Whatever happened to ...

I recently ran across an old file with some letters I had written to a friend after I had moved to Texas to get away from Michigan winters. I was so chatty then. What happened? I seemed to be so active doing things. What happened to that drive to be active? To do things? To ... WRITE?

Whatever happened?

I seemed to have so many hopeful thoughts then... uplifting, bright thoughts about what was happening in my life. What happened?

I know I got married, had kids, and ...  then what?

I have stalled in everything I thought I was going to do with my life. Stalled with every direction my thoughts had seemed to be taking me.

Stalled.

Or was it hijacked? Kidnapped? Overwhelmed by the thought directions of my spouse?

I shared those directions of thought, and still do to a great extent. At least I THINK I do. But a part of me still questions everything...  still wants to be open to the new / odd / unknown / take on things.

My spouse takes only one direction of thought from events, tries to explain them in terms of his understanding of certain beliefs. He is driven this way. Perhaps it is his drive that I admire...his CERTAINTY about things.

I can see his thoughts, and recognize the possible validity of his conclusions... But still, a part of me is always wanting to be open to a wider reality and explanation.

Am I wrong?

He can be very narrow in some ways, but so wide in understanding in others ...

I tend to want to be wide in all ways of understanding and explaining things ... and I admit I am loathe to express this to him sometimes.

For example, a narrow view of death and the afterlife...

I can see the narrow view, and acknowledge the possibility of it...  but part of me thinks there is a wider view...  and I do not know who is right. Perhaps it is SAFER to abide by the narrow view, and then be pleasantly surprised if the wider view is the reality.

But the narrow view is so dark, and so limiting, so constricting. I think that God is not limited at all... that the afterlife is not limited at all. How can it be?

Maybe the narrow view is really just black and white... with a HUGE part that is gray.  So maybe the narrow view is not really narrow after all?

And what have I just argued myself out of?

I am still stalled in the drive to do things I intended to do back then.  And so many years have gone by...  

And I wonder how do I get UNstalled?

Or am I just stuck here?

I hope not. I really, really hope not.

Happy 2016

Well 2016 has arrived, and I have no new year resolutions to claim, except--once again--to try and write more consistently this year. I sound like a broken record.  It didn't work very well last year, but then my day job disappeared last fall, so I really can't use that excuse anymore.  Unless I get another paying job.  But caring for an ailing (on a regular basis) hubby seems to have taken up the hours of my previous day job. So what does that tell you?  It tells me that I still need to develop some more stick-butt-to-chair-ness if I ever hope to write more. 

In other words, I need to GET SERIOUS about this writing thing I have been playing at the last few years.

And stop listening to negative inner voices.  Yeah.  That, too.

Okay 2016...  here we go.

2015 or bust!

We are approaching the end of 2014, and I look back and see I have not posted since June of 2012.  What the heck have I been doing?!?

Not writing, that's for sure.  Caught up in the mundane, drag-me-down things that take up time and are not good for creative production of any kind.  I keep signing up for NaNoWriMo every year, and never manage to finish.  What happens is, I look at the calendar and suddenly realize it's one week until November, and have given no thought to what should be a month of creative craziness.  Let alone what to write about!

Maybe it's my job.  Maybe it's my family (and the never-ending medical issues we go through with my hubby).  Maybe it's just ME -- maybe I am not really meant to write.

That's heartbreaking to think about.  Because all of my life I know I've had some kind of writer trapped inside, scratching to find a way out.  Trouble is, the scratching has gotten much fainter of late.  Has the writer given up?

I hope not.  I really hope not.

Hence, I have issued myself a sort of ultimatum.  That's why this post has the title "2015 or bust!"  Whether I actually manage to accomplish a lot or not is not the point, I think.  I just don't want to completely fizzle out.  I don't want that scratching to stop.  In fact, I want it to get louder!  It will probably help if I remember to actually post more often.

And there we have it.  My mantra for this next year: 2015 or bust!

Will it help?  Who knows.  Only time will tell.  All I know is I have to try.   

Of gray stuff...smart, and otherwise

Yes. Gray stuff, or what is more commonly thought of as brain matter. The stuff that makes us humans smarter than the run-of-the-mill members of God's creation. Gray stuff, a.k.a. intelligence. So I'm thinking about this lately, for some reason. What is intelligence, after all? How do we measure it, and how do we know that what we measure actually is intelligence? And isn't it just a bit overrated? Probably. But ...

