Miss My Baby..

[dpodesta]

Lyn,

You have the right idea, rely on God, he\ \will be your strength.

Love derek

[Corinne]

Hi everyone,

I am sorry I was not on earlier but my little one needed me. I think we are all in the same boat right now. None of us know who we really are and maybe deep down we are afraid to find out. I think maybe if we believe in ourselves the way our loves believed in us and keep reminding ourselves of the way they encouraged us and helped us be strong we will be ok. That is my hope anyway.

Lyn I know what you mean about the sleeping. I think I could sleep 20 hrs. a day still be tired.

We can all get through this together. Here is a big hug for everyone (((HUG))).

Hugs & prayers,

Corinne

[lyn]

thank you for your encouragement Corinne. it is hard but we will get through this. i am getting strength from all of you here.

william, how was your search for your new home? i remember i have done that once and it was a very tiring and frustrating experience, but this is another story.

hugs to all of u..thank you for being here..

[Stallyn]

Lyn,

I feel exactly, the pain wears me out so much that I became "numb" to any good things, though my journey of running from God all this time and the anger, He makes himself known in many ways, death is not a option for us, no matter how much we want to go with our spouses. its ok to cry or sleep, its a coping mechanism that ensures your survival. I cry and obsessively tinker with things to deal with being alone, it stinks. The house, it happened a few days ago when the sink backed up and the landlord took 3 days to come out to fix it unless I wanted to pay for a plumber! I just was cursing to myself and said I can't take this anymore, the memories, the rent and expenses are too high. It seems a buyers market right now, if you can find a reliable realtor that looks in your interest and not just the bottom line. I only qualifed for 2 homes, and one I had today to rush and bid on it, it was so stressful just doing it, and it needs work. but I *have* to get out of this place of memories.

[lyn]

Thank you William, i feel much better now though this lump in my throat wouldnt go away. I am glad for the support all of you have given. There will be better days to come..for now, i try to look at the blessings i have. These trials are all shaping us, molding us and making us stronger and better individuals. I understand when u say about feeling numb with the good things, it is indeed difficult to appreciate them when we are in pain, however we should also try to be easy with ourselves. We have been through a lot.. battered souls (this is how i feel). Maybe, we can try to be grateful of some little things..and still smile through the pain. Remember the little shoebox you told us before?..hmmm...maybe it is about time we open it again. tell me what do we have there?

I hope you will be able to find a good home soon..some people can really be uncaring(including that landlord of yours) . it looks overwhelming now..but you will always have our love and support.

[teny]

HI my friends reading every word and feeling makes my pai double.There are days that I feel I dont want to go on life is so emty without him and as WEndy says I cant find who I am since I WAs with Yiany when I was 18.Im surprised that I can not give love to my children and grandchildren all I knew is the way I loved him. and as the song goes did he know how much I loved him? I knew the way he loved me and realy miss him sooo much.TENY

[kayc]

Sometimes it feels so odd to read your posts because they are me a couple of years ago...I remember feeling the exact same way, and thinking the exact same thoughts. I felt like George was ripped away from me without anyone asking me or consulting me, and it seemed very unfair. I remember feeling like I had lost control of my own life, my own power, and I didn't like it, I felt angry about it. People told me to turn to God but I felt like, "God?! He's the one who did this to me!" It took me a while to work it out, to realize that yes, it was all very unfair, and life just happens, and it seems pretty random, and God was there for me all the time even when I didn't feel Him or always turn to Him. It was hard for me to pray for the longest time, and I have been an avid pray-er all of my life! Eventually I settled into a kind of a peace that I can't describe, and although things are different now, I know God is with me, I feel a peace about that...it's not so much a feeling as a knowing. It came with acceptance, and that took some time, it was a gradual thing, not an all of a sudden thing...a knowing that God really does know what He is about and I can trust Him...this is something I'd never questioned "before", but when George died, my whole world ripped apart and it caused me to question everything I'd ever known, including God. I think this is common, but once you've come through it, it seems somehow that my relationship with God is stronger than ever...not so with the church so much, I have rethought my feelings about that and am not as satisfied as I once was to be content with how things were there. The church seemed to have no comprehension of how this alters one's life, and they want to take you over and fill up your time and tell you what to do, but they don't understand the isolation you feel and how things can never be the same again. When you deviate from their agenda, it seems you're "out". Maybe not all churches, but this is my experience I am writing about. So while I am no longer content to go back to my old life in the church, my relationship with God is rock solid. I feel a freedom never before sensed...in knowing that He is there and it's not contingent on how I am, it's on how HE is.

