When I got up this morning I had a face and a memory in my head. I could very clearly see a former student's face and I remembered an incident involving the two of us.

Joe Rott was about 15 years old when I taught at Greenwood Academy. It was my first experience teaching juvenile delinquents. I'm not sure why Joe was in the group home. I seem to remember that he had been in and out of foster homes. I don't think he was there for something he had done but then my memory's not so clear on details.

He was a small kid with beautiful red hair. He was very quiet, not much on communication. Rarely smiled or laughed. He always seemed depressed to me but he had a sarcastic wit that I found appealing.

The memories I have of him are from two different teaching jobs. The first was during the summer at the group home. It was breakfast time and Joe was having a hard time getting out of bed. I was sent upstairs to see what I could do. I'm not sure how it happened but Joe was asleep or pretending to be asleep on the floor. I physically picked him up by reaching under his arms and bringing him up in the standing position. I'm not sure how I did that. I doubt I could do so today. I'm not as strong as I used to be. At any rate it was me who put him in the shower with his pajamas on. The next day it looked as if it was going to be a repeat performance. When it came time to get up, he would not budge for the house parent. When told he'd have to get up or else (I'm not sure what the or else was) he smiled and said, "Miss Hughey will get me up." And that's the way he was when I finally arrived at the house. It's the only time I ever remember him smiling.

The second memory was about 16 months later in another town at another school. He was a junior at Riverdale High School where I had stepped in as a substitute teacher and later as the CDC teacher. Joe was not in my class. But I saw him often enough at a distance. My memory of him there was in regards to his birthday. He made a point of coming up to me in the cafeteria as I ate with a table full of teachers and told me that it was his birthday. He really wanted someone to acknowledge to occasion. I don't remember what I said to him but I doubt it was what he wanted to hear. I don't recall that he smiled.

I'm not sure why the memories came to me this morning. I certainly had not thought of him in ages. What came to me this morning was that perhaps Joe was my teacher. He taught me to be a little more observant of people and that sometimes it's what you don't hear or see that should speak volumes. I think he might have taught me a little about change as well. I just wasn't so smart back then.

Surely there is another lesson I got from him that I've yet to think of. It's too much of a coincidence for me to think of him 18 years after I met him.

Get Closer

As sung by Seals and Croft

Darling, if you want me to be closer to you
Get closer to me
Darling, if you want me to be closer to you
Get closer to me
Darling, if you want me to love, love only you
Then love only me
Darling, if you want me to see, see only you
Then see only me

There's a line that I can't cross over
It's no good for me and it's no good for you
And that feeling deep down inside me
I can't explain it and you're wondering why

You say we been like strangers
But I'm not the others you can hang by your fingers

Darling, if you want me to be closer to you
Get closer to me
Darling, if you want me to be closer to you
Get closer to me
Darling, if you want me to love, love only you
Then love only me
Darling, if you want me to see, see only you
Then see only me

There was a time I would come running
Drop everything for the touch of your hand in mine

And I can't go on living
Wondering if you'll be here tomorrow
People change and you're changing
And I've given you my all
That no one can borrow

Darling, if you want me to be closer to you
Get closer to me
Darling, if you want me to be closer to you
Get closer to me
Darling, if you want me to be closer to you
Get closer to me...

I heard this song playing on the radio as I listened to the Delilah show after tonight's meeting. It occurred to me that it summed up just want I want to say to my friend, Pardox. If he'd just tell me what he wanted from me...

I chose to acknowledge and pretty then much ignore him tonight because I really don't know what is going on. It's insanity on my part. I should quit reaching out but I have trouble doing that. I care too much. The closer I get, the closer I want to be. And yet, I am nowhere nearer than I was three years ago.

Can YOu Feel the Love Tonight?

As sung by Elton John

There's a calm surrender to the rush of day
When the heat of the rolling world can be turned away
An enchanted moment, and it sees me through
It's enough for this restless warrior just to be with you

And can you feel the love tonight
It is where we are
It's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer
That we got this far
And can you feel the love tonight
How it's laid to rest
It's enough to make kings and vagabonds
Believe the very best

There's a time for everyone if they only learn
That the twisting kaleidoscope moves us all in turn
There's a rhyme and reason to the wild outdoors
When the heart of this star-crossed voyager beats in time with yours

And can you feel the love tonight
It is where we are
It's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer
That we got this far
And can you feel the love tonight
How it's laid to rest
It's enough to make kings and vagabonds
Believe the very best

