If You're Going Through Hell

[Margm]

10 hours ago, KarenK said:

It bothers me that I have nothing to look forward to or get excited about

Well, I have started reading James Lee Burke's books over.  It has been a long, long time since I read him and I tend to forget easy, makes geriatric reading a plus.  He writes mostly Louisiana mysteries and Dave Robicheaux (sp?) is the detective.  Saw Alex Baldwin play him in a movie once and I think Tommie Lee Jones played him in one movie.  So, I just picture Alex Baldwin when I read about Dave. 

If I live till the end of 2021, maybe I won't be through with these books.  That is what they told us to expect this virus to last till.  How they know all this and can't find a vaccine, I just don't know.  They need to bring back Jonas Salk.   

[Gwenivere]

10 hours ago, Kieron said:

yes, I've been noticing this since earlier this year.  It's like Groundhog Day, the movie starring Bill Murray.

Except for one difference, it had a happy ending.  

Karen, I relate to your post so well, except I’m not a mom so I can’t begin to know what that loss feels like.  I want to do the things we used to.  Things I used to that were my thing.  Just feel I have been drained dry.  I know there are people that would do this surgery just for the human contact.  It may be medical, but lots of people pay attention to you.  BTDT.  It costs a lot of freedom unfortunately. It’s not social no matter how nice they are.

We'd take the dogs for mountain and swimming trips eons ago.  Those were fun and we were all hale and healthy.  When I discovered the off leash parks it opened a new world and lots of buddies for them and me.  Same with volunteering. All that is gone now.  A day is incredibly long.  Sleep is cruelly too short no matter how many hours.  

I may check out streaming too.  I know I’d have to get a new DVR from Direct TV.  They’d have to guarantee me I could get what I already have recorded.  Not all the old movies, but series and my stash of late night talk shows.  Recent series I could probably get like Yellowstone.   But I have about 45 episodes of Big Bang in order so that would be tough.  There just aren’t many shows now with productions on hold.  Normally over the summer I would have gotten more stuff.  Many shows I liked got canceled too.  Some shows are pay channels and I limp thru on Netflix now as they aren’t available yet.  This is sad.....how much I wrote about TV.  That says a lot about my life now.

i don’t know what I did yesterday or sleeping to be almost unable to walk today.   Add in the yellow glow outside from the fires, my heat kicking in and plain old lack of anything to do that is remotely interesting and it makes for another crappy day.  I pick up a meal at 5.  Want to take a shower and go thru the usual debate on washing hair or not as I pin it up all the time so it smells like when  last showered.  This used to be so easy.  I also used to care more.  M biggest thrill today was a new Time magazine as I was running out of stuff to read as novels tae too much concentration. Unfortunately it’s about the virus mostly.  Scanning HuffPost was depressing as always.  I like politics when it makes sense, but these days...

well, I guess that’s enough whining for now.  Have to figure out how to make it another day, just like we all do.

no filtration for the smoke.  Just regular masks and they weren’t designed for this.  The special ones are all going to first responders as they should.  I hope you can burn a fire since that is your only heat source, Kay.  That’s allowed here for that.  

 

 

[KarenK]

Sad to say, but TV conversation makes perfect sense to me as mine is on all my waking hours. I don't record anything. I have about 160 left of the 600 dvd' s we accumulated. Sold a lot at yard sales and traded for other things at the second hand book\electronics store. There are very few prime time shows I watch when in season. Don't care for sitcoms or talk shows. Mostly watch ID, HGTV, and free movies on demand. Watched everything Netflix had that interested me for a couple of months, then cancelled. Can always get newer movies at the library when I brave that environment again. I put all my reserved items on hold until Nov. 1. I read library ebooks on my Kindle constantly as I watch TV. Can't say I'm not well read. lol

I had a terribly sad and frightening night last night. Don't know what caused it, but I kept dreaming that Ron was trying to kill me. He would be arrested, escape, and come after me again. I kept waking up thinking it was real. To my knowledge, he never wanted to kill me for real. Just one of those stupid dreams that stays with you when you wake up.

Enough gibberish for now.

[Kieron]

1 hour ago, Gwenivere said:

Except for one difference, it had a happy ending.  

True but at least it had AN ending.  😐  For us the film reel is still unwinding.

[widow'15]

4 hours ago, KarenK said:

I had a terribly sad and frightening night last night. Don't know what caused it, but I kept dreaming that Ron was trying to kill me. He would be arrested, escape, and come after me again. I kept waking up thinking it was real. To my knowledge, he never wanted to kill me for real. Just one of those stupid dreams that stays with you when you wake up.

