Pain in the Neck and Fate

Last night while I was making dinner I started noticing a pain in my neck….and sure enough, I turned around and it was Logan.  I’m totally kidding.  I literally felt a pain in my neck and knew that I had done something to it while working out and I started to dread the inevitable pain.   I did chin dips and pull-ups yesterday at the gym and I hadn’t done them in about a week because I was sick.  This morning around 5:00 I woke up to get Dylan because he was crying and I couldn’t turn my head to the left.  I could force it, but it was extremely painful.  Isn’t that the worst muscle to pull?  According to the little boy in “Jerry Maguire” the human head weighs 8 pounds and that’s a lot of weight to carry around on a sore muscle!  I tried for about 30 minutes to get the muscle to stretch out.  I went to Pilates, suffered through it, and it’s finally starting to feel better. 

The kids are home from school this week, they are on winter break, and I promised to take them on a picnic today.  I also have some errands to run and I have to clean the house because we’re having company.  Brea and her two little ones are staying with us this week.  I am really excited to see them.  I haven’t even met Audrey yet, so that tells you how often I get to see Brea.  We’re going to have six kids running around, 4 under the age of 4.  I’m sure that I’ll have lots to write about, just not during the visit! 

I sometimes forget that Brea is Don’s cousin and not just my friend of 15 years.  She’s my family and our kids share the same blood.  That’s crazy!  I guess I’ve gotten used to the fact that Don’s grandparents were at my graduation party (because Brea and I had a combined party) and that I saw a picture of Peyton when I was a junior in high school, years before I met him.  I forget that Don dropped me off at his parent’s house, where I was staying, after our first date—if you can call it that, we kind of just wound up together because we clicked immediately.  He pulled out his key and let me in their front door.  It was so amazing at the time and it still is when I think about it, but it’s also so normal now.  When I stop to think about Brea and everything that happened I’m so incredibly thankful that everything happened the way that it did.  I sometimes wonder— if one little thing had been different, would it have changed the outcome?  One of my all-time favorite movies is “Serendipity” and I think it’s because I have always believed in fate or wondered if it exists.  I know that fate’s hard to comprehend because we were given free will, but why do things have a way of working out then, even in tragedy?  Even the most tragic situation can be learned from, so maybe that’s fate.  I like this idea because fate gives everything purpose.  If you don’t believe in fate and you believe instead that everything is a series of random events, I think you struggle sometimes to find meaning.  I love Greek tragedies because even though they are sad, they believe that you can’t escape your destiny.   There’s something intriguing about that.  Or maybe it’s like Forrest Gump says, that our paths are directed by fate and we’re like feathers floating around randomly.  Maybe fate steps in where we mess up.  Or you can believe that even our decisions were part of the plan and we just think that we can control things….like Oedipus Rex.  He struggled with the prophecy, tried to change it, in the end he did exactly what the prophecy said he would do.  I don’t’ know the answer, but I love trying to figure it out!

Here’s the Word of the Day: 

bailiwick \BAY-luh-wik\, noun:

1. A person's specific area of knowledge, authority, interest, skill, or work.
2. The office or district of a bailiff.