Why Haven't You Told Us More

Why aren't there more stories about Michigan? You were there a long time. Why haven't you told us more?

...Ok, let's sit down and talk about it.

Maybe it was the weather—the rain, the cold, the night where it got down into the 40s. Or maybe that's not it.

Maybe it was the tent—the tent I've had so long but expected to have longer, the tent that failed in multiple ways so that at the end we had to drape a tarp over the top and patch the screen with duck tape. Or maybe that's not it.

Maybe it was that Ben is going off to college and so this was some sort of landmark "last summer" summer. Or maybe that's not it.

Maybe it was the crowd of people, a crowd that grew to nearly two dozen people with tents and meals and other logistics that made it hard to sit down and have a simple conversation. Or maybe that's not it.

Or perhaps it is the memories. Not so many years ago, I would dash down the stairs and run into the water and run back up without missing a beat. Now I get winded when I walk up the hill. Not so many years ago, I could swim across the lake and back without stopping to rest. Now I can only watch from the hill as the kids do it. Not so many years ago, I would ski a couple times around, even though my hands would hurt. Now I fear I wouldn't be able to buckle the life jacket around me, the boat would labor mightily to pull me out of the water, and if it did I would hurt for days afterwards from head to toe. Or maybe that's not it.

Or maybe it's that I am ashamed of what I look like in a swimming suit. I'm not the same person I was just a few years ago. The surgery and the hormones have not been kind, and I cannot bear to look at myself in the mirror for fear of that Jaba the Hut who stares back at me even when I squint my eyes. Or who knows, maybe that's not it, either.

In any event, to tell you the truth, it was bittersweet this year to be up there in Michigan. And to tell you the truth, it's challenging to find stories worth telling in that.

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