Karen:  Oh my, that is truly a sad dream.  Could be you are reading too many murder mysteries ?  especially right before bedtime ? I have to be especially careful what I watch on TV or it will keep me up.  Once I see something about abused animals on the news, I'll be awake all night.  Can't "un-see" or wipe from my memory.  Better dreams tonight.  Dee  

[Gwenivere]

Wow, what a terrifying dream, Karen.  That would have deeply disturbed me.  I hope it fades like most dreams.  Usually the good ones slip way from us and the bad stick.  Hope you get a make up dream to knock that one out!

[widow'15]

7 hours ago, Marg M said:

Well, I don't think we need to mail in our vote.  A man I know sent a letter to his son, just to check how long the mail took, and his son received it 30 days later. 

Marg M:  That little bit of information you shared about mail is the funniest story for 2020.  The last visit from my daughter back in the end of May, my daughter had her husband overnight mail a package to her.  It only took a week to get from Oregon to Washington.  Life gets more amazing doesn't it ?  Dee

[KarenK]

Marg,

I love it! You always give me fun things to search for. Found Alex Baldwin as Robicheaux in "Heaven's Prisoners" in 1996. Don't remember seeing that one. Tommy Lee Jones played him in "In The Electric Mist" in 2009 which I have on DVD. Very few ebooks at our library so probably won't get into them. Barely started on the Cork O'connor series. Long wait. Lots of people reading those. Check out Jenny Milchman. Fairly new author. Her books are pretty exciting.

[Margm]

Karen, I had to quit before book #9 of the Cork O'Connor series.  I read the synopsis and won't read no more of them.  But, I did read up until #9.  My favorite are Michael McGarrity, who was really a law officer in NM.  He wrote three though that took him way back in his family's genealogy and I could not read them.  Billy read two of them and missed out on the 3rd.  Dana Stabenow has her books in Alaska written around a tough, cute little Inuit PI (right now) but she has been state trooper, and lots of other things.  She is so tough, tiny, and cute that I love reading about her.  Lots of books, but I am caught up.  JJ Jance writes mostly about two different law officers.  Jo An Brady is an interesting series, from the first.  She has another guy she writes about, I think his name is Beaumont, and he is in Seattle mostly.  I think there are 27 of his books.  Don't know why I didn't read much of him.  He does have a case with JoAnne Brady that is a "hot" series (not much sex written about, but lots implied) but they fought it as she had not been married long (first husband was sheriff, had been killed.  Her dad was sheriff too of the county where Bisbee, Arizona is located.  We spent a lot of time in that area and I loved reading about it.  I'm not too keen on it now though, for some reason.  Too many memories maybe.  They were good memories but good memories sometimes hurt too.  I read first 12 of Michael McGarrity and think he has a new one that does not reach back into time and ancestry.  I quit reading Margaret Coel after about the 20th of her Wind River Reservation books because she said she was quitting that series and I'm not gonna read the last one.  The Dana Stabenow series on Kate Shugak, I think takes you about 22 books.  I keep up with hers.  This has been done over a bunch of years before Billy left too, so I have not read that  many since 2015.  Really had trouble with concentration for awhile.  Some still.  I think, though, I'm catching a hold again.  I hope so.  

Okay, Book Club of the last 50 years or so, and out.............I'm glad my mama gave me the gift of imagination and reading.  And, it was a gift.  She read to me until I could read for myself and she told me stories that TV has taken  away the imagination we had to have (the older ones) as children.  I still can find it sometimes.  Good reading.  

[KarenK]

I'm all caught up on the Wind River series, waiting in line for the latest Jance book, and waiting for the latest Kate Shugak in ebook form. Have never read McGarrity. Funny how we become attached to these book characters. lol I hop around among 36 murder and mayhem authors and always looking for new ones. I think I was in law enforcement in my previous life. Sure more exciting than my current one.

[Margm]

Billy read a series of mountain man books by Terry Johnston, and it was about a man named Titus Bass (Scratch).  I think he wrote about nine books.  Johnston told his wife he was afraid to kill off Scratch because he was afraid he would not live long himself afterwards.  Right after it came out he died.  He was diagnosed with colon cancer a month before he passed away at about 53, I think.  He and Billy both had about the same length after diagnosis.  

[kayc]

On 9/12/2020 at 2:51 PM, Gwenivere said:

I hope you can burn a fire since that is your only heat source, Kay.

Just waiting for the chimney sweep to clean it first as I don't want any chimney fires.  I'm not under LRAPA guidelines because I'm out of their reach.   I tried filling out an exemption application but they don't take them for here, we can burn away, besides I have one of the new "clean" burning wood stoves.

 

 

[Margm]

I have not read everything.  I have been going through a depression, not as bad as some but still one that scares me.  I have wondered why Billy was taken first, he was the wisest, strongest, most sensible, and calmest.  Of course I know he had bad things and we had got past them.  We had weathered my illnesses, which were quite serious, the last one that will hang over my head until I am gone, nothing anyone can do.  I feel like Billy wanted the new RV because it had just been a year since the colon rupture into all my lower organs, female included, and the pain was lingering, still does, but I can still function.  I think he was preparing.  I just didn't think.  Then I figure I must be here because I need more working on in other ways.  I'm not any nicer.  I just want to be able to help.  

