KU – The Isms of the Ic

Good morning,

It’s very early in the morning and I can’t sleep. It’s been a minute dear reader and the first question that comes to mind is, why do I write to be read instead of just writing for myself?

Truth is there are a lot of things I write just for me. You can’t read them. It’s all part of the process. So many documents in random places as I have moved about mediums and storage spaces, changed emails that link to google docs here and there. Writings were lost in the divorce forever encapsulated in her external hard drive. That has happened twice actually. I wonder if some of it has ever been read by the ones who got the devices.

I digress. I haven’t written for you, beloved, in a hot minute. It’s been on my mind to do so. If you are reading for the first time, there are troves of treasures hidden in varios blogs, ha, even vlogs from other lives. It would be a fascinating project to link them all, out there in the inter-webs.

I realize I haven’t written in some time. I realize it. I am starting again. No shame. No guilt. Just now. My present.

There are lingering thoughts that weigh on my mind. I recently had a loss. A first in recovery for me. I lost my beloved Prius. She was the nicest car I have had since the Nissan Maxima that I bought when I was 20. She died on the way home from my last trip to my parents. Some kind of belt that pushes the coolant to the engine died, murdering the Prius in total. We looked into fixing her. She needed a new engine. It was unexpected as I had been taking care of her better than I ever had.

She had three and a half newish tires on her. She had brand new brakes and was far from her next oil change. She had a new windshield that required a patch in the bitter cold of winter. Even my therapist asked why I spent $400 on a new windshield when it wasn’t blocking my view.

All that being said, she was beat to hell and back. She bore marks of a different time. With little recall, I could point out three very visible body damages from my days of drinking and driving. At one point she had been my home, housing all my worldly possessions. She was my in between when I had lost the privilege of being housed with other humans.

Responsible: party of one? AAA took her to the dealership for diagnosis.

She was taken from me suddenly. And I was faced with, talk about privilege, ha, a CHOICE. Alone, I was relatively content on my bicycle for a whole week, but I am not alone anymore. There is a child who does not reside in biking distance. There is a wife who exists in my world, in my space, in our shared experience. A wife who was experiencing stress. A wife who came to my aide.

A wife who, very calmly and diplomatically with a world of grace, helped me make the choice. A wife who did the leg work through my sadness and immobility. A wife who signed papers with me. And held my hand.

5k to fix beloved Prius with little guarantee of her life expectancy. 13k for her death. 13k for a new start. Thirteen thousand dollars! I have never taken on a debt such as this and it’s unnerving. I drive the new car in fear.

Her name is SeaGlass and she’s beautiful. We upgraded Prius by six years. We took out a loan for five. It weighs on me. I am processing the fact that I just threw away a whole car. I am processing driving ten thousand dollars around town scared to bump into something. Scared to throw a hatchback full of wood in her. Where will be stow the kayaks when we paddle ten miles on the Kansas River?

We made the transfer in the back lot of the dealership. I bought a whole car at a dealership! Walked in, talked to car guys, was offered and drank two bottles of water as I sat in the lounge waiting on them to look at the door panel. We drove SeaGlass around back and emptied the Prius into SeaGlass. No warning. No prep. Ten years in a car grabbing what I needed and just abandoning the rest. “Leave the trash,” the finance guy said.

My baby grew up in that car. We brought her home from the hospital in that car. We had our bohemian summer in that car. We camped, went to the lake, the pool, the library, uber, vomit, five years at KU. I moved to Wichita and back in that car.

In my sobriety, I have a tendency to let things sit. For a long time… like years and the Prius was no exception. There were baby toys, baby hair clips, souvenirs, paperwork, so much paperwork from repairs, blankets, clothes, tennis gear, old letters, pictures, baby sunglasses, car games, umbrellas, chairs. Life.

My understanding of the world has increased. My understanding of money has increased. It was at an all time high to begin with having one more payment on my very last undergraduate class. Having paid regular ole bills like the mortgage and house bills reverently for the last five years. Knowing how much money I make in a year versus by the hour. Rising to the occasion of caring for a whole house. Thank god for my wife. Praise the very breath of her life. I could not do any of this without her. I mean, I probably could, and I would, but my gratitude speaks that I do not have to.

