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4 hours ago, Gwenivere said:

Tom,  I, too, find new land mines along the way.  I think there can’t possibly be more but they just keep coming.  Someone posted somewhere.....5 years down without them, forever to go or something like that.  So true.

Gwen, I've decided that after 48 yrs of intimate contact the memories, and land mines, might as wel be INFINITE.

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For me, the loneliness is the killer.  Al and I were together all the time.  The world seems so very empty. Age and failing health make it hard to do much.  Just plodding along.

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Well, whoever wrote that saying 'what’s worth doing us doing twice' ought to rethink that.  I had everything worked out today to get my car back.  Did my volunteering, had a cab waiting when I got home only to find a message from the dealer it wasn’t done as they expected.  Had even parked Steve’s van back where it’s tucked in, not an easy task.  I had 2 choices, go do something else, which I did, or feel like a victim again.  This stuff happens, but it’s the first I had to deal with it alone.  I’m all for doing some things twice like a good burger, a movie or sex.  😉

Yup, Gin, loneliness is a killer.  Tom, I remember a time I wanted to live forever, life was that good.  

 

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Gwen, I'm sorry your car wasn't done.  I'd make them pick you up when it is done, they should have given you a loaner.  I must have the wrong service repairs because I never seem to get a loaner.

Marg, so is your granddaughter on her own then?  Is she working?  Lord, I don't know how you do it, girl!

I drove 35 miles away to visit a friend yesterday, he got a new puppy and his older dog and I fell in love as well as the adorable puppy.  I should have been cleaning house but hey, it'd all just need doing again anyway.

Tom, I'm one that keeps receipts, etc.  You're right, they tell a story, it's hard to go back and look, too hard.

Gin, you're right.  We can figure everything else out, but the missing them part is what makes it hard to bear.

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16 hours ago, TomPB said:

Glad I live in a place with great public transit, uber & Zipcar.

Tom, our small city only has senior transportation.  It does not have the things you mention.  That is a total plus for you and anyone who lives in a big city.

Don't know where I might have written my granddaughter is moving out.  I consider any step she makes on her own as a win.  She went to doc on her own, other counselor had said not to push her.  I don't.  She knew she needed counseling bad.  She had a PMS (I call it) breakdown and she needs to take care of things.  She knows it.  But, I don't know what harm the biological mom taking the drugs might have done to her little psyche.  She is taking baby steps, but, I will be here as long as I can when she needs me.  Any step she takes alone, I consider a win.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

For some reason my mind is bombarding me with all the horrific images of 2014.  Starting in January when one of our dogs was diagnosed with incurable cancer, aa awful surgery, us letting her go, Steve going into cancer dementia within a couple weeks and the 2 months watching him slip away and die end of October.  Basically becoming a widow before he died as he couldn’t communicate anymore and spending weeks witnessing this man I knew gone but his body still familiar.   

All that comes to mind is months of physical pain, problems to be solved, loneliness as I go into a 4th year of holidays alone and not seeing how this will ever get better.  Today should be a Bbq day for Memorial Day.  Repeatedly watching life go on for so many others while mine stands still locked in the ending to what was life for me.  Not being able to participate in what once had meaning anymore.  So much slipping away.   One minute I am semi OK, the next I want to curl up and disappear.  Day after day.  Tired of making decisions.  Wish someone could just tell me what to do.

if you saw Men in Black,  three had a pen that flashed and you forgot what you had seen.  How I wish that was real.

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My friend/cousin and her husband are mine and Billy's age range.  They spent five years or longer fighting his prostate cancer and as soon as they got the all clear path reports he sank swiftly into dementia.  Not Alzheimer's, but the kind if not watched constantly will drift off some place unknown, night or day.  They have my girlfriend in the lock down section of the nursing home (we thought we had lost her last week), but she has walking dementia just like my friend's husband.  I see pictures of him and he is smiling.  She is worn out.  She has help from two grown kids and her church too.  Billy, my laid back, ambling pigeon toed,, slow walking tall man only stayed five weeks.  I remember things though now........afterwards......that I should have noticed.  I didn't, and I cannot keep beating myself up.  But I do.

