Margm

Next year they will send them to me. They have my address as the Mount Ida address. I need to pay taxes in Louisiana and renew them here. But, I own the home in AR so, the Toyota place payed the taxes on the new car and picked Arkansas taxes to pay. I accepted. I cried going up there and cried coming home. I thought I had quit the big cry. Hadn't.

Karen, I went ahead and ordered the C.J. Box new book. Was able to concentrate very well, with some lapses, but not as many as one of my favorite author's, Dana Stabenow's newest book. I keep thinking I have read it but it has the two characters of Kate Shugak and Liam Campbell (state trooper) together. I don't remember reading it, and it is new, but somehow the plot is familiar. I put it aside to read the C.J. Box book. Will go back to it. Glad to see some concentration returning. Have to return to that dreaded town where Billy left me. Supposed to have storms. I drive okay in storms, but don't drive after dark. It is 175 miles one way, have to hurry. Tags expired March 31st, so I have to keep off the radar, literally, but that tiny car can scoot. Have to leave Brianna here, but certainly 18 is old enough for that. I was married at 18. I have so many anxieties.

My memory is so scattered, but it has never been that sharp. The seeing shows I have already seen, thinking they are new, but I am not sure I am too worried about it. It does help sometimes to forget some things on purpose..

Martha Jane, I had 54 years and it seems like it was only a blink of the eyes. Sometimes someone comes up behind me and he flashes through my mind, even in this apartment. I try to do everything that we would not have done. As much as he hated yard work he would not have lived in an apartment. Thank goodness the people living in our house love it. They leased it and do all the improvements on their own. I have to go back up there Tuesday, but I will stick to the highway, will not go down our circle drive street. I will not visit my dear friend that helped me through the first months. I will shut it out of my mind.......I can now. Have to make it back down here before dark. I try not to go back and read old messages, so I am not sure where I got this, maybe off this forum. I still have this brain. I don't know how long it lasts and how to tell it from dementia or beginnings of anything else. My granddaughter bought me a shirt that says "If I Don't Remember It, It Didn't Happen." In watching this last season of Grace and Frankie, I thought it was the new season because I did not remember the first few episodes, but then I remembered the older ones. Sometimes I have to go back over things I have read because my concentration wanders. Oh well, I have always been ready to go except right now my family have to let me afford a memorial stone to put on our plot of ground behind my mom and dad and next to my aunt and uncle catercorner to my grandmother and granddaddy. That is all I want. Terrible when all you want is a gravestone.

I get lost in my movies and books Karen. Sometimes, weirdly, I lose concentration for a book, but never for movies. There is a new C.J. Box book on Kindle for $13.99, but it is 398 pages long and I will get it tomorrow. I don't think I will have any trouble concentrating on it. If it brings me out of my doldrums, I am appreciative. I get Netflix and share with the whole family, so mine is a little more expensive than regular Netflix. I do not know how to use Hulu, but I have it too. All it takes is getting on it, but I get in a hole and need to stop digging. Channing Tatum....yes. Also love all the Marvel movies. Liked Wonder Woman but not many of the DC comic movies.

Tom, we wouldn't watch anything by him either. In the "me too" movement we are aware of so many now that I just watch documentaries mostly on Netflix. They are interesting and you sometimes learn a little history. My disposition runs from conflict. It makes me very upset and an innocent remark this morning set up a discussion of Baptists and Methodists. I quickly deleted it. I do not do well in a conflict situation, and thankfully it has cooled down in my family. Still scares me. I watched the news this morning instead of church and got in on the services of another denomination. I needed to hear what was being said, but my sister turned it into a conflict and I had to quickly delete it. She loves debating politics and religion. It just makes me ill.

George, this woman's TV show brought laughter to me when I thought it would never come. While I do not approve of what she did, there are things I did that I certainly hope asking forgiveness helps. It did in my marriage, and I hope it does in life and death. If I can be forgiven, anyone can. But, that is just my life and just my opinion. And, like the joke says, everyone has opinions. Unfortunately, in history, her name will go down with Benedict Arnold and he did not live long enough to have a sitcom. I removed mine, but I cannot remove a copy. That is twice this morning I have had to delete things. The other was meant innocent also. Probably why we are not to discuss religion or politics either. Just an innocent sweet movie.

I did not mean for my post to involve politics. It was posted because the movie was made and I liked it. I'm sorry for bringing it up. Tension still runs high in this country for a lot of things. This is one of them. Unfortunately, I am from that place in time and I still enjoyed the characters this woman plays. I should have thought twice before posting it. When It is copied, I cannot remove it.

Tom, I am probably the only person alive that gets terribly angry with numbers. Still, sometimes I am an island all to myself. Thinking of you on this date and on October 17th, I will remember numbers again. I wish it got easier. Maybe being older, like me, your mind filters out some things, or simply does not try to comprehend.