I don't know why I'm babbling away, I just wanted to share that this grief journey evolves into something and it doesn't stay the same, you change along with it, and the intense pain and despair you feel right now will gradually become something else. Gradually you will learn who YOU are, you yourself, and you will learn a contentedness that I can't explain...if you let it.

[Stallyn]

Lyn,

thank you for your support too, I would not have made it this far without you guys, you are so right, we are being forged by fire. whether we want it or not it makes the impossible possible right?

Teny,

Just knowing you post and express yourself shows you are moving forward and yes you DO love your children, if I can say something it is this, they are an extension of Yiany and yourself, you will always have that bond. my heart really sinks with you.

Kay,

I know I forget that its been awhile for you, and you been there and gone through the ultimately difficult phase, the church is a downer, but how did you find your faith again? Did you have a nudge in your heart from God telling you hes in control? I feel personally I gone back 18 years with my faith, like almost I became unsaved, it seems so different now, all the suffering and pain and feeling so alone.

[kayc]

William,

I grew up in an atheistic household, but I attended church since I was two years old...I was always taught the Armenian theory, that you could lose your salvation if you crossed some imaginary line or messed up without asking forgiveness in the meanwhile. About 9 years ago my belief system did a major overhaul...I was confused and began to ask God the answer and I believe He showed me, at least enough to satisfy me. I no longer believe the same that I did, but since our salvation is based on what Christ did for us, not what we ourselves did, it stands to reason to me it's grace based, not works or even obedience based. We are still required to obey but now we do so out of love for what He did for us, not out of a sense of obligation. It made a huge difference in my life, it freed me. I do not believe, therefore, that I can "lose" my salvation. I belong to Him, He calls me, He talks with me, He nudges me, He never gives up on me, not when I'm low, not when I question, not when I'm grieving or angry. It is such a solid relationship, how can I explain it, it's not based on my feelings, it never changes or wavers. I kind of liken it to like being in the best most solid marriage in the world! I don't think I ever really "lost" my faith, but rather just felt adrift, you know? Disconnected...not like I was "unsaved", but more like God and I were kind of drifted apart. I can't reckon it to a particular time, but it was more of a gradual awareness, it came with my acceptance, which for me took probably over two years. I went through a little more than some because of learning about my husband's drug use right before he died. I'd had no idea, and learned about it just three weeks before he died...it is an expensive habit and it was paid for by his taking money from our credit line on our house and lying to me about each and every withdrawal (he'd say an engine blew up and he needed to buy a new one or we needed new brakes, or portable lights or whatever other thousand excuses he came up with). In all, when all was said and done, I owed $72,000 on a house I had previously had paid off when we'd gotten married. Then I got hit with doctor and hospital bills...then I lost my job. This added to the anger and resentment I felt towards George because it all added greatly to my stress. I guess you might say this was complicated grief. It would have been easier if I could have just thought I'd had this perfect man and then spend the rest of my life gazing at his picture and worshiping him, but that wasn't the case. I didn't know what to do with all the different feelings I had. I felt very confused, very mixed feelings. So it took me over two years to reconcile all I'd been through, all I knew about this man that I'd loved as my husband, and accept it all. Somewhere in there I felt a peace that I could trust God with my life no matter how things looked. I don't blame God or George or myself, blame does no good, I've just had to accept and go from there. I still love and miss so much about George, but I've accepted that life has its changes, its twists and turns that we can't foresee and that it's up to us to do our best with it.

