February 1st, 2011 by Conor

Everything finally caught up to me. This process is truly exhausting physically and mentally. I have been sleeping more and more lately. Last night, I got a monumental 17 hours of sleep- I guess you can only run on E for so long, and it all came crashing down over the last 36 hours. I don’t think I have ever slept that much in my whole life.

In the past month I have posted about Danny over and over again. Our whole family has been to hell and back in that time. We have been waiting and crossing our fingers for the time when Danny would wake up and we would be able to get excited about having him back in our lives. I have suggested to people to make sure to bring Danny up and that now is when he will need us the most. All of that is well and good. But I forgot one thing. And it’s something I should not have forgotten. It’s funny because there must have been 100 people, hell maybe even 200 that said “make sure you get some sleep” or “take care of yourself.”

And I have – for the most part. But as all of you that suggested that type of thing probably knew. It’s hard to do. The only place I have wanted to be for the last month is wherever Danny is. I didn’t want to be getting sleep at the hotel room. It wasn’t where my heart was. Well, now that things are looking up I am catching up on some much needed R & R time I have begun to understand what you all were warning me about. The crash. You become useless and frustrated when you are that exhausted.

It’s funny because for people that know me well at this point in my life they know that one of the only things I don’t do a lot of is sleep. I enjoy being alive far too much to waste it on sleeping. I guess I just don’t see the point really. I know that sleeping is a recharge but I also feel like it is an escape from reality. Most of the time I am far too excited by being alive and can’t even imagine what I would miss if I were to sleep.

My biggest problem is that often times I don’t listen to my body enough. I don’t force myself to sleep and relax and think about what has happened. It’s the part about thinking about what has happened that is finally catching up to me.

The part that is getting difficult for me is that I have just begun to realize how much this is going to change Danny’s life AND mine. Danny and I do all kinds of stuff together and that includes work and play. This instance is going to greatly effect my life in a lot more ways than the last month that I have lost at his bedside. It has been hard to think about work or the future at a time like this, but it finally feels fair to consider these ideas and how they play into MY life. It seems hard to imagine them without Danny as a key role in either of them. Danny has been the star of all snowboarding edits and was going to be of the snowboarding movie we were making this year. I find it hard to push through and imagine doing the project without him. Sure, I could do it anyway and say that I am going to do it in his honor, but it doesn’t feel right. Danny and I started Shreddy Times together and it has always been about the adventures that we have had together on and off the slopes.

So earlier today, when I began to think about what’s next, I had a mixture of excitement and terror when I imagined that once again I have the whole world as an option. I can go anywhere and do anything. It’s crazy because this is the first time anything even close to this has ever happened to me. I need to come up with some career like decisions as a result of what happened to Danny. I’m not about to leave him high and dry by any means, but I have to find things that will work for me while he is going through the recovery process. When there is a point that we can resume working on things together or plan some sort of trip, I’m there, but in the meantime I have to think about what is going to work for me. It’s a strange feeling after all the time we have spent progressing things together. And I definitely look forward to the point that things can start proceeding forward once again.

It’s not like I hadn’t thought oh wow this is really going to change the winter, or damn I wonder what Ill be doing a year from now. But I hadn’t really thought much about how they were actually going to change. I am beginning to have these thoughts and am trying to make plans and act on them. I know that above all else I need to continue to be there for Danny but I especially need to detox from what I have just been through. So, I am going to spend the next day or two coming up with some possible ideas. I might even throw a poll up and see what people think. In the meantime I am off to bed imagining how fun it would be to get my dive master in the Caribbean. That sounds like a nice break from all this. Hope your head drains well tonight Danny. I think we are on the 10 day countdown. I sure hope that’s the case.

Love you all!
Conor