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

As sung by Queen

This thing called love I just can't handle it
this thing called love I must get round to it
I ain't ready
Crazy little thing called love
This (This Thing) called love
(Called Love)
It cries (Like a baby)
In a cradle all night
It swings (Woo Woo)
It jives (Woo Woo)
It shakes all over like a jelly fish,
I kinda like it
Crazy little thing called love

There goes my baby
He knows how to Rock n' roll
He drives me crazy
He gives me hot and cold fever
Then he leaves me in a cool cool sweat

I gotta be cool relax, get hip
Get on my track's
Take a back seat, hitch-hike
And take a long ride on my motor bike
Until I'm ready
Crazy little thing called love

I gotta be cool relax, get hip
Get on my track's
Take a back seat, hitch-hike
And take a long ride on my motor bike
Until I'm ready (Ready Freddie)
Crazy little thing called love

This thing called love I just can't handle it
this thing called love I must get round to it
I ain't ready
Crazy little thing called love
Crazy little thing called love
Crazy little thing called love
Crazy little thing called love
Crazy little thing called love
Crazy little thing called love
Crazy little thing called love
Crazy little thing called love


This was on the CD player when I got into the truck this morning to do a breakfast run for Mom. I was thinking about how screwed up my love life is. Love life? What love life? Am I crazy? There is only the hint of something. It's not real. I just wish it were.


In looking up things that Rainer Maria Rilke wrote I found his "Letters to a Young Poet." I like what he had to say about love.


Rome
May 14, 1904

My dear Mr. Kappus,

Much time has passed since I received your last letter. Please don't hold that against me; first it was work, then a number of interruptions, and finally poor health that again and again kept me from answering, because I wanted my answer to come to you out of peaceful and happy days. Now I feel somewhat better again (the beginning of spring with its moody, bad-tempered transitions was hard to bear here too) and once again, dear Mr. Kappus, I can greet you and talk to you (which I do with real pleasure) about this and that in response to your letter, as well as I can.

You see: I have copied out your sonnet, * because I found that it is lovely and simple born in the shape that it moves in with such quiet decorum. It is the best poem of yours that you have let me read. And now I am giving you this copy because I know that it is important and full of new experience to rediscover a work of one's own in someone else's handwriting. Read the poem as if you had never seen it before, and you will feel in your innermost being how very much it is your own.

It was a pleasure for me to read this sonnet and your letter, often; I thank you for both.

And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is something in you that wants to move out of it. This very wish, if you use it calmly and prudently and like a tool, will help you spread out your solitude over a great distance. Most people have (with the help of conventions) turned their solutions toward what is easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.

It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time ahead and far on into life, is - ; solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent - ?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. Only in this sense, as the task of working on themselves ("to hearken and to hammer day and night"), may young people use the love that is given to them. Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough.

But this is what young people are so often and so disastrously wrong in doing they (who by their very nature are impatient) fling themselves at each other when love takes hold of them, they scatter themselves, just as they are, in all their messiness, disorder, bewilderment. . . . : And what can happen then? What can life do with this heap of half-broken things that they call their communion and that they would like to call their happiness, if that were possible, and their future? And so each of them loses himself for the sake of the other person, and loses the other, and many others who still wanted to come. And loses the vast distances and possibilities, gives up the approaching and fleeing of gentle, prescient Things in exchange for an unfruitful confusion, out of which nothing more can come; nothing but a bit of disgust, disappointment, and poverty, and the escape into one of the many conventions that have been put up in great numbers like public shelters on this most dangerous road. No area of human experience is so extensively provided with conventions as this one is: there are live-preservers of the most varied invention, boats and water wings; society has been able to create refuges of very sort, for since it preferred to take love-life as an amusement, it also had to give it an easy form, cheap, safe, and sure, as public amusements are.

It is true that many young people who love falsely, i.e., simply surrendering themselves and giving up their solitude (the average person will of course always go on doing that - ), feel oppressed by their failure and want to make the situation they have landed in livable and fruitful in their own, personal way -. For their nature tells them that the questions of love, even more than everything else that is important, cannot be resolved publicly and according to this or that agreement; that they are questions, intimate questions from one human being to another, which in any case require a new, special, wholly personal answer -. But how can they, who have already flung themselves together and can no longer tell whose outlines are whose, who thus no longer possess anything of their won, how can they find a way out of themselves, out of the depths of their already buried solitude?

