have to do inspection.
* This is the last time I’ll have to do a PT test.
* This is the last time I’ll pee in an army urinal.

Ya, we got pretty ridiculous at it. 

There was something cleansing about those lasts.  Something about emptying out those old parts of yourself and making room for the new parts, for what was ahead, that was really fun and exciting and, in the case of the urinals at least, very much a relief.  :)  (see what I did there???) all this urinal talk makes me need to go. brb.

It’s really scary closing out one chapter and opening another.  I’ve always been one who looks back on my life six months ago and says “holy crap, I had no idea what I was doing then!  I was so naive / innocent / stupid”.  Well, in a way  I still have that same feeling, but now I realize that it isn’t that I was naive / innocent / stupid.  I was living my life according to what I needed to be at that moment.  And letting go of who I used to be in order to make way for who I was supposed to be.

Now I know that there are many different phases to our life, many forks and branches and side-roads on the paths that we travel.  And if we take a detour, or a scenic route, or even a different freeway to get there, it doesn’t mean that we have been on the wrong path.  It just means that we have been down the roads that we needed to go down to get to where we are now, and ultimately, to where we are supposed to be.

Confused?  ya, well me too.  :)

So let me sum this up.  (about time, I know!  thanks for holding on)

In order for me to get to the life that waited for me after the Army, I had to live the Army life.  And then I had to finish the Army life.  I had to have that last inspection, that last PT test, and yes that last stand…  ;)

As I look back over the last year, I know that I’ve had to leave some parts of me behind in order to find the parts of me that I have.

As we look back on parts of our lives and think “that’s not who I am anymore”… let’s don’t be sorry for the Us that we left behind.  Just let go (oh, David), let that old you fall away. Be glad for what you learned there.  You don’t need a last to have a first, but I think sometimes you do need a last to have a next.  Let’s move on to the next part of our lives.  And lets be glad for the last part, cuz it got us here.

Now let’s go make some firsts.  And for sure let’s make them last.

and for the ladies…

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I wrecked the racer.

Ya, that’s right. Took some serious retread to the front which knocked all of its teeth out, not to mention a big chunk of the grill and bits of the A/C condensor. But this post isn’t about the accident, it’s about the rental car experience. So sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip…

When I talked to the Geico rep on the day of the accident, she told me that if I rented from Enterprise and told them I was a Geico customer who was getting my car fixed they would give me discount. well, I’m a believer, so I made my reservation with Enterprise for the full size car. A Charger, Altima, Malibu or equivalent. I wish there was a way to pick exactly what car you’d be getting cuz I hate showing up to see that they consider a taurus equivalent to a charger. :-/

I walked into the rental office on Litchfield, which looks moderately sized from the outside, but really big inside cuz there is a desk and a counter and a LOT of empty space. Anyway, I told the rental gal my sad story and she said “so the rental company is paying for this?” No. Just me. and they said I could get a frequent wrecker discount. no reply. :-/

She put all my info in and then printed out my bill which was the same as my online reservation. So much for the discount. Oh well, it wasn’t that big of a deal.

She grabbed some keys and we headed out to the parking lot, right past the Ford Focus (yay!) and straight for the HHR (what the crap!). Not that there’s anything wrong with that particular car (sorry HHR drivers), there is just something wrong with me being in that particular car.

Fortunately we walked right past that too and landed on the Dodge Journey (yay) with the tinted windows and cool colors and stuff. Rental gal said that she hoped it was ok that they upgraded me. Well, ya know. I guess I’ll take a free upgrade.

I just did a little webbing to find out what kind of an upgrade I got and found out that the rental price on the Journey is about twice what it was on the car I had reserved. I’ll take that upgrade. I like the way that sometimes all you have to do is make it known that you want something and you get it. (well, it happens to me all the time!!) And that sometimes it’s not what you expect but is something so much better. I expected a discount, and might have gotten a few bucks knocked off the price, and instead got something worth twice what I was paying for. I expected better and got way better, way more than I expected. I didn’t have to beg or coerce or scream (cuz I don’t do that). I just had to set my intention, be nice and let it come to me. I like the upgrade. I’m very happy with it.

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