Margm

Just too cute for words. Mama chooses cutest clothes. Adorable.

Because of being home schooled, my granddaughter has to take four months at the local vo-tech school. This child's father came from Thailand and she is exceptionally smart, but for family problems she has social anxiety.. My mom went to this school, I graduated from it and met Billy at a party at the school. (He was already working). My daughter got her nursing degree from this same vo-tech.so I am hoping she has as much luck as the rest of us. And, this is my goal. This is what I live for at the moment. Maybe other goals later on. I do feel Billy's guidance in this if for no other reason than she was his heart.

I never knew about the safety nets of retirement until I married Billy in 1961. He had been working two years and was looking forward to retirement. After five years I talked him into taking out the lump sum retirement and going to a job that could have killed him. We never could find enough money to pay back that lump sum, so he had to work 5 more years plus three years for a higher retirement. It made it where we could retire on the very same day. Lesson learned. We were never rich and lived paycheck to paycheck, but the retirement was great and he got to live `18 years of it. I wish we could have squeezed out a few more years, but it was fixed where neither of us missed out on the other's retirement. That was him, not me. He was the smart one.

WK: I cannot have chocolate. It is one thing I am not supposed to have that I have cheated on. Billy got on one of his health kicks once where you eat the dark chocolate. Only, I decided if a little is good for you, then a whole lot must even be better. After I got through throwing it all up, I found out that chocolate missing from my diet is not the worse thing in the world. Ice cream? I only eat it if I have it......often.

It was interesting Laura. But, factual results will give you the best automobile mechanic around with the lowest IQ. You can have a very high IQ and wind up at the end of your life with nothing but your high IQ while the auto mechanic learned to put a safety net under his low IQ and can live quite well. Life is very interesting, until it isn't anymore. Your job sounds very time consuming and you are a dedicated person. I admire that.

I occasionally get "barbs" of some sort but they are usually from relatives. When I do, they do without my company and I guarantee you, that is punishment enough. I do not have time to waste it on people that are not of like minds with me. I can remember being young and afraid I would hurt someone's feelings with something I might say. I can remember saying things I should not say. But, that is the key, I did know what I did was wrong. If the insensitive dolts that come around you offer anything but love and sympathy, turn your back on them and walk away. You certainly do not need them in your life, do you? If they ask you a senseless question, look them in the eye and say "why do you want to know?" Either that or use that new thing I have learned, tell them "you take a lot of Tylenol, don't you?" Then laugh and turn your back on them. I like that poem about when I get old I will wear purple. Purple has always been my favorite color and having friends is something that I do take for granted. And, one thing I like about age, some people need me more than I need them. Put value on yourself, not these people. Yesterday because of the turmoil of the day I asked for prayers on public media, the one I share with my friends. This is one of the many quotes I received: "There are a lot of us in the same club!! We learn to rely on each other for support and understanding!! love you!!" and this came from a cousin. But, back in the land I am going home to, everyone is my cousin somewhere down the line. People years ago didn't have any big cities to go to and the bayous and river bottom land provided sustenance to live on. Maybe that is why I have so many loose screws. And, I can be bold today, but tomorrow I might be a heap of liquefied humanity.

My sister is a genius intellectually. Always graduated the very first of her many degrees. Mama always said there was a fine line between genius and insanity. What is insane to one person is just another person's cultural differences. One of our friends rode about 300 miles with my sister once, a friend of my husband's, and he told him he did not understand a word she said the whole trip. This is not really a difference in normal and abnormal. This is a difference in talking about things one considers intellectual and talking to a person who just has a lot of common sense but no "book learning." We don't live life on book learning and you can talk where regular people understand you. The difference in all people is what I described to my grandson, the way he understood it for years afterwards and quoted it. Some people have loose screws in their head and some people just plain have lost their screws out of the hole they belong in. Bless his heart, narcotics have opened up the screw holes into his brain and his are lost. Some of "us" have loose screws in our brain and the screw holes mine are screwed into are becoming very lax. The only thing that ever made sense to me was when someone told me that "normal" was only a spot on the washing machine dial. Many times I feel my writings are "word salads" but when they are, I just consider the source. No apology. My screws are rattling around in my head lately. And then, there are the cultural differences we feel most comfortable in.

