I am desperately in need of a new normal. Well, any normal really. With the flux and the change that has taken over my life in the last month, the old normal no longer applies. New is going to be mandatory whether I like it or not. We're all facing it down - me, my sister, my step-mother, my dad - so it's not like I'm alone.

I feel like a whiner, though, as I write this. If I am brutally honest with myself (and all of you by extension), my life is the least impacted. I can cry all I want, but in a few hours I'll be back in Austin where much of my life will remain the same as it's been - work, tennis, dogs, etc. Only my insides will have changed. I've seen my dad at his oldest and most helpless. I've witnessed his hallucinations and I've heard him implore 'them' go. I can't un-remember that.

We can argue that the kind of change I'm going through is difficult, but by comparison? I don't think so. My family will struggle harder with the new normal. Their daily lives will change. My step-mom is already dealing with an empty house. She complained about my dad sitting in his chair watching TV all day and having to cut his food and open his Ding-Dongs, but she's facing a loneliness she never imagined she would feel. Once my dad gets released from the rehab facility, we're moving him into assisted living a mile from my sister's house in Las Vegas. From then on, she will add his daily wants and needs, ups and downs to her already busy life.

Then there's my dad. He stands to undergo the most change in this. He wants to go home and he never will. When the ambulance carried him away that night, he had no idea he would never go home again. He had no idea my step-mom had reached the point of no-return - she's eighty-eight and can only do so much for him - and that my sister and I would need to step in and make a bunch of life-altering decisions for him. We took away his freedom to choose. We did that. Even though it's in his best interests, it's not easy.

I hate his sadness, fear, and confusion. I hate that I can't be there with him every day to reassure him that I love him and will take care of him. Hell, that part alone has to be hard enough for him, the role reversal. I'm taking care of him. For forty-eight years, he took care of me.

But I can't stay. And maybe that's why I'm struggling so much. I want to. I wish I could. I can't go broke, drain my savings to balance two lives - one in San Diego and one in Austin. I have to go home. I have to work. Dad would understand that. When I told him I planned to go back to Europe after my first trip there last spring, he said I needed to before I couldn't. I know he would never want me to give up my life.

But still... It doesn't stop me from wishing I could stay. Or that I would stay. Isn't that it? The crux of it? The difference between ability (can) and desire (want). Coulda, woulda, shoulda. It's the 'shoulda' that I fear the most , I think. Will I wish one day that I had stayed, blown through my savings, and skipped a little of my regularly scheduled life? Will I say "I should have stayed"?

Here I am, though, sitting on the floor beside Gate 14 waiting for my flight home. And whining about needing to find a new normal. At home. With all my things, my job, my friends. No one will even see the change in me or understand that inside I'm struggling. Maybe my dad and I have more in common in this that I thought. We both want a home, a normal, we'll never see again. But that is life, I suppose. Death, taxes, and change - eventually they come for all of us. Along the way, I guess we all just need to get through the best way we know how. Minimize the coulda, woulda, shouldas. Take a couple chances every now and again. Eat ice cream for dinner. Go for an ace on a second serve. And make sure "I love you, Dad" are the last words you say to your eight-nine year old father before you leave him to fly home.

One day, probably sooner than later, I'll have to adjust to another new normal, one that doesn't include my dad. My family may not have been big on "I love yous" when I was growing up, but there was NO WAY I was going to leave my dad without making sure he knew exactly how I feel about him. I can second guess a lot of my decisions of late, but not that one. No coulda, woulda, shoulda there.

I’m pretty sure when I turned forty, I talked about “redefining” a decade. Or maybe it was once I was in my forties and realized that they weren’t as bad as people said they were. I don’t recall fearing forty. My fortieth birthday sucked, I remember that much. My friends all had good intentions, but I ended up pulled in two directions as often happened in Texarkana – one went toward the gay side of town, the other toward the straight. About the time I decided I couldn’t make everyone happy (and would only make myself miserable trying), I accidentally dropped my phone in a mud puddle. After fishing it out (yep, the puddle was that deep), I used my water-logged cell phone as an excuse to make my exit. Strangely, that mud puddle was the best thing about the start of my forties. Fortunately, the decade, though not without its challenges, has turned out better than it started.