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I’d say don’t beat yourself up, Marg.  But I know all too well that 20/20 hindsight thing.  Steve’s stuff was very obvious, yet I can find things I might have done differently.  I try not to think about them, but our minds are not often our allies anymore.  As my counselor recently said: your mind really likes to torture you, doesn’t it?  Yup.  That it does.  The only thing I try and remind myself of is no matter what, I nor the doctors could save him.  That is enough to have to grapple with because it leads to the big WHY?  Everything is so tangled up inside me trying to make some kind of sene of (impossible task) and get thru the day.  

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I could not wish away my memories of George because he was the best thing that ever happened to me and I know it means sorrow and missing him, but I gladly carry that because along with it I have all of the wonderful memories, knowing that once in my life I was truly loved and how that felt.  

I saw my daughter yesterday.  Her husband is alcoholic, he is mean to her.  I gave her the best advice I could and offered to pay for a divorce when she is ready.  She's not ready to file for divorce and an order to leave, but she also knows she can't live like this.  She's stuck and in so much pain.  We never would have thought this would happen, he loved her just as George loved me, it was apparent in all he said and did, but now he's a complete opposite with the drink...she didn't know when she married him because he wasn't drinking then, it started when he started his job 3 1/2 years ago.  He won't get help.  I look at the situation she's in and I am glad George didn't turn like that, and yes he's gone but at least my memories are protected and intact...for her to see her Don destroyed and this alien take his place, it's indescribably hard.  Reminds me of an Everly Bros song, "So Sad",  so sad to watch good love go bad.

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I'm sorry Kay.  Different couples go through different things.  My coworker, her daughter (beautiful girl) dated one boy probably since she was in junior high.  They were both exceptionally smart, athletic, and had scholarships to go to same college, fully paid.  Any picture of her had him right beside her.  They married and he turned into someone else.  After all those years together, divorce.  She graduated from college without him and I admire the mother, her only child, and that grown daughter now who is going to medical school.  Then, I have my friends, mine and Billy's age.  She stays in the old inherited home place many miles out in the country.  He stays in another state being the caretaker of two grandchildren.  I heard a possible reason and honestly, after that many years, you have to forgive things that happened 30 years or more ago.  You have to forgive before it is carved in stone.  No perfect marriages.  It was not like it was on TV.  We did not wear high heels and aprons and all eat dinner together around the table each night.  We did that during my mom and dad's generation.  I found out my generation and Billy's was called the "silent" generation.  Never knew that.  Supposedly the newest generation is called "generation Z" and that is the last letter of the alphabet.  We all had different marriages, but when you can really call them your best friend and mean it, and can and do talk over everything, I think it must have been successful, even if we never finish our forever.  

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22 hours ago, Marg M said:

They married and he turned into someone else. 

That's how it was with Melissa and Don.  She did everything right, she loved him for 18 years, but they've only been married since 2009 because she was very cautious before taking the leap into marriage, she wanted to make sure, she didn't want to end up divorced.  But it all changed when he started working for a place that served alcohol, his boss started giving the employees free drinks after work and it's a partying crowd...it was then we discovered he is alcoholic.  She couldn't have known before because he wasn't drinking before.  And a mean alcoholic at that, at least with her.  He berates her and puts her down, accusatory, nasty.  My heart is breaking for what she's going through.  Karen had it right a year ago with her reaction of him, I wasn't ready to give up on him at that time, I've loved him like a son for 18 years, but now...he little resembles the person I knew.  I just want him away from my daughter so she can have peace back in her life and know her value and worth.  This is abuse at its finest but one of those hard to prove kinds.

Maybe there is no such thing as a perfect marriage, but George and I were damn lucky, it felt as close to perfect as people can get...very very lucky.

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