Well, this is tough. Called my brothers yesterday, spoke to them at length, they encouraged me to carry on. I cannot overstate how important family is to the whole Drag Week experience. Husbands and Wives, Fathers and Sons, Mothers and Daughters, Brothers, multiple cars, or riding together, it's the norm, not the exception. The family interaction, battling mechanical and logistics problems, head on, together, is what gives the event the emotional juice, the palpable texture that draws us back again and again.
We make friends, and we form bonds, that are hard to replicate in everyday social settings. We also feel loss, and pain, when those bonds are broken, or our friends suffer setbacks or tragedy.
The emotional risk/reward equation is no more complex than the mechanical. Sharing this journey with people who share the same passions is awesome, wringing out your car on the track, while depending on it to get you across the street or to the next town, is exhilarating. You feel, you FEEL! We become numb to the routine, numb to our co-workers, and our surroundings, and sometimes it takes horsepower, friends, and the open road to shake that off! Then tragedy strikes, and you lose someone who shared that journey with you, then you long for the insulation of everyday life, long for the dullness, and the numb.
It's good to feel, it's great to care, even when it hurts. I didn't get a chance to talk with Dillon Ogle this year. I look forward to meeting him next year and telling him face to face how much I liked his Dad, and miss the opportunity to get to know him better. I cherish the memories I've made with my daughter on Drag Week, so I take solace in the fact that Jason and Dillon shared that as well.