I had an apostrophe!

Smee: I've just had an apostrophe!
Hook: I think you mean an epiphany.
Smee: Right...lightening has just struck my brain.
Hook: That must hurt.
-Smee and Hook from the movie "Hook"

Andy had a surprise for me today (for my birthday which isn't for a couple of weeks yet but he always surprises me with something on or around my birthday)... and all I knew was it involved our bicycles and getting up early.

Did I mention, I HATE surprises?
Well, let me rephrase, I hated surprises until around 4 hours ago but I am getting ahead of myself...

So I got duly nervous as I always do before one of his surprises (which have for the most part been wonderful so by all rights I should have been excited not nervous), didn't sleep much and woke up early as instructed. We set off with our bicycles in the truck around 6 am and headed south. Got to San Francisco an hour and a half later and ended up at the Zoo. Ok, I thought to myself, bikes at a zoo... right.

Well... it turns out it was a pre-opening bicycle tour of the Zoo! They do it once a month and this was the one closest to said birthday so that is why we went today. And after a few moments of abject terror of having to ride my bicycle again after a year without practice (I fall down a lot), I rode around the empty parking lot a little and figured I could stay on.

So off we went on a most lovely hour and a half tour of the SF Zoo on bicycles, stopping often for photos. I didn't take all that many but Andy took a lot of lovely ones which I will post soon.

And then on the way home we even managed to stop at a little cafe off a roadside exit that we had seen forever and never stopped at and had a most filling breakfast-lunch that has carried us through the whole day but that is not important to this story.

What is important is the epiphany. Yesterday I had posted on Facebook that I was going to be surprised today and that I did not like surprises. After we got home today I added what we had done and how much fun it was. Then I typed this paragraph:

"I don't know why I hate surprises though, it doesn't make sense... well yes actually it makes perfect sense. I like to be in control and I have a hard time giving that up. Duh, I knew that. I gotta get over that!"

Then I went and took a nap and now, four hours later I am still thinking of what I wrote.
DING DING DING DING... bells are going off! "I like to be in control and I have a hard time giving that up."

Everyone who knows me is probably saying "well duh, of course Rhonda, we knew that!" but the point is -- I had never connected the two thoughts! Until now. A couple of weeks away from turning 59. It has taken THAT long to figure that out!

Wow. That is a major paradigm shift for me... one that I am smiling about as I type this. Not that I want this next year to pass all that quickly, but I think for next year I will look my birthday surprise in the face and say "Bring it on!"