And yet so many of your most creative people are bipolar. It tends to give some people special talents. My son is an artist. My dad could pick up any musical instrument and play it. Kelli is a photographer. Many of your composers and many of your actors are bipolar. They said they would have to pull Churchill off the walls and if it were not for his advisers, bad things would have happened. I would read books about them for years. One of the top psychiatrists that writes books is bipolar. My psychiatrist was bipolar. Yet, sometimes they do go off the rails. My son goes without medicine and handles things lots easier than my daughter on so many medications. He loses his artistic talent on medications. He is what they call a rapid cycler though. I have seen my dad "trip the light fantastic" and see him so low in depression and he would get angry because he could not understand his own emotions. It is a sad disease, but if they can keep it under some control it is within reach of normalcy. I have lived with it my whole life, but yet I am just a chronic depressive. Money is a bad problem. The psychiatrist that writes about it said she went into a downtown NY City drug store and because snake kits were on sale, she bought them all. Kelli has problems with this. If it is on sale, she will buy it, whether she has a use for it or not.

I'm so sorry. Your younger than my oldest grandchild and only two years older than my youngest. Love comes and goes in all ages and I am so sorry for your hurting and your loss. I'm an old woman and I hurt, you are so young and you hurt. You have come to the right place. There are more people closer to your age, I think, but we are all ages, we have all had loss that we cannot handle. We are here for you to talk it out with us. It won't cure the hurt, but you won't feel so alone. Please keep reading.

It has gotten her in trouble before. I wonder why they keep trying stupid medications when none work. I won't say nothing else. We are careful.

Has not been put on the market yet, just showed people around in this messy house. They are talking to lawyer tomorrow. Not gonna get my hopes up. They came out of no where. Of course, I did put my hands on Billy's urn this morning, our daughter is going through one of her manic anger phases and I have never had to go through it without him. I did take two Xanax today, will take one tonight. Billy always told me not to answer back, to just let it lie, and I honored what he always wished I would do and I did not fight back. I let it lie this time. It has died down. I hope he is happy.

There is no rhyme or reason to my moving except we were on our way to doing that before the sickness brought him down. I finished what we started, and nothing makes much sense now. My connecting the dots is like a tattoo artist trying to go from freckle to freckle. No set pattern, no picture when it is done. Right at this moment I do not know why I am doing this. I don't want to stay where we were leaving, where he left me. This is not home. Top parish in Louisiana is our home. Both of ours. Born, school, graduated, other school, married, children, their graduation, then we were free to RV. Joke on us. We were never free. Billy is the only free one. I see a house that is 50 years old and gonna need a new roof one of these days, needs plumbing fixed, need updating on lots of stuff. My heart is not in it. I want to be where I have no responsibility for mechanical or house. If the plumbing goes out, I want the company I rent from to fix it and one of these days I want to have enough concentration to read again, just read my Kindle. That and find a church I feel good in. Find faith in.

Got some football players coming Friday. Not too much to lift though. EXCEPT boxes of books.

Laura, I carried all those weights out to the garage. I am not supposed to be lifting, but dammit, it was like they were a road block in my way. Can you believe the man took vitamins, lifted weights, was so health conscious but swallowed that nicotine poison all over his body, all in every vital organ. Could take crazy things like argenine, folic acid, B12, acetyl-L-carnitine with alpha lipoic acid, and all kinds of things ordered from vitamin house to build him up, but could not give up the thing that tore him down. I guess we all are a little crazy, only my family were poster families for all disorders. And the queen of them all is still standing and I have more things wrong than they did. Sure didn't help lifting those weights. Suicide by stupidity.

Okay, just had another major mini-breakdown, happens too often. I think I have never felt so alone, and I am not alone, except for Billy. It is like the birds grow up and leave the nest. Billy was old enough to leave our nest, but I was not ready for him to fly. These breakdowns are happening too often. I don't trust the person who was "sent in" to help me. Mama always told me the story of the "dog in the manger" and he was guarding the hay to keep any of the farm animals from eating it though he could not eat it himself. That is what I am doing. I cannot let loose of things I cannot use, will never use, and our kids did not "take after their dad" except in the artsy department. I have not had these breakdowns like this from the first few days after he left. So, like Christopher Robin said: "There is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

Kay, I have insisted on doing all this myself. My daughter won't come, cannot come, her mental condition won't let her really. So she sends friends that I do not trust. This friend has looked under and over everything I have. Am I going to keep this, that, the washer and dryer. Then tells me to just leave things and she will handle it all. I get aggravated and think everyone needs a piece of me, but where are they now? I have to be in Louisiana to help everyone but where are they now that I need help? I told them all that I could handle it. I have to get my wits together and handle it. You have your roof, your house, your plans made until you are ?? years old. And, I have my granddaughter in the bedroom that needs me more than anyone. All I am wanting right now is that padded room and a box of colors. Am I stronger than I think I am? I just moved all the body building weights out to the garage and I am shaking all over, but I did clear out that area. Wonder if it built up my muscles. Sure tore up my circulatory system. Now, where is Billy when I need him?