I would say to anyone who feels they've lost their way, that they feel their relationship with God is no longer what it once was, to consider that just maybe He is there all the time and still loves and accepts them, and He'll bring them through it. Remember, it's God-based, not us-based, thank God!

[dpodesta]

Kay,

The Bible and a lot of churches preach the same thing once you have been saved you can not lose that salvation. I posted earlier in the week that the Bible says that Jesus states that when you are saved Jesus holds you in the palm of his hand and no one not even the Father who is greater than he came remove us. That tell me that if God the Father can't remove us from Jesus' hand then we definately can't. Like you said, once we are saved we try to do our best out of love of what Jesus did for us. We are sinners and always will be, however because of the Cross all is forgiven and is as far away from us as the East is from the West.

Love always

Derek

[Stallyn]

Kay,

I don't know what was worse, I was raised roman catholic, so much dogma, I loved the religion most of my life, I gave my time to them, got initiated in the church, and eventually, found no God there, believed that priests were the pathway to God and Jesus, so I gave up, after nearly becoming a priest. I moved out of the house, drank every day, ran away alot, did drugs, until I got hurt over a failed relationship with a woman who was a liar, a friend who is a christian, opened his bible and preached to me, after awhile I broke down, called him, and gave my life, my existence changed afterwards, my life changed, had premonitions that never happened before, oddities. I know exactly what you mean, God never ever leaves, no matter how much we wish it away, he comes back.

My wife did some things that hurt, she kept secrets from me, sent massive amounts of money home, and told me she was always broke @ 50K a year?? She wouldn't allow me access to the bank accts, after she died it all came out, ending owing in excess of 8K, her desire to be interred at guatemala, the malicious things she told them about me. I hated her, sometimes I still do, for leaving me, for lying to me. God tells me to move on, you have to move on, moving me to places I never thought I be, and meeting such people like you showing me that its no a futile existence or our efforts are in vain.

Derek,

A simple word to you, thank you for mentioning that scripture again. We are the sheep and he goes out to find his strays and brings them back.

[kayc]

Derek,

I know, that's why I switched to Baptist...I was Nazarene. I love the Nazarene people but I'm sad that they worry about losing their salvation when it is already complete.

[kayc]

My dear friend,

then you can relate to what I've said. A friend of mine, who was a youth pastor, helped me a lot in understanding how/why a mate could lie. He told me he could tell me anything but he couldn't tell his wife. I asked him, Ed, why? How could this be? Your wife should be the one you can tell your deepest secrets to! He said, "Because I care what she thinks of me, I want her to think highly of me, but you, I don't care what you think." I said, "Thanks a lot!" But I knew what he meant. A man wants to impress his wife, he wants her respect, but he has a dilemma when he finds he can't be the person he thinks he should be to/around her. So he often omits things or doesn't tell the truth. In actuality, he loves her, he cares very deeply, but feels unable to measure up. I find that the saddest thing of all. They worry if they told us things we wouldn't accept them or love them any more. Or maybe it has nothing to do with us, but they are just unable to face things themselves. But whatever it is, I've come to the conclusion that George loved me deeply, but he wasn't the man he felt he should have been, and I think that's sad...he tried, but he had so much to overcome. Some of it he DID overcome in this life...the rest...God spared him and took him home. I no longer want to bash him when I get to heaven, I accept that he's human and he messed up, over and over again with me, but all is forgiven now and it's all past...when I see him again, it will be with a hug and forgiveness that I greet him.

I am glad you came to know God, not merely religion, but God.