I will try to tell this without too much identification.  My friends from years ago were having an anniversary party given by one of their children.  Many years. Very elderly.  One 90-year-old close to my family (was not ill, just old), he passed away first.  Then the anniversary wife passed five days ago, today her husband passed.  Out of 28 people, 24 came down with the COVID.  Main problem, elderly.

When I went to find my aunt's grave, our small town cemetery looked like a flower garden.  I could not find her resting place and will go in spring.  

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. (Robert Frost) naturally.  

[KarenK]

Marg, I'm so sorry that death seems to be visiting so many of your friends and family, even if they are older. In a way, I guess it's a blessing that I lost touch with all my old friends eons ago. I don't have to watch them leave. Half my family missing is more than enough.

[Margm]

I am humbled by your loss Karen.  Like my friend told me because I was crying at a classmate's death.  "We are at the age we are going to lose our friends."  We are.  We did not figure in COVID. 

[Gwenivere]

It certainly has been a game/life changer to be losing people to death rather than marriage,moving, having kids or disagreements that cannot be resolved.  Those are all repairable.  The people are still there somewhere.  I used to wonder when I would catch my mom crying at night why and she would give me a child appropriate explanation.  Now I know it was about deep loss.  Maybe remembering my biological father, her sisters as they started leaving, her friends, 2 miscarriages, 2 still births.  Her own failing health.  

There are people I knew I wonder about.  But like Karen, I don’t do any digging.  My family gone is more than enough.  

[Margm]

My family, my church, my friends, for years none of this changed.  I was comfortable, except with my mom.  Everyone knew things were different and then she lost all her family that her life revolved around feuds with, my dad was gone, my sister and I both told her we were not her sisters, we refused to involve ourselves in her feuds.  She found a friend who would carry on fusses with but she passed away.  I had to come back "home" to begin to understand her.  Not sure I ever will, but I've made peace with her and my dad, who was the ruling King of our family (when Mama let him.)  Like Dylan Thomas said "Do not go gentle into that good night" we sometimes wish and hope for a gentle trip, not raging against it.  Mama's Alzheimer's raged, just like she did all her days.  I have no real questions and certainly no answers.   

[Margm]

They bring up "memories" on FB and five years ago today this is what I put.  I will not rehash it again on FB, but I think we understand.  October 16, 2015, this was my memory.

Getting ready for another trip to Hot Springs, Genesis. Lots of things wrong, not too much works. He fell last night going to bathroom. Getting rid of the Megace. Changes disposition and level of consciousness. Will let you know how it comes out.

Billy is a private person. Not sure he wants his medical records put on FB. In fact, I know he does not. So, this is for me and prayers for my stubbornness.

[Margm]

He was gone the next morning early. 

[Gin]

Brings back memories.  Not good ones.

[kayc]

Marg, that's a good one to remember, at least I would find it consoling, I hope you can as well.  ((hugs))

[brat#2]

Just needed to get this out today.  Today is our 38th wedding anniversary and I miss Dale so much!!  I really need him right now to make me feel loved, safe and his wit to make me smile.  Dale, you are my heart and soul forever.

 

[Margm]

We know how much our mates are missed.  I could not understand why this #5 was any worse than the others but my son is just now coming out of his deep depression.  I hope.  Every holiday and important date just tears whatever scar tissue we have built up.  I was wondering last night.  I am a Christian and Heaven is a great mystery.  I looked up at the blue sky with clouds and I wondered out loud to Jesus and to Billy, do they know and do they care how much we hurt.  I have no answers, just continual pain in my heart from missing him and his wonderful job of being the best dad any kid could want.  My heart is with you today, and every day. 

[Gwenivere]

❤️❤️❤️ Joyce ❤️❤️❤️

 

[Gwenivere]

35 minutes ago, Marg M said:

I looked up at the blue sky with clouds and I wondered out loud to Jesus and to Billy, do they know and do they care how much we hurt.  I have no answers, just continual pain in my heart from missing him

I’ve had the same questions.  Questions without answers and that is why it’s makes it such a hard struggle.  If I just knew he could see me, I’d feel some kind of relief and, of course, continuing connection.  Would it make him sad?  Now that he is free?  Do I want him to feel that?  In sway, yes.  It’s how we humans gauge another’s caring.  It’s just so complicated.  All I know is that I wish, if he still exists in a spiritual form, that I could know he keeps loving me.  Because I don’t, the impending anniversaries coming up and my physical struggles take me to the edge of even wanting to be here anymore.  I still fear death.  I’m afraid someday I won’t and will be tired of waiting for it.