Betty White will soon be 96. I think Allen Ludden was her one true love. In reading something she wrote, it made me think. I have too much wrong with me to reach that age and just hope I can finish things I have started. But, she said something that rings so true to me: She admitted that she missed "having someone to hold," but added, "if you've had the best, who needs the rest?"

Kevin, I think all the furniture I moved was the desk Billy had picked out at a yard sale we just happened on, and it's chair, three bookcases, and the bed. The mattress is so old I refurbished it with a cover. I should have bought another bed but it is one of the old king sized that sits on two twin size box springs. I don't even know how old it is. I still have 15 - 17 of the huge plastic boxes with tops packed everywhere. I opened one, a plaque that Billy had picked out for our 33rd or 34th anniversary was on top. I just closed the box and have not even opened the ones that say linen's. Just bought new ones and find I do not require anything from those boxes. My poor kids will have to handle that. Nothing of any value anyhow, just memories. I have them in my head. I actually have a generator in my dining room. Somewhere. What am I gonna do with a generator? But, I left that big house as soon as I could get out of it. The people that lease it have even put in new plumbing. Hopefully they can put it in their name soon. Never missed or were late with a payment. Just like opening the boxes, I cannot even go back to that little town. Grief is individual, but it is very painful if you open the box.

Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD is about my favorite grief counselor. I have his daily "Grief One Day at a Time" book. October will be three years for me. I am not going to count the months. I am that strange person that gets real anger with numbers. Strange in a lot more ways also. Today's "help" mostly spoke to me with his words "Of course, we may also be profoundly comforted by our faith, whatever that uniquely means to us. Faith can be the most assuaging comfort of all." I really find my memory sometimes is the most comfort. I cannot forget Billy, ever. But, like the old way of treating illnesses was to bleed that person, I find if I bleed myself too much, I am sad all the time. I don't think I am ever "happy" in any way I used to be happy, but I can feel Rose Kennedy's description of "scar tissue" over the wound sometimes, unless I purposefully bleed myself. And, I can do that often too.

I know how to edit, I do it all the time, don't know how to completely delete. If I go back and read though, I would probably find a lot I wanted to delete. I won't go back. I can't go back.

I went through a lot of weird things when I was fighting cancer. Not just the fighting of it, but being spiritual, I searched for meanings of life, the doves on the roadside, the bus that ran in front of us with the "I will give you health, Jesus Christ" when I was going for my staging results. Houston's Medical complex of buildings. (I am sure the politically correct movement stopped them putting Bible verses on the buses, but they all had them on them in 1982). Billy was very pragmatic while I had a magic, mystic, imaginative mind. I believed in miracles. His "I am you and you are me" left me with less of an imagination, magic, or mystical life. I miss it. Yet, I have had moments and we put the printer that comes on when it wants to, we put it underneath his urn in the bookcase. I talk to him when the moon comes out. Last night Kelli talked to the moon and said "Hi Daddy" and a falling star automatically fell straight down. I have not seen a falling star since we lived on the mountain in Arkansas. I want to believe in miracles again.

I have not been on here as regularly as I used to be, but still pay attention. My daughter is here, my granddaughter, my sister needing help, and sometimes I wonder how long I can go on, and I keep remembering Robert Frost's poem, and I am not quoting it exactly, but the gist of it is "I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep." Do not want to let my family down, but then I think, neither did Billy.

Kay, I only have one sister, but we do not need any more losses, any of us, please know my heart is with you.

My family brag about how strong I am and yet I know I would not be here period without this forum. I know everyone as my friend. I do not know where they are, but they are my neighbor, my friend, when I need them. Congratulations for surviving your six years. You make us hope. Thank you.

I have really written enough lately, but something came to mind, and I might have mentioned on it somewhere else. When I went back and read my emotional self the day after Billy "left" it felt like something I have read about teenagers, and older people too, it felt like I was cutting myself to feel the pain, to see the blood. And, this is only my thoughts, only my own analogy, no one else's, have not read it elsewhere, it was just a feeling I had, the pain was such that it drew me back to that day, I saw Billy on the bed, I cannot describe the horror, but reading my emotional self from that moment, I hurt, It was painful as if I had cut through my skin and was watching it bleed. Yet some people, they find comfort in reading their thoughts from this time. I will never forget Billy. I will never quit loving him, but I am going to try my best to quit bleeding myself to feel the pain. Sometimes I already feel dead, hopeless, but I am going to do my best to just live each day. I do not expect to find much happiness, but hopefully I might find satisfaction in living another day, whether I want to or not.