[Stallyn]

Kay,

I do, and what you showing me what is right thing to do, I just don't know how or why I haven't given it to God. I never thought a woman would keep so may secrets, perhaps thats whimsical thinking I understand a man has his ego to keep up, Myrna would never ask me to do anything for her and that hurt also, all the years of marriage and she made me make all the decisions, decorations, cooking, she didn't seem to have confidence, but sure she had the faith. In the end when she was sick she didn't want me to be the caretaker. Kay it was a rough journey to meet Christ, but no remorse.

Love,

William

[lyn]

Kayc, thank you for your inspiring post. i have hope that someday my relationship with God will be fully restored. For a while, i turned my back from Him, i was so angry and i blamed Him, yet He never turned His back on me. i realized that He is always carrying me through all my sufferings. I still couldnt bring myself to go to church or attend a mass, and all i can utter is a simple prayer..pls help me, heal me Lord. I am waiting for that day that i will fully understand the reasons, it may be that these are all part of His greater plans for me.

William, our loved ones all have imperfections. i pray that you will be able to let go of the hurt she caused you, of keeping secrets from you. cherish the happy memories you have with her. On the other hand, I speak from my own experience, i was able to find peace again when i was able to forgive the man who murdered my father several years ago...

[Stallyn]

Lyn

I have faith it will happen, I wished it was now but am to wait I suppose

forgiving like you did is such a huge leap in faith itself, it seems an impossible feat to me, I resent the doctor that misdiagnosed but I learned too God will have his day in court with the wicked. if only that.

[lyn]

Dear Friends,

i need to vent again, please bear with me. i attended the wedding of a friend yesterday, and i arrived home feeling miserable. until now, i couldnt get over the event. i am so stupid to attend the wedding, i thought i was ready. it was the first wedding i have attended after almost 5 months. i felt nauseated now, oh God, i couldnt stop thinking i could have been married now if only he did not die. it is not fair..why are we not given the chance? it is not fair..

[Gail_R]

Lyn I'm so sorry that you are having such a hard time. I remember the first wedding that I went to after Bruce passed away and it too was 5 months almost to the day. It was our best friends son, we watched in grow-up into the man he is today. I have to say that it was one of the hardest things that I had to do. Thank god that our friends told me that I could take our youngest son with me. Because when they playeda song that Bruce and I liked to dance to I cried on my son shoulder. I know how you feel and just know that the next wedding you cry at it to because that is what I did when I went to a wedding in Oct. but for that one I brought my daughter to it with me. I know that the next one I will cry at it and maybe the on after that I will be a little better. It is so hard to do this without our beloved husbands and I have said this before LIFE IS SO UNFAIR. Lyn I hope that today is a better day for you. Just know that I am thinking about you. Gail

[Stallyn]

Lyn, its ok to just vent, is something that triggers our memories of loss, do you go out and see couples together, and all that, itys very very hard sometimes, and to think its a recurring nightmare, perhaps its ok to say no if something else comes up. We may never know why it happened to us but we are not alone. I hope you are doing ok

Love,

William

[lyn]

Gail, thank you for your support. i tried hard to control my emotions all through the wedding. it was made worse by some well-meaning friends who asked me why it is hard for me to move on after all those months? I had to control myself so hard, and grit my teeth so not to say harsh words, but i have to tell them that i am still not ready to socialize again. i broke down right after i arrived home. it felt good to cry, and to release it. i hope next time will be better..most of my friends are getting married soon. oh well, i have to brace myself.

William, i accepted the invitation thinking that i will be able to handle it. i did well but the aftermath was really bad. I have been declining invitations since the last 5 months, but this one i couldnt refuse. im glad it is over now. life goes on..glad to know i am not alone. Thank you for being here.

[DesertBob]

Kayc,

I think that there is probably no such thing in this life as a perfectly honest relationship. I very much doubt that all of us are completely honest with ourselves, so how could we then be completely honest with someone else? It's not like we don't try, but utter integrity and consistency and perfect self-confidence seems to be beyond our actual capabilities.