They act out of mutual helplessness, and then if, whit the best of intentions, they try to escape the conventions that is approaching them (marriage, for example), they fall into the clutches of some less obvious but just as deadly conventional solution. For then everything around them is - convention. Wherever people act out of a prematurely fused, muddy communion, every action is conventional: every relation that such confusion leads to has its own convention, however unusual (i.e., in the ordinary sense immoral) it may be; even separating would be a conventional step, an impersonal, accidental decision without strength and without fruit.

Whoever looks seriously will find that neither for death, which is difficult, nor for difficult love has any clarification, any solution, any hint of a path been perceived; and for both these tasks, which we carry wrapped up and hand on without opening, there is not general, agreed-upon rule that can be discovered. But in the same measure in which we begin to test life as individuals, these great Things will come to meet us, the individuals, with greater intimacy. The claims that the difficult work of love makes upon our development are greater than life, and we, as beginners, are not equal to them. But if we nevertheless endure and take this love upon us as burden and apprenticeship, instead of losing ourselves in the whole easy and frivolous game behind which people have hidden from the most solemn solemnity of their being, - then a small advance and a lightening will perhaps be perceptible to those who come long after us. That would be much.

We are only just now beginning to consider the relation of one individual to a second individual objectively and without prejudice, and our attempts to live such relationships have no model before them. And yet in the changes that time has brought about there are already many things that can help our timid novitiate.

The girl and the woman, in their new, individual unfolding, will only in passing be imitators of male behavior and misbehavior and repeaters of male professions. After the uncertainty of such transitions, it will become obvious that women were going through the abundance and variation of those (often ridiculous) disguises just so that they could purify their own essential nature and wash out the deforming influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully, and more confidently, must surely have become riper and more human in their depths than light, easygoing man, who is not pulled down beneath the surface of life by the weight of any bodily fruit and who, arrogant and hasty, undervalues what he thinks he loves. This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being.

This advance (at first very much against the will of the outdistanced men) will transform the love experience, which is now filled with error, will change it from the ground up, and reshape it into a relationship that is meant to be between one human being and another, no longer one that flows from man to woman. And this more human love (which will fulfill itself with infinite consideration and gentleness, and kindness and clarity in binding and releasing) will resemble what we are now preparing painfully and with great struggle: the love that consists in this: the two solitudes protect and border and greet each other.

And one more thing: Don't think that the great love which was once granted to you, when you were a boy, has been lost; how can you know whether vast and generous wishes didn't ripen in you at that time, and purposes by which you are still living today? I believe that that love remains strong and intense in your memory because it was your first deep aloneness and the first inner work that you did on your life. - All good wished to you, dear Mr. Kappus!

Yours,
Rainer Maria Rilke
From: Letters to a Young Poet

It seems as if my life has been a series of valleys. You know, the times when nothing seems to go right or the luck seems to run out? I used to sit around and wonder, "Why does everything always happen to me?" or "What did I do to deserve this?" I've come to understand that the valleys that occur and the pain that comes with each one really has nothing to do with me. They don't happen because I am who I am. No one sits around and thinks, "Hm...I think I'll dole out some extra bad stuff because it's Yolanda." Things just happen. That's a part of life.

I used to wallow in the pain. It hasn't been that long ago either. I read somewhere that you have to wallow, become completely emersed in pain, before you can accept it or surrender to it. I wallowed a lot. I suffered a lot.

I still have days when I wallow. Who doesn't enjoy a good pity party from time to time? : ) But I soon discovered that pity parties rarely include other people. There is only room for one. Misery may, in deed, love company but it's rare that company comes. I'm learning to do gratitude lists when things are bad. It helps me keep my perspective. Yeah, things can get bad but it can always be worse.

I guess that sounds a lot like Pollyanna. Truth is, I hope it does. I think Pollyanna was onto something. If you look for the bad, you'll find it; or put another way, if you choose to suffer through something that is your option. If you look for the good, you'll find it, too. Why would you want the bad when you can have the good? Just a thought.

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

Reflection for the Day

What is the definition of humility? "Absolute humility," said AA co- founder Bill W., "would consist of a state of complete freedom from myself, freedom from all the claims that my defects of character now lay so heavily upon me. Perfect humility would be a full willingness, in all times and places, to find and to do the will of God."
Am I striving for humility?

