One year ago today

Today is the one-year anniversary of when I had The Surgery™.

I thought I would do something special today to mark the occasion but it's past 10pm and all I've managed so far is to start writing this post. I'd hoped to go out to dinner with a friend, but she totally flaked on me. This is someone who has stood me up repeatedly in the past, so I shouldn't be surprised that she did it again tonight. I've really tried hard over the past few years not to expect too much out of anyone but this time it didn't work. She's been through this and I was there for her every step of the way so I thought she understood.

To put a further damper on the day, I got a couple of pieces of bad news. The first is that my dad has skin cancer and is going to have surgery to remove it early next month. Apparently, he found out he had cancer over a month ago but decided it wasn't worth mentioning to anyone in the family, outside of my mom (I'm assuming she knows, I don't actually know for sure). It came up when I mentioned it had been a year since my surgery and he said "Oh, my surgery is June [x]." It wasn't until I pressed him about why he was having surgery that he told me what the deal was.

I'm sure it was hard for him to find a way to tell me about it but I'm glad he did. I hope they caught it early enough that it won't be too big of a deal. Since they didn't wheel him into surgery right away, I'll take that as a good sign. I haven't really faced the idea of my parents' mortality yet and I'm not quite sure I'm ready to. Then again, when is anyone ready for that sort of thing?

When I look back at what I posted a couple of days ago about how we were bonding, I wonder now if it really had anything to do with that particular activity.

The other bad news today is that we're (pretty much) out of the bidding for the Philippines contract. There's still some argument happening over there over whether or not we're really disqualified for sure, but it looks like it's a done deal at this point. I'm pretty disappointed but also looking forward to moving on.

One good side effect of the bidding news is that I *finally* have a chance to take a few days off. I'm going to leave tomorrow and head toward southwest Colorado with no real destination/plan in mind. I just need to get away where I don't have anyone to answer to and no reminders of any responsibilities. Hopefully the next four days will be enough to clear out most of the mental clutter that's accumulated over the past 8 months or so.

I have a special bottle of wine that I was saving for today that I'm going to bring with me and drink wherever I end up. Even though today turned out to be a bust I have a feeling I'll feel more like celebrating tomorrow.