Well, if Billy wants to help me today I sure won't turn down his help. I think what I wrote about him not jumping in to save me when the water was only waist deep is a good analogy for what I am facing right now. He was with me when we started this move, I need his help right now. This water is over my head. I wonder if he is standing on the dock laughing now. I can walk, I can lift things, I just do not have the use of my brain and heart. I cannot get organized. And I cannot swim.

I think that is beautiful. Grievers are there for each other. I read where "friends" are cruel to members of our community. I cannot even think why someone would criticize any one of our community or make them feel more grief than they already do. I cannot consider people that do not understand, people that tell us to move on, I just never understood "tough love" and perhaps that is why I have so much on my plate. You want to help me, fine. You want to tear me down, get out of my way, I don't need that or you. I wish you a very good day Maryann. I am fixing to tackle my books, the dreaded job of getting rid of books. Books, I have always considered friends. I picked up one yesterday to get started. It was by Pete Hamill, title forever. I cannot get rid of it, I have not read it yet. Then I have Billy's Custom Rod Thread Art. He has markers all throughout the book. He was an artist at wrapping custom rods. I have a purple and gold one in the silt of Lake Bistineau that he wrapped for me, with my name on it. I fell out of the little pirogue boat, was actually knocked out of it by a low lying branch of a cypress tree next to the dock. Billy and Scott saw this happen. They knew I could not swim yet they were there laughing when I came up out of the water. He did not jump in to the water to save me. I put my feet down and the water came up to my waist, so I walked out and left my custom wrapped rod down in the mud of that lake. I always was angry that he did not jump in to save me, even if it was not necessary. Each book tells more than one story. How can I get rid of them? But I must. If you have been in your house forever, stay there.. Weeding out treasures should belong to generations that come after us, when we are joined with our loved ones again. This is just too much.

And the "like" on the side of the page, I thought it meant if you read it or not. The numbers on the left under our names, once brought to my attention that it was 666, and I don't know what the other number is but I obviously post too much. We are about helping each other, right? So what are numbers other than to show maybe I post too much. Take numbers away and the like. What does it matter? You know someone has read your request for help when they answer. Other than that, what do they mean?

That is good cause I have no idea how to do anything.

Laura, at the very top of my page there are two things, a picture of a bell (notifications) and a letter (messages). Right now I have 4 notifications, and what that means is someone punched the little black "like" box. Other than that, I don't know. I am computer dumb, really.

I love hearing them call elk. So yes, it counts.

Steve, I saw him, I did not see his face, it was bent down to kiss my forehead into a sitting position. He was right beside me, I saw his pants, his shirt, his arms.. There is only one thing wrong with this dream. It made me feel so good, but the next night I dozed off and Brianna was sitting in her chair. Only Brianna was in Louisiana and I was in Arkansas. She would have been sitting in her regular chair, but she was not here. The way I used to be before Billy left, I would have thrown myself into this feeling, and I cannot help but do it anyhow. I did hear him the night relatives moved into our house, they were fighting, the child was throwing epic fits of just being spoiled with the parents self absorbed in their own problems. I went to sleep on the couch, was uncomfortable, woke up with Billy saying "It's enough." I left that day. I probably should not say too much. Not afraid of people thinking I might be insane (I am certifiable).Just wish I was like I used to be. I have Billy's persona. If I had gone first, I would haunt him constantly, if I could.

Well, I have Billy's hats on top of his urn. I can be mean when I want to, just don't want to all the time. The question put to me was "Has anyone claimed these hats." They were sitting on top of his urn, I figured anyone would know he claimed them. Now giving his "call" DVD's and CD's away, it had to be specific. I think I did good. Honestly, I don't think too many men are interested in calling up varmints, unless they are women varmints, and it, even in this country we live in right now, this hunting country, not many men call up crows and coyotes. I enjoyed the crows. They really talk to you and Billy knew their language. We fooled them one time with a call that was a distress call. They came flying from everywhere and saw they were being fooled by a human and I do not know crow cussing, but they sure cursed us out when they were leaving. It was a weird place anyhow. There were crow skeletons all around, made white by the weather and time. I was ready to leave. The "animal" guy at the sheriff's office took his call DVD's and CD's. Billy would have liked that.

One night right after Billy left I dozed off in front of the TV, my head down in front. I felt like I saw Billy beside me. He bent down and kissed my forehead until I was sitting up and then he was not there. If it was a dream, then it was the best dream I ever had.