I am working through this, Dear Prius. Thank you for ten amazing years. You will be missed. You were loved. You are grieved. I pray you are stripped of any part of you that might be useful to another Prius owner. I pray you save someone money with a gently used part. I hope that you went to a good home where crafty car people know what to do with you to help others.

I will cherish SeaGlass, pay her off religiously, and drive her till she dies. Thank you for teaching me the value of my very privileged resources.

Check it off the bucket list: I got to attend a University of Kansas basketball game with both of my parents. Where to start…

Mom and Dad in front of the two national championship trophies.

Both of my folks attended, graduated, and met at the University of Kansas. It’s a lovely story. Second semester of their senior years, they both took a swimming course as their “fun” class. I don’t know if my mom noticed my dad, but my dad noticed her and asked her out.

Joe’s donuts was one of the Lawrence college spots at the time and one night, pretty late I guess, my dad asked my mom if he could bring her some donuts. I think maybe he asked her out for donuts and she said it was too late, so he said he would bring them to her. She said she was already in her pajamas and he suggested a house coat. She said she didn’t have any milk to go with donuts. All she had was kool-aid. Apparently my dad said kool-aid was fine with him, so my mom was out of excuses and agreed to see my dad. According to Mr. College Boy, that was his third date that night.

Mom says it was a whirlwind romance. My dad had a cool car and would pick her up and take her to class. I owe my very existence to KU.

We were raised as Jayhawks. When I started attending KU, the desire to attend a game with my folks grew. The atmosphere is electric. I didn’t know that my mother doesn’t like basketball, but a live game can include so much more than the actual game. The traditions, the stadium, the band, the chants, the mascots, the group atmosphere. We got the cathedral up to 120 decibels last night and pretty much willed KU to actually win in the last three minutes.

National Championship trophies from 2022 and 2008.

We got there pretty early so we could walk around and look at all the displays. You could spend the good part of the day in the historical part of Allen Fieldhouse. It’s pretty much a sports history museum. The very first Jayhawk mascot costume is there. I can’t remember the year. Baby Jay was born at a football game one year after my folks graduated. A piece of the original court is on display. And, as we all know, since basketball was invented at KU, the original rules are in the new addition alongside the Fieldhouse.

Parts of the written rules light up the bridge from Allen Fieldhouse to the addition where the original rules are displayed.

I learned something new last night in that my mom was a bigger nerd than I knew and had never been to a game at Allen Fieldhouse. The student camping traditions go back to their time (Class of 1970) but my dad said he was not part of a camping group. Mom lived in Oliver Hall and was surprised to see it no longer exists.

I have missed a significant part of my own life due to addiction. I don’t make that mistake today. This boomers are not getting any younger, hell, neither am I. I struggled the entire night with my shingles. I was in a decent amount of pain all evening, but I was not going to miss this.

These moments are etched now. I took it all in. Mom needed assistance going up and down the stairs. Dad’s gait has an old man slowness to it but he’s still always on a mission. It felt like I was on the ready at any moment to stop one of them from rolling down the stairs. Mom is a dawdler and has never met a stranger. And watching these two boomers try to use their phones to capture the moments and post about them was priceless.

My mother just walks up to this 6’6” volleyball player, raises her 5’2” head and starts chatting.

My folks were super proud of me when I started attending KU. I’d have to dig for the picture, but when I transferred from JCCC, I got them KU mom and dad T-Shirts. My folks have five kids and none of us had attended KU until their slow blooming kiddo hit the campus at the young age of 33. Mark my words, I will graduate one day as well. I’m not a straight line kinda person, but it will happen.

My betrothed beloved beauty Angela dear is also a graduate of KU. Here I try to put into words how special all of this was, to have all three of these incredible people in a place that connects us all, in a place where I am less of the alcoholic that has caused so much worry and pain and more of their daughter and love that intersects with their formidable years and memories and experiences.

Part of the displays in the front of Allen Fieldhouse.

Rock Chalk.

Category: KU

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