Thread by @HoarseWisperer

This one is personal and it’s probably going to be a bit much so I wouldn’t blame you for skipping past.

A while back, I posted about my son’s birthday and giving him tickets to a Sixers game.

He got to pick the game. He picked tomorrow night’s game against the Heat.

1/

So, I set about hunting high and low for tickets and the best deal I could find. Checked a multitude of sites every day. I mean, I worked at it.

Labored over what I could and couldn’t afford. Pushed off some expenses. Delayed some things that can wait or keep waiting.

2/

We have good seats. I mean, these are good seats.

I was so excited, I couldn’t keep it in and have it be a gameday surprise. So I told him and we’ve been getting increasingly excited ever since.

Originally, I had planned on driving down tmrw. Day-tripping it down and back.

3/

Planned on making a full day of it but that would be bracketed by 2+ hour drives each way.

But then the stars started to align a little and I ended up having him tonight as well... and that got me thinking. We could maybe go down tonight if I could swing it.

4/

So back I went to the bargain-hunting hunt-and-peck of scouting sights for deals I could handle.

And then my laptop died and that looked like it was gonna be an expense that couldn’t be pushed off.

5/

But then I resuscitated the wheezing machine enough to limp along for at least a while longer.

And then I found a hotel I could pull off. Stellar deal. Nice place.

It’s booked. We’re heading down straight from school. My son is overjoyed. I’m shining like a new dime.

6/

We are in for a fun weekend.

His joy is my joy. His happiness is the highest of octane fuels for me.

And were there no greater meaning in the weekend than that my son was happy, I’d be overjoyed.

But to me it means something more.

7/

If you read my pinned thread, you know that these past years have been impossibly hard.

They have been a rippling spiral of struggle and hardship.

My life, in blunt terms, burned down and the time since has been far more a sideways walk through the embers than a rebirth.

8/

As the Counting Crows song goes, it has been a lot of oysters but no pearls.

Long stretches more survived than lived.

But now though... finally... at last... there’s a light breaking through the clouds.

9/

This weekend is the First of Better Things.

It is just a short trip. It’s just one game. It is just one weekend.

We’ve been through a time of struggle so long, I honestly can’t even remember what it felt like to be unburdened of that.

10/

This is the first of things. Better things. Better days.

It starts when school lets out today. Our bags are in the car.

And then we’re off for a weekend away together.

11/

The joy of that for me, the unbridled, unrestrained, unburdened joy of that...

It truly makes me want to cry.

We’ve been through fire.

Now though, after years of struggle and hardship, after years of life being all tunnel...

Now we get to step out into the light.

Finally.