Three things I can’t let go

Last week, Mark Dykeman tagged me with the Three Things You Can’t Let Go meme. Hmm… did you ever notice that most bloggers capitalize every word in a meme title, even if they don’t capitalize their post titles? Or is it just me?

Mark innovated on the meme by dividing his three things equally between physical, mental, and emotional hangers-on. I like that twist, and will follow it here. BTW Mark, don’t ever let go of that desire to become a paid, professional writer. It will happen.

1. Physical: getting a little personal, aren’t we? But I do let go of it after a while, and I always wash my hands afterwards. Something else… I know — the handlebar of a roller-coaster. I’ve been known to delay the operation of a ride for twenty minutes while the attendant pried my white-knuckled fingers off… actually, I made that up. I love roller-coasters — it’s my wife that gets all woozy on them. OK, well the one physical item that I have had in my possession for the longest period of time is a Siamese sword that was given to me by one of my Dad’s Air Force buddies after he returned from Thailand when I was five years old. He handed me the sword and gravely remarked, “Here kid, go get your sister.” I dutifully unsheathed the weapon and pursued my screaming sister throughout the house, while my mother chased me in a panic and my Dad and his buddy laughed so hard they almost couldn’t breathe. After a lecture on valid targets, I was allowed to keep the sword — which stays with me in my office in case of an attack by xkcd Ninjas.
2. Mental: I have no trouble at all letting go of my mind — in fact I often let it wander off on its own. But it does keep coming back to certain topics over and over again. One of those is a growing sense of the triviality of my life and of all the things that I once considered so grand and imposing. But I see more humor in everything, which is more than adequate compensation for the disappointment.
3. Emotional: lost loves never quite leave you, especially those in which you invested more than you had, and I’ve done that more times than I care to remember. I’m extremely lucky that my wife and I have been together for more than twelve years now — if I ever lost her, that would be the very most difficult to let go.

Damn, that sure got serious at the end. Quick, think of something funny. I know, imagine me scanning my blogroll trying to come up with three people to tag who won’t think of this as such a burden and waste of time that they’d like to chase me around the house with a Siamese sword.

Let’s see, how about Cooper, Tish, and Brian. Anyone else who’d like to jump on the memewagon, pingback here and I’ll link to you.