Today I Pray

May God expand my interpretation of humility beyond abject subservience or awe at the greatness of others. May humility also mean freedom from myself, a freedom, which can come only through turning my being over to God's will. May I sense the omnipotence of God, which is simultaneously humbling and exhilarating. May I be willing to carry out God's will.

Today I Will Remember

Humility is freedom.


Wow! Yesterday's mass was about judging people just like part of the book, "The Shack" was and today I hear about humility which was also a topic of the book. Both topics are things I've wrestled with and here they are for me to see.

Do I judge people? Yes. I used to judge them very harshly, comparing them to my rigid definition of what is right and wrong. Today I know that things, and people for that matter, are not always in black and white. There are shades of gray but there are also every shade in the rainbow present. It is not for me to judge them. My job is to love and accept them as they are. That's been a hard lesson for me.

I was back to judging people. My neighbors gripe and complain about every little thing. They are all retired and have little to do all day but look for things that are out of order or wrong. It gets on my nerves hearing about it. I want to ask, "Do you have anything to be grateful about?" But I leave it alone. I just get up and walk back into the house so that I don't have to hear any of it. I realize that it is their problem not mine.

Humility is something I think we are lacking as a human race. We don't have enough of it and I've said that for some time. I strove to be humble. Then I realized it was something that I could not do just as patience isn't anything I can work for. I either have it or I don't. Time is teaching me what I need to know. As I let go of things and give them to God I learn to accept things and people as they are. As I look for Christ in myself and others I learn to love others as they are. When I can love myself and accept God's will rather than my own, humility and patience will come.

In the meantime, I battle myself. I have to tell myself that the opinion of others does not matter. What they think is irrelevant. That's hard. I'm a natural born people pleaser. I also have to tell myself that it isn't up to me to fix things. I can only change myself.

These days I've got my hands full with family and health matters. I don't get lonely but I do wish I had someone in my life to occasionally rescue me from myself. It would be nice to have someone present to call me on my stuff or distract me when I become too analytical. I don't have that right now.

Saturday, September 20

Memorial of St. Andrew Kim Taegon and St. Paul Chong Hasang

(God says to us:) I can love you more than you can love yourself, and I watch over you a thousand times more carefully than you can watch over yourself. The more trustfully you give yourself up to Me, the more I shall be watching over you; you will gain a clearer knowledge of Me and experience my love more and more joyfully.

ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA
Italian mystic, 14th century


This reminds me of something I read in "The Shack", which simply explained is a book about a man who spends a weekend with the trinity in the place where his world fell apart- the shack where his daughter was murdered. I think there's some synchronicity here in the quote from my e-quiet moment that The Catholic Digest sent to me and the book I began reading last night and finished this afternoon.

Quotes from The Shack that spoke to me for one reason or another:

"I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing, and i know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside." p. 11

"A terror gripped him [Mack], as if he had opened Pandora's Box and was being swept away into the center of madness, to be lost forever." p. 81

"Getting head issues out of the way first makes the heart stuff easier to work on later...when you're ready." p. 93

"When all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me [God]?" p. 96

"Most birds were created to fily. Being grounded for them is a limitation within their ability to fly. You [man], on the other hand, were created to be loved. So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around." p. 97

"A bird's not defined by being grounded but by his ability to fly. Remember this, humans are not defined by their limitations, but by the intentions that I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my [God's] image." p. 100.

"Being always transcends appearance- that which only seems to be. ONce you begin to know the being behind the very pretty or very ugly face, as determined by your bias, the surface appearances fade away until they simply no longer matter. That is why Elousia is such a wonderful name. God, who is the ground of all being, dwells in, around, and through all things- ultimately emerging as the real- and any appearances that mask that reality will fall away." p. 112.

"You cannot produce trust just as you cannot 'do' humility. It either is or is not. Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved." p. 126.

"For any created being, autonomy is lunacy." p. 132.

"Evil is a word we use to describe the absence of Good, just as we use the word darkness to describe the absence of Light or death to describe the absence of Life." p. 136.

Rights are where survivors go, so that they won't have to work out relationships." p. 137.

"Genuine relationships are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy." p. 145.

"We [the Trinity] will come and live our life inside of you, so that you begin to see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and touch with our hands, and think like we do." p. 149

"Love is just the skin of knowing." p. 155

"Judging requires that you think yourself superior over the one you judge." p. 159

"Pearls- the only precious stone made by pain, suffering and - finally- death." p. 177.