I think that our emotions are splatted all over the place, and that will forever be so. I found myself getting angry at Billy, and if I let myself, I will say "well, poor thing could not help it" and my mind really knows he could not. I wonder if he would let some things that I did in our married life make him angry enough to allay some of the sorrow, but I know why I do it, and I do not want to be rational enough to deeply comprehend what I am doing. I know, and it is my riddle to solve, that my faith in myself, in my religion, in anything else is not strong and sometimes it gets so weak I feel like someone else is thinking for me. I cannot picture or imagine how Billy would have acted. I somehow know, I somehow want him to have done anything that would have helped him. He was very courageous to the point of being reckless. And, all I can come up with is anger, then guilt for being angry. We really are our own worse enemy sometimes. I know that I have read that spirits come through in the form of electric happenings. We tease when this printer will go through its motions. No one has to be around it. I have hallucinated Billy for a moment at a time when I fall asleep in the chair. I don't like to do that. I have felt angels protected me and I have felt messages were being given to me. Not in the form of paranoid delusions, these were actual happenings. My rational mind wants to wipe the magic away and my irrational mind wants to accept it. Before Billy left my irrational mind would have ruled. Now that Billy is gone and his rational mind is left with me, that "I am you and you are me" part, I just have to give in to my irrational anger. We had a long life together. It was not long enough. And, I will put the printer beside my bed, I will let that irrational old me do that. Oh, and I will plug that printer in. Rational me knows it won't come on without being plugged in. Irrational me would move if it came on without being plugged in.

That is the difference my computer savvy friend. I now have Window's 10. I also have a new printer.

One Ambien gave me two hours sleep, every time. I did not even use up a whole prescription. Now Xanax gives me four, then Dramamine gives me most of four more. I am unapologetic of the way I get my sleep. The only way I would stop is if they prove it makes me gain weight. As it is, my weight is staying steady.. (very fluffy). Probably because I ate, at one sitting, a whole package of those pure sugar wafer cookies that you get from the $ store that cost $1.00. Hey, it is on my low residue diet. Raw carrots, cauliflower, other vegetables are not. Death by sugar wafer cookies. I know, that is gallows humor on a bad subject. Unfortunately, it is close to the truth.

I cannot either. If my Xanax wears out at 3:00 a.m., I will take a Dramamine. I cannot lay there thinking. When I read what I wrote after he left (see, he left, he didn't die, he is not dead, he is just gone). When I read my raw emotions it tears me up. I will not relive it. He is gone. And that is all.

I bought an expensive printer, but I cannot remember now if it was before Billy left or not. It had to be, I could never have gotten it to work. I have to admit, my magic, mystic way of thinking has not returned. "I am you and you are me" has turned into the skeptic Billy. He was closed minded to "spirits" and I used to share mine with him, he would listen, that is all. Our son thinks when he coded on the operating table twice opened some veil to the "other side" that I can somehow understand. Billy couldn't understand anything supernatural at all. First code for Scott was all blackness, scared him. Second code was the bright light, walking with someone, not wanting to return, seeing all the people he knew, yet somehow did not know how he knew them. He has been visited by "ghosts" and was not afraid of but one. He can feel when a house or place is "clear." I was so happy when two people (friends) prayed with Billy at the big hospital, I saw, somehow, a lifting of his spirit, an acceptance. Going back and reading my thoughts after his leaving, thoughts that were raw and painful, after that I ran. I had to get away from the raw and pain. You cannot escape it, but you can sometimes pull the gaping wound together with a Band-Aid. It won't stay. The wound never grows together again, but that is where the scar tissue comes in. When I moved, we could never get the printer to work again. Oh, I am sure there is a real reason, some reason that is explainable, but my computer savvy son and degree in computers daughter cannot get it to work. It blinks, it sometimes comes on like it is printing a bunch of copies, but nothing else happens. Billy could get it to working, sometimes I think he is trying. I bought a new cheap computer to do my taxes copies. I think I will take the old one and just plug it in by my bedside table. I want magic, but Billy's old logic is the part of "I am you and you are me" is the part I am left with. I have his cremains in the beautiful wooden urn next to my bedroom. I do not feel him there. Sometimes I go for days without seeing it. I used to take it with me when I went anywhere. I feel sometimes I have become "Hard Hearted Hannah."

Kevin, it looks like a ghostly spirit. They are beautiful. I also have photographs framed. I am hard to buy presents for, because I can never think of anything I want, and my daughter bought photographs for me to frame, because she knows I think they are beautiful. I saw a movie once where this man and woman married and lived in the Alaska territory when you could still homestead acreage. It was rough living and he had to go out each day to get food for them to live. One day he did not come home. She was pregnant, she had the baby by herself (knew her husband had perished), and the morning she had the baby she was feeling helpless, hopeless and lost. She walked out on her porch and the northern lights were putting on a beautiful display. It was a true story and she took up where her husband left off and they lived......end of story. I'm sure I could not do that. But, that is an old story and we are modern day people sometimes having to "live anyhow" just as she did. So, we all do what we think we cannot do.