I think that the most you can hope for is a good approximation of honesty, and the most you generally get is a relatively good approximation. So, one's spouse secretly sending money to relatives and claiming poverty -- you can probably do better than that. But, a spouse who never omits or shades the truth, ever? Isn't going to happen. A person not only being on their best behavior when courting, or during the honeymoon phase of a relationship, but staying that way forever? Isn't going to happen. A person staying blind to your faults and completely thrilled just to breathe the same air as you forever and ever? Nah. Sooner or later you manage to, say, fart in your sleep and it's all over.

During my life I took the opposite tack from your youth pastor friend and just was myself, but then had the experience in my first marriage (and to a lesser extent, in my second) that the other person in fact grew weary of who I really was and tended to rip off my arm and beat me over the head with it, metaphorically speaking, just for being who and what I am. My first wife was just plain nuts, which I can excuse as spectacularly bad judgment and monumental naiveté on my part --- but then my second wife was unable to resolve issues connected with being abandoned by her father and tried to get me to fill that endless sucking hole of need he was so nice to leave for me to deal with. I could walk on water for months, and then in one careless moment "prove" to her that I didn't really love her and was a thoughtless uncaring bastard. [shrug].

Now at this point in my life, I don't know and to a large extent no longer care if I'm really that unsatisfactory of a person or if it's just been bad luck or if I just hope for too much from relationships. I'm tired of what I think of as The Game. I have gradually figured out during the past few years that I am my own best friend and unless I can be happy with that, I have nothing to bring to any relationship opportunity that may present itself, but my own neediness. And in this realization I have found that I can be relatively indifferent to whether or not I am ever in a relationship again. The way I figure it, paradoxically this probably ends up increasing the odds that I'll stumble onto something satisfying. Besides, you are always more desirable if you insist on being pursued. I'm rather tired of filling that particular role. Let them come to me from now on. Or not. In fact right now I have a mild preference for not.

I get more bang for the buck having casual coffee with friends, an evening of pleasant conversation with someone whose intellect, curiosity and creativity I admire, etc., than I have thus far from attempts at deep ongoing soul connection. Even when the latter works, it is difficult and maybe impossible to sustain. The human psyche is not designed to sustain mountaintop highs. It's a narcotic you can never get enough of. And no one can possibly modify themselves to be perfectly attuned to the needs / preferences / wishes / hopes / dreams / aspirations / hot buttons / battle scars / in-laws / children / pets / habits of another person, and yet not in any way compromise their own needs and integrity. No spouse can be totally understanding and gracious at all times toward you.

Bottom line, we make relationships and life into something more than what it really is, just imperfect people trying to get their needs met with varying levels of success. We romanticize it and idealize it and raise the bar high and then it hurts all the more to fall short. And we tend to take our disappointments out on our spouses, and then amazingly when they die we put them on a pedestal and bemoan the loss of some perfection that wasn't really there in the first place.

Yes, it's sad that your youth pastor friend loves his wife but feels unable to measure up. But frankly I don't know a single person who doesn't experience that to some degree in their marriage or relationship. I don't know any married persons who aren't somewhat disillusioned and couldn't wish for something more satisfying and enjoyable in their relationship. They all settle for what they have because it's costly in terms of emotional energy, life force, money, time, and practically everything else, to make change happen. Plus the results of such effort is far from guaranteed, and can be taken from you in a moment of time anyway.

So the take-away point for me is that if you don't want to spend the rest of your life with a broken heart you have to be more realistic in your expectations. Life -- including marriage -- is what it is, nothing more and nothing less.

There was a time when I had more faith, optimism, idealism and audacity than is presently available to me. I feel reasonably confident that, using those things to the max, I've left no stone unturned in my quest for excellence in relationships, but at the end of the day people are way too messy, unpredictable, and fickle to pin so much of my hopes on. And coming at it from the other direction, it turns out I am nowhere near the hot sh*t I once thought I was and have much less to offer someone than I wish I could. I have also discovered that even two highly compatible mature adults with the same quality no-holds-barred commitment to their marriage is no guarantee of clear success.

