There's somethin' happenin' here, what it is IS exactly clear

The first WTF moment came at about 5:25 in the morning, as I was leaving my house to go to the gym and swim, and I suddenly thought: "I'm going to miss this. Wonder how long it will be before I can get back in the pool?"

The second WTF moment came when I stopped in the grocery store and I inventoried the contents of my basket: chicken breasts (boneless, skinless, of course), whole wheat bread, a tomato, some bananas, and pineapple juice -- and that only because it's a bar staple.

The third WTF moment (all my journalist friends know you can't have a trend story unless it includes three things) came when I looked in the mirror one day and didn't recognize myself.

I'm changing -- rapidly, decisively -- and not just because of this surgery, which is now just two days away. Something has clicked in my mind, body and soul, and things are unfolding and I'm just along for the ride. There's a chicken-and-egg quality to all this -- is the medical stuff part of the change or the catalyst for it? I can't answer that. I can only point to the empirical -- I've lost 40 pounds since April. All my clothes are hanging on me, and yesterday, for the first time in more years than I can remember, I came across a shirt that I just could not wear anymore because it was so big it looked ridiculous. I feel better than I have for years (except, you know, the grinding in my right leg and the pain and stiffness in my left). My mind and heart, shredded by trauma less than two months ago and then hit again with the fear and pain and reality of my medical condition, are calm.

I credit God for all of this. He has given me what I need to survive and look to a more hopeful future, and I am grateful. When I look in the mirror, I see a man on a path that was completely unknown to him two months ago, and yet he knows it's exactly where he's supposed to be. That's only possible through God. Humans aren't capable of that kind of serenity on their own. At least, this one is not.

I have learned something valuable about myself in this ordeal: I do better with rapid change on many levels. It was true three years ago, when my marriage ended, and it's true now. I am sometimes too easily content with things as they are. That's what led me to allow my hip problems to get so bad; gradual change was easy to accept, or worse, deny. Now, in less than two months, I've had multiple blows that I would have thought would have crippled me -- I mean, emotionally crippled, in addition to, you know, really being a cripple. But ... well, Elton John says it better than I can:



Yep, I'm still standing. Better than that, I'm striding -- that's a variation of walking I probably haven't been capable of in a couple of years -- toward a new future, one that I couldn't envision just two months ago but now I can see laid out in front of me like an oasis.

There's another reason, a big one, for this hopeful outlook. Not ready to talk about that one just yet. But all of this plays against the nervousness and fear that are kicking in as my first surgery approaches in just two days. Starting today, it all unfolds, I suspect with blinding speed. It's my last day of work today, probably until the second week of November. (If you know me at all, you know it's killing me to miss the tail end of the campaign, and to do this to my colleagues at this critical juncture, though they've all been incredibly supportive.) Mom and Dad arrive tomorrow night, selflessly putting their own lives on hold to get me through this. And sometime tomorrow night, I'll make my last cocktail for a good long while, take stock of the preparations I've made, and get ready to get on down the road.

If it's possible to be nervous and confident at the same time, to be scared and joyous at the same time, that's where I am. I can't deny that I'm thinking more in the last few days about the difficulty, the pain, the inevitable setbacks and long days that will make this an ordeal. But all of that is the cost of a better life.

And I've signed the contract, I'm ready to pay.