"Responsibilities and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgment, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis of identity and value." p. 206.

"Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat." p. 224

For several reasons this book reminds me of A Course in Miracles, A Return to Love, The Celestine Prophesy, and some of the 12 step jargon. It hit me where I needed to be hit.

Mom will be moving into assistive living at the end of next week. As much as I look forward to having my life back, I'm going to kind of miss having her around.

Not much to tell today. It was an average kind of day.

I received a letter from my ex yesterday. It was kind of a surprise because I didn't expect to hear from him. Yet it wasn't a surprise because I knew that he wasn't finished communicating with me. I, on the other hand, have moved on. I have nothing left to say. I just wish him well.

He spent a great deal of time telling me that I shouldn't be afraid of him because he means no harm to me or my family. That's him sober. Him on drugs and drunk is another story. We weren't good enough for him even though we were the ones who had given him a chance after his first stint in prison. He blamed us for everything wrong in his life. He verbally abused me and threatened my life. He made fun of my mother and brother. It's not so much that I'm scared. I just don't need that kind of drama in my life any more.

Apparently he's paroling out to his dad in Leiper's Fork out of a misplaced sense of loyalty rather than going to a half way house. It's not my business but I'm of the opinion that he'll wind right back up in prison. He's going back to his old play mates and his old life. It won't matter how much he says he changed this time around. That new found religion of his will go right out the door. At any rate he should be a free man by January.

He also used a few of his old tactics to soften me up, I guess. He made mention that two of my former students are in the prison where he is now. I knew about James but I didn't know about Junior. It doesn't matter. I hate to hear such things but it is of no consequence to me. I did my job. I tried to steer my students in the right direction, even the juvenile delinquents. He also quoted some things I vaguely remember saying and told me that I was right about all of it. That's a first. He reminded me what close friends we were before we married and asked me to drop my rigid boundaries so that we could be friends again. Not a chance! At least not until I see what he's going to do on the outside this time. Then he began his sob story about how when he gets out this time he will have nothing. I'm not sure if he was hinting that I should help him out or not. It won't happen this time. I'm doing well to take care of myself and my family.

The best thing that I can say is that I'm thankful that Mom and Barry are out of that house. He won't be able to track me so easily.

The manager of the assistive living facility came to my apartment to interview Mom today. She gave me two papers to have filled out. One is for the doctor to do and the other is for me to become Mom's power of attorney. Soon my mother will be moving out into her own place. It will be her first time living alone. Well, not totally alone because there are several appartments in this building. I think she's ready.

I wrestled an alligator again today. The drama queen has decided that I am her personal property. She's jealous of any time I spend with the other students. We've had a lot of subs lately. I'll be glad when things get back to normal.

"Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life."

Ranier Maria Rilke

Wow! The mass today was about three things I'd been praying or talking about.

First he told a story about someone he knew who was in a wheel chair. He had asked the man if he had ever thought of asking to be healed. The man's response was that life was like a card game, you had to play out the cards you'd been dealt. I'd just had that conversation a few days ago.

Second, it was about the crosses we had to bear. I'd prayed for God to help me with mine. The weight of it was really pressing down on my shoulders and I was going under again.

The third message was about God's love for us. He loved us so much he sacraficed his only son to die on the cross for our sins. I feel blessed to be loved by God. One of the songs we sang today told us to look for God in ourselves and one another. That's the message I received from my ACIM reading.

"Whoever Finds This I Love You!"

As sung by Mac Davis

Verse 1

On a quiet street in the city a little old man walks along.
Shuffling through the Autumn afternoon.
And the Autumn leaves reminded him another summer's come and gone.
He had a long, lonely night ahead waitin' for June.
Then among the leaves near an orphan's home a piece of paper caught his eye,
And he stooped to pick it up with trembling hands.
And as he read the childish writing, the old man began to cry,
'Cause the words burned inside him like a flame.

CHORUS

"Whoever finds this, I love you!"
"Whoever finds this, I need you!"
"I ain't even got no one to talk to!"
"So, Whoever finds this, I love you!"

Verse 2

The old man's eyes searched the orphan's home,
And came to rest upon a child with her nose pressed up against the window pane.
And the old man knew he'd found a friend, at last,
So he waved at her and smiled.
And they both knew they'd spend the winter laughing at the rain.