There is far, far, too much to go wrong with life to pin your hopes on some white picket fence fantasy of stable, comfortable, unhindered companionship. Maybe in an alternate universe that was fair and cared about our feelings, we would be guaranteed these things. But in this one, we aren't. Maybe, it could even be that as ennobling and reasonable as we think our hopes and dreams to be, they really aren't that important or worthy after all. I don't know ... all I know is, we try way, way too hard and set ourselves up for oceans of disappointment. And I have swam (swum?!) in that ocean for long enough. I'm taking a walk on the beach. Maybe even inland a ways.

--Bob

A man wants to impress his wife, he wants her respect, but he has a dilemma when he finds he can't be the person he thinks he should be to/around her. So he often omits things or doesn't tell the truth. In actuality, he loves her, he cares very deeply, but feels unable to measure up. I find that the saddest thing of all.

[Stallyn]

Lyn,

Us supporting each other is what mostly we have for us, being here has been so fulfilling and an experience.

Bob,

Well, I haven't many relationships in my 40 odd years of life, just 2 people w/o that piece of pink paper. Perhaps my standards and expectations were too high, what do you do when you are blamed for the spouse being broke all the time or blamed for something?? Thats me, a damn scapegoat, it was a fantasy, sometimes I laugh at the idea of marriage, maybe I was just an opportunity for her to have a "better" life in the good old USA and send god knows how much cash to her 42 year old brother that chose his destiny, his failed career and mucked it all up, it wasn't her problem, and not mine either but I got the butt end of it for many years. I seriously doubt I will put myself through that again, much freedom and less stress, can't trade that in for a better model. What is a better friend than thyself?

[DesertBob]

Well William,

I can't really complain (I love that expression ... everyone WANTS to but CAN'T) but it's equally true that Linda and I had three or four really good years (as she said shortly before she died, with tears, "we were GREAT together") before sickness and relational cruft came along and sort of swept it away. There's that. And I'll tell you, that's what I mourn the loss of ... those beautiful shining years of '94 through about '98, before everything that mattered to me started to fade away. I suspect they will always and ever be my best years, even if they are reduced to a terribly bittersweet memory now. I'm doing my best to remember everything I can about those years, no matter how much it hurts, because it's all I have left and all I may ever have. I never used to put much effort into keeping pictures and letters and mementos, but now I am grateful for Linda's obsessive cataloging of them all.

When I was younger (37) I took another go at marriage; at 50 I don't know. I'm quite protective of the relatively few years I have left (in the sense that another relationship could very easily mop up most or all of those remaining years). One gets less willing to take risks, and to make big investments. And it's not like my second 50 (or 40, or 30 or 20 or who knows, 10) years is likely to be EASIER than the first 50. I don't know how long my health will hold out, how much life force I will have left over from work, how soon I will be able to retire, what unplanned setbacks may crop up. Everything seems much more finite than it used to. So I am not going to make any rash decisions.

At least I can say that I loved her with all my heart, soul, spirit and body, in every way I knew how to and in some I didn't. At least I can say that I didn't hold anything back that was mine to give. They say it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. I am not sure about that, but I would say that the place I'm in arguably beats wondering if I missed out on something that might have been.

My guess is that if you're anything like me, your standards and expectations were right, according to your understanding of right, but not attainable just the same.

You're right ... to pervert the old Quaker Oats commercial, there is no better friend for thee than thee. I never misunderstand myself, never second guess myself, never castigate myself except in a good-natured way. I am a damned good friend, and I know it, whether or not anyone else ever will.

It's too bad the way life ravages people sometimes. Stephen King likes to write about the importance of taking your stand, by which he means, fulfilling your destiny in life against whatever obstacles you encounter. The only thing that matters is that you took your stand. It isn't relevant what's left of you at the end. Perhaps he's right. He also made another famous quip, "Sometimes God is cruel. Sometimes, he makes you live."

