Gray...

I am having a hard time sleeping - I got about eight minutes earlier this evening and was woken up, and now my thoughts are wandering and things that bother me - and for all good reasons should bother me - keep floating into my mind. I have been controlled and a reasonable person for the majority of my life - granted, a little on the extreme side at times, but have never felt the way I do now - images - albeit manufactured, and thoughts altogether created in my head, take over the darker parts of the weekends - it would be nice to be so tired that I had to sleep - but it is not happening tonight. Typically the story of every Saturday night...

Well, little Gray - there is not too much I can say about my wonderful young lady - the picture is from Hurricane Season 2004 - we had several hurricanes that year, and I was the project manager for the FEMA portion of the Duval County clean up - I was working 17 hours a day, 7 days a week, and was basically exhausted - with a three year old in the house - who was fascinated by taking care of people, a dad who passed out on the couch was a perfect target while the power was out - she broke out every first aid kit that we had in the house - and I awoke to band aids and surgical gloves - not to mention an emergency blanket - after I woke up, she asked if I could help her open the band aids so she could finish making me feel better -

Even to this day her smile makes me feel better - she is happy go lucky - takes life at face value, and has inherited her dad's sense of humor - she certainly looks like her mother, but she has my twisted and somewhat inappropriate sense of humor.

Today at the pool prompted me to write about her tonight - she just wanted to dance - a ritual game we play where I spin her in the water, and then we go for the "big dip" and she cackles from her stomach.

Gray is a wonderful little girl - she marches to her own drum, she cries when she needs to be held, but most of all she laughs when she feels the need to laugh - and with Gray, it is most of the time.