{Recitation)
And they did spend the summer laughing at the rain, talking through the fence, exchanging little gifts they'd made for each other. The old man would carve toys for the little girl, and she would draw pictures for him of beautiful ladies surrounded by green trees and sunshine, and they laughed alot. But then on the first day of June, the little girl ran to the fence to show the man a picture she had drawn, BUT HE WASN'T THERE! And somehow, the little girl knew he wasn't coming back. So she went back to her little room, took out a crayola and a piece of paper, and wrote:

"Whoever finds this, I love you!"
"Whoever finds this, I need you!"
"I don't even have no one to talk to."
"So, whoever finds this, I love you!"

I really feel like I need a meeting. I feel kind of disconnected and in limbo. The problem is that I have no gas to get me to the next town and I refuse to go to a meeting over here. There's too much drama. I can't stomach it any more.

The past few weeks Mom and I have been watching biographies. It has been so heart warming to see the love stories of Ruth and Billy Graham and John and June Carter Cash to name a few. I asked Mom why it was that so few people in the world find that one true love and get to spend decades with them. It doesn't seem quite fair to me. Her answer was that perhaps I had already found mine. I asked where he was and she said maybe, just maybe, I wasn't aware of him. That seemed like a pretty good answer to me.

I'm a little out of sorts with myself. I feel like there are things I ought to be doing but at the same time I feel as if they really need to be put off. It's like I'm Lazarus' sister Mary. My time is better spent with my family rather than cleaning everything spotless.

I'm also out of sorts because I feel so out of synch. It's like so many things are being controlled by other people or outside circumstances. I feel like the victim again. I've got to tell you that I've got some heavy duty resentments forming. It's hard to trust people who say something then take it back or promise something and fail to fulfill it. I feel like I'm surrounded by alcoholics.

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

We don't always understand the ways of Almighty God - the crosses sent us, the sacrifices demanded . . . But we accept with faith and resignation the holy will with no looking back, and we are at peace.
--Anonymous

Acceptance of our past, acceptance of the conditions presently in our lives that we cannot change, brings relief. It brings the peacefulness we so often, so frantically, seek.

We can put the past behind us. Each day is a new beginning. And each day of abstinence offers us the chance to look ahead with hope. A power greater than ourselves helped us to find this program. That power is ever with us. When we fear facing new situations, or when familiar situations turn sour, we can look to that power for help in saying what needs to be said and for doing what needs to be done. Our higher power is as close as our breath. Conscious awareness of its presence strengthens us, moment by moment.

The past is gone. Today is full of possibilities. With each breath I will be aware of the strength at hand.
From: Each Day a New Beginning by Karen Casey

Well, needless to say that I didn't get much sleep while at the sleep clinic but I do have a new diagnosis. I've got COPD. We'll see what new medical equipment that involves. I'm all for any medication that will help me feel better as long as it's not addictive.

Sometimes I miss having someone to talk to around here. I feel like too much is expected of me a lot of the time. I don't have the tools to do all the things that people want me to do. It makes me feel resentful and helpless when all these expectations are placed on me.

I'll be leaving in a little over an hour to go to the Sleep Technology Clinic. I'm actually grateful to be going for two reasons. First, maybe I'll finally get a new bi-pap machine and maybe a better diagnosis about what is wrong with me. I don't think it's just sleep apnea any more. Second, it will be a night away from here and a whole night to sleep in a bed rather than on a couch.

I feel like my family has taken over my life again. I really need for Mom to go to assistive living so that I can have my own life back. I also need to find out what other services Barry qualifies for because I can't be all things to him.

The following is from an article titled, “All I Need to Know About Life I Learned from Trees” (author unknown):


It’s important to have roots.
In today’s complex world, it pays to branch out.
If you really believe in something, don’t be afraid to go out on a limb.
Be flexible so you don’t break when a harsh wind blows.
Sometimes you have to shed your old bark in order to grow.
Grow when you’re planted.
It’s perfectly okay to be a late bloomer.
Avoid people who would like to cut you down.
Get all spruced up when you have a hot date.
If the party gets boring, just leaf.
You can’t hide your true colors as you approach the autumn of your life.
It’s more important to be honest than poplar.

Live your life in such a way
that when your feet hit the floor in the morning,
Satan shudders and says...
'Oh crap...she's awake!!'

An Al-Anon friend sent this to me. She suggested that I post it above my computer.

I have to laugh for two reasons. First, I have all kinds of inspirational things posted above my computer on the wall and I wonder how she knew that.

Second, I'd love nothing more than to make Satan shudder at my presence. He's been a nuisance for far too long.