--Bob

Perhaps my standards and expectations were too high ... I seriously doubt I will put myself through that again, much freedom and less stress, can't trade that in for a better model. What is a better friend than thyself?

[Stallyn]

Bob,

Sure does paint everything black at the end doesn't it? I dwell on the bad for now, and the pain, maybe its resentment for putting so much effort into it and coming to a dead end, I have the same sentiment, the good memories, the love at first sight and hopes and dreams, You and I, well we had our fill of things of this sort, just too many variables and odds of chipping at it again.

Interesting, I was married at 32, after a long hiatus of living single, this was my first and probably last, just drains the life out of you to do it again wondering if its going kaput again, I fear the worse, always will now, the question is always, does a person love as much again? I have the doubts, now in a situation I cannot change but have to live it anyways, admittedly with guilt, I enjoy my life somewhat again, but would give my teeth to get back what was.

No it was not ever attainable now, the pursuit of unadulterated joy will never be, its not real. or trust in that manner.

Steven King does have a way at looking at things with irony, i recall the quote from Pet sematary when Fred Gwynn said "The man's heart is stonier than the soil" still the Character buried his child.

Thanks Bob, I did take the final stand. and thumbed my way through.

[DesertBob]

William,

I hear you, believe me, about "putting so much effort into it and coming to a dead end." But I think there's a subtle but important difference between being afraid to open your heart to all of life's possibilities, and being realistic about what those possibilities actually are, perhaps being more careful in picking your battles (I would not, for example, get involved with anyone with chronic illness again; I'm just burned out on that -- it's enough of a risk that such a thing could develop after the fact).

I feel, right now at least, used up relationally but that may change with time. Also right now apart from the grieving process that takes me down now and again I am very content with my solitary life. Those two factors together mean that I am not operating out of desperation and can take my time.

For someone else it might be different. Not everyone values peace and quiet and solitude like me; some people need some kind of life and activity around them or they don't feel alive themselves. I can take it or leave it and in many cases prefer to leave it. In private moments I am apt to be reading or studying. Many people have stronger social needs than I. I am just expressing my take on things; everyone has to adapt them to their own situation.

I would not recommend dwelling on the pain. I try to deal with the pain and look at it honestly and now and then I have to let the negative emotions flow, I have to ask Linda's forgiveness where appropriate, and forgive her where appropriate; and I have the same kinds of business transactions with God as well. It seems to be quite helpful even though I'm not certain either one of them are listening or participating. Also it's just plain dumb not to try to figure out that lessons a phase of your life has delivered to you. But I can't spend too much time on it. That way lies madness.

At the end of the day you absolutely must avoid becoming either embittered or fearful as that will hurt no one but yourself. So weep and boink your head against the wall when you must, but in the main, even if you have to write them down and hang them on the wall in front of you, focus on the good things. The good things are all we have, really. There are more of them than you think, and even if they are still outnumbered by "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" they are at least there and you can treasure them.

That doesn't mean you forget the negatives and don't take them into account in future decisions, or make no effort to avoid them. When you stub your toe part of the reason for the pain is that hopefully you'll be more careful in the future and will not do it so often again.

It's a pity life is so short and nasty. If we had a thousand or even a couple hundred years to play with we could afford to make more mistakes and make more attempts. Really this whole thing wouldn't be such a big deal if we had plenty of time. But then again, if we had more time we'd have less urgency and perhaps we would be sloppier ... so, maybe it wouldn't matter. It's an interesting question, though.

--Bob

Sure does paint everything black at the end doesn't it? I dwell on the bad for now, and the pain, maybe its resentment for putting so much effort into it and coming to a dead end, I have the same sentiment, the good memories, the love at first sight and hopes and dreams, You and I, well we had our fill of things of this sort, just too many variables and odds of chipping at it again.