Fast forward nine insanely quick years. Today I am forty-nine and beginning the last year of the decade. I could whine about where the years went, my lack of accomplishment, blah, blah, blah, etc., etc. but I’d much rather talk about the future. Not fifty or my “fifties”. Not exactly anyway. Instead, let’s chat about forty-nine. I think, much like the rest of the forties, I had an idea – mostly based on women I knew in their forties, including my mom and my aunts – that forty was old. And really, in deference to my mother’s generation, I’m pretty sure it used to be old. Used to be. That’s probably why my mom talks about my retirement and how I should be saving and how will I live if I spend all my money traveling and self-publishing books. In her mind, forty is almost there. Almost dead. Mind you she’s eighty-three and still killing it (My dad is ninety so I may actually live forever and probably should be saving for some kind of retirement). Nonetheless, historically speaking, most people start to wind down in their forties. And now at nearly fifty, I should be pretty good at it, the winding down.

Trouble is I just got it cranked up in my forties. Pardon the antique car analogy, but my engine is still sputtering and not quite firing on all cylinders yet. That’s why I’m excited about forty-nine. I have one more year to redefine this decade before I start on the next. One year that promises to go crazy fast. Thus far, I’ve got one novel in publication with two more to go, the promotion of that mess, a website to develop, travel, races (including travel to races), and a couple tennis matches in the works. In other words, it’s going to be a busy year. If I keep it cranking, keep rising. If I stay motivated, focused, and happy. Yes, happy. It is seriously amazing what you can make happen when you’re happy (That is, however, a blog for another day).

For the record, the year is already off to a fantastic start. First, I’m on vacation. In Scandinavia. Second, I ran my annual birthday half marathon in Copenhagen (Shameless plug: I ran with Lena from Go Running Copenhagen and it was phenomenal. I saw the entire city – in 14 miles you can pretty much do that – and enjoyed some fabulous company and conversation. If you travel and run, you need to do a running tour in every city you possibly can. Check out www.gorunningtours.com). Third, I had a pork cheek and apple pizza for lunch. Scandinavia, running, and pizza? And now I’m hanging out at a coffee shop writing. I know, right?!? It’s the perfect birthday. Hell, it’s the perfect day.

I don’t celebrate because I need to disguise my fears about aging and I sure don’t run long distances on my birthday to prove I’m still young enough to run long distances. Don’t me wrong – I am ecstatic that I still can. However, it’s far more important to me that I start the year happy. I traveled the day after my birthday last year (to Scandinavia for the first time), grabbed ahold of my courage with both hands, and had a life-changingly good time. Then I went on to have one of the best years of my life. That’s why I’m back this year. I’m happy, healthy, even more courageous than last year, running well enough, and writing passably decent. I can do all that in America (and in two weeks I will be), but there’s something about travel. Being somewhere new and different challenges me, shoves me out of my comfort zone, and makes me prove myself to me in a way I can’t do at home. Rising - being forced to rise – brings me happiness. It means I am defying the forces that have (and may again) tear me down. It means I am more than merely alive; I am living. A year that starts this good – this happy – has to become a great – and productive – year.

It may seem a bit premature but I’m already planning for my fiftieth birthday. Where will I go? Where will I run? Where will I write? Croatia is on the short list; however we’ll see where forty-nine takes me in the meantime. I am certain that I will publish novels, run races, and travel (ok, mostly to Las Vegas). But what else? That’s the exciting part – the becoming, the pursuit, the redefinition. Life needs be about more than riding it out and grinding it out. And planning for retirement. In twenty years, I may say different. Right now, though, it’s my time and this is my decade. It may have started nine years ago with a wet, muddy cell phone, but I gotta believe it’ll end a lot better. If today is any indication, this year will be a spectacular ending to a spectacular decade.