I have to admit, I am an intelligence snob of sorts. I'd like to think that I'm intelligent, and certainly enjoy rubbing shoulders with people I think of as being highly intelligent...and probably hope they might think likewise of me in return. That I even spend any energy at all thinking about this--and obviously more often than I ought to (I mean, why am I writing about this, you know?)--only underscores the fact that either I'm not really as intelligent as I'd like to think, that I am overly-concerned that I come across to other people as being "intelligent", or that I have no (or really low) self-esteem.

The vanilla answer is that it's probably some combination of all the above. (Well duh!) No doubt a healthy dose of reality--if I could ever figure out *what* reality is--would be a good thing, and keep me from basking under self-deceptive illusions.

But the self-deception is so ... comfortable.

So I guess I'm an intelligence snob. Not necessarily proud of it, but at least willing to admit it--mostly because stupid people make me want to beat my head against the nearest hard surface. I get headaches easily enough as it is.

And don't ask me what inspired this, because I'm sure I don't know. I'm not sure "inspired" is the right word for it either. But we can debate what constitutes "inspiration" some other time.

Happy New Year!

And that says it all. This year will be better than last year. I have to believe that, or I will ... I dunno ... cry, scream, rant and rave? Something. It's got to be better.

Yeah. And I will suddenly be bitten by ... or hit over the head with ... an irresistible plot that will bloom into the next raging best seller novel of the year, making mucho bucks for me and my poverty-stricken family.

One can dream.

I can definitely be more conscientious about writing regularly. Uh-huh. So...

New Year's Resolution #1:
Apply butt to chair, pencil/keystrokes to paper, and
...WRITE !

Amen.

Making time, making do

... Or maybe I really mean TAKING time. Time to bother to write here. Time to reflect on the umpteen things that have happened this year. Time to realize it's nearly my birthday, another year has passed, and what do I have to show for it. Time to just vegetate in life for a while.

Hubby has found himself out of his old job, and into a "new" job -- thankfully on the first shift. I am convinced that working third shift for the last five years is what has contributed in a MAJOR way to all his health problems. Before he started working third shift, his weight was more or less under control, he didn't have diabetes, he was walking regularly, he was... holding his own. Third shift saw all that crumble, and it is damn hard to crawl back up to where he was. But at least he is getting to sleep now -- something he was doing in only a sporadic fashion these last few years. He's starting to walk more, which should help with the other issues.

My starting to work, part time, has helped some with expenses, but hubby lost his 15% shift premium when he went to first shift, so basically, we're still where we were when he was working alone on 3rd shift. We have had so many expense issues this year it's a wonder we are still afloat. Replacing a furnace, replacing a car engine, replacing a car transmission, repairing a car that got hit in an accident, then having to do some major repairs and upkeep to our garage. And that's not even including the medical expenses from the bypass surgery this year.

The icing on the cake? Even taking out additional $$ to go to Uncle Sam in taxes, we might wind up OWING taxes this year. Because I am working.

It just doesn't pay to work. The hassle, the gas to get to and from the job, the clothing expense, all eat up what I earn, with nothing left to put into SAVINGS, let alone any retirement investment. We still don't have any retirement plan. And we're both 60+. At the end of the year, all the earnings are eaten up, and then we wind up OWING taxes, to boot.

It just doesn't pay.

*sigh*

Don't know where the time is going

... though I wish I did. This year has flown by so rapidly, I can't believe it is the middle of APRIL already! Of course, having our lives upturned once again by major health issues in the family has not helped slow the passage of time any. Now that things are "relatively" back to normal, it seems we have lost nearly half a year. And it was one year ago, TODAY, that hubby was in the hospital having that fateful gall bladder operation that set things so off track last year. He has been off work for six of the last twelve months because of health issues! Gall bladder. Heart stent procedure. Rehab. Normal now, right? Wrong. Heart issues again. This time the fixed stent that blocked up where it could not be fixed. So, another open heart operation in January to bypass the faulty old bypass. Another three months off, with rehab overlapping the return to work.

Lord, when does it end?