10-16-25 Thursday.
My wife was able to get family pictures scheduled a handful of weeks ago. This is a yearly endeavor, chore, mandatory requirement my wonderful wife puts us through. Me and the three kids dutifully smile and try not to ruin anything; standing on my sons’ toes and pushing him over, smacking each other with tall prairie grass and getting seeds in our hair, or walking through brush and getting covered in stickers. As I was standing there pretending to smile, looking into the dark shuttering orb of the camera, I had a few thoughts:
“This time next week I probably won’t be able to stand up tall. I wouldn’t be able to handle getting sucker punched in the gut or chest bumped by my almost 13 year old son.” Will I be the same next year at this time when another round of family pictures is forced upon us?”
Ya, I’ll still be the same. It’ll take two months before I can take a shot to the midsection. I’ll have to build up that strength again, but I’m ready for the challenge. As I’m a bit of a type A personality (not blood type), I often feel like I don’t need help or am embarrassed to accept assistance from others because I don’t want to trouble anyone. I may be in a position where I’ll need a little help. Instead of wanting to help serve others, I’ll have to accept being on the other end. Also- letting go of control. I’ll be at the mercy, care, and expertise of others. I’ll have to let go of my responsibilities at work and rely on some great guys on the team to carry things forward. In a sense, while I do actually need to take PTO for my own sanity, the timing and reasoning behind it all yields to one other important point. My coworkers are also playing a part to help pick up the slack while I’m out.