Triathalons and Patience in Genealogy

You may be wondering why you haven't heard anything from me this summer about doing more triathalons. (I'm sure you were just wondering that.)

I fell in early March. It was one of those strange falls where you hit it just wrong. Well, I hit my left knee really hard. Flat on the cement. It didn't really hurt the day of, but then I could hardly walk for the next couple of days. I knew I had done something to it, but I didn't want to deal with it. My father's family has a thorough history of knee problems and lots of knee replacements all around. So I just went into denial, and didn't want to go there. I tried to exercise some, and thought I would just push through it. I still had a month or two before I had to be ready for the first triathalon I wanted to do.

Turns out--not such a great idea. A couple of weeks ago, I finally gave in and went to the doctor. I'm sure I aggravated it more by trying to keep going. I should have just taken it easy. The good news was that I have good cartilage--part of my father's family's problem. Bad news, my muscles were all out of whack from trying to limp around on it, and my knee cap is messed up. I went into physical therapy to move things around, but I have the patience of a gnat and still want to push it too far. So I'm working on it slowly and surely.

I'm sure there is a family history lesson in this. I think you sometimes just have to have patience. I taught my serendipity class in Colorado last weekend. I talked about how there are lots of stories about how strange things happen to come together to further a genealogist's work, and most genealogists have experienced that. Randy Seaver calls them Geneagasms. It was fun, and at the end of class I opened it up to the class members and heard some more great stories. In fact, there was kind of a relaxing sigh, that they could acknowledge these hunches, or coincidences without thinking it was only happening to them. But in relating some of those stories, I had to stop and caution the class, that you can't expect serendipitous things to happen. Genealogy--in my experience--really comes in fits and starts. You work and work and work and then you catch a break. In fact, the really good serendipity stories are so good precisely because someone has been working on the problem for many years, and then finally a miracle happened. You just have to have PATIENCE. Wish I was better at that.

Well, I can still relate triathalons to any experience. I've got to get back at them so that I can start braging about it again. "That reminds me of a triathalon I did once...."