Quedarrius used to talk about him all the time and I'd tell him, "The Devil isn't welcome here. He can't come in. I'll kick him to the curb." It seemed to ease that poor boy's mind. Sometimes I wonder where that little guy is. I'm so afraid he's going to be the kid that falls through the cracks, that we hear about on the news.

Well, I'm told that my Darth Vader look at bedtime is aesthetically charming. I wasn't sure what the paradox meant by that as he's never seen my sleep mask but maybe he was trying to make me feel better about it. He always surprises me with back handed compliments. I really don't know how to take him at times. I just know I like him and that's all that matters.

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.
--Ursula K. Le Guin

In the first phases of a relationship, everything is new and exciting. It seems as though nothing could ever go wrong.

Yet as we move out of this "honeymoon" phase of the relationship, problems begin. Suddenly we notice things about the other person that bother us. We seem to have more disagreements and more difficulties that take longer to solve. We may even silently choose corners, put up walls, and back away from each other.

It's easy at this stage to want to end the relationship. But now is when the outcome of the relationship is most critical. If we run away from renewing our love and rebuilding the foundations of trust and faith in each other, we will deprive our love of its nourishment for growth. Love takes constant work and needs plenty of patience. Each day can reveal a new layer of love; each stage in a relationship moves us to a new plateau. But only if we are willing.

I can look at my relationships and see the potential for growth. Help me renew my feelings of love through faith.
From: Night Light by Amy E. Dean


Seems like I've read this one before. If I have there must be something I have learned yet or that I need to work on. I believe in synchronicity. If I hear something more than once I sit up and take notice.

I awoke this morning with a biblical phrase in my head, "My God will provide all my needs." I need to keep that in mind as I still have a week until I get paid. I'm worried about having gas to get to Mom's appointment on Monday at DHS for the assistive living program and to the sleep study I have on Tuesday night in Columbia. My best hope is if someone knows how to cyphon (spelling) from my white truck into my black truck. The white truck has a full tank of gas. I'm worried about being able to buy a few necessities for the house, too. I'm tempted to write a check but I know it would bounce. I don't want to do that. The old Yolanda would have done it without hesitation to provide for my family. I slip in that mode from time to time. I'm sorry to confess that but I think it means I'm still human.

We moved the couch from Mikki's apartment into mine and put my old one on the back of the white truck with a tarp over it. I'm not sure it was the best trade because it is equally hard to get up off of but it looks nicer and it does pull out into a bed. We'll see how it sleeps tonight. I have my doubts. The mattress needs to be replaced.

I learned this week that I only have 30% of my lung capacity left. It's not really known why. It could be weight gain but I've actually held my own in that department-I've lost a little. It's most likely a genetic thing. At any rate it is a problem to contend with. It makes exercising hard because I give out of air pretty quickly. It makes walking anywhere hard for the same reason. But I'm willing to do those things. So, maybe Dr. Toban will perscibe oxygen for me. We'll see.

The World War I article I have been working on for the Giles County Historical Society may actually turn into a book. George said he would present the idea to the Board of Directors tomorrow. I look for them to turn it down. But we'll see. They are going to bind my Ezell notebook into a book for the shelf in the Genealogy Room. I'm working on my Chapman book now. The Germans - Keltners mainly- are taking up a good bit of my time because I lost all the information I once had. I'm having to reenter it.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves...do not seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them and the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke

My therapist gave me this wonderful quote yesterday in response to something I said. She read it to me and I had to go on-line to find it today. I like the idea of living the questions rather than seeking the answers. It sort of implies that you are ever in prayer- praying without ceasing. But it also implies that living the questions is the point. Without a questioning mind we merely follow blindly without ever daring to think outside the box. I like that idea.

My therapist introduced me to a new word today- ambiguous. Well, it's not really a new word but in terms of how she used it, it was a new idea.

She said that she thought that the paradox was ambiguous from the way I had described him. But she no longer saw the pain in may face when I talked about friendships with men. Whatever that means. I looked up the word when I got home and I think she's right. He is ambiguous but that's okay. I guess I am, too.

Confusion is supposed to be the first sign of wisdom. When we think we know everything there is no room for doubt or human error. There is no room for acceptance. There is only control. Confusion is, therefore, a gift from God. It gives us pause to think and allow for possibilities. There in lies our best hope for the future.

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real.
--Margery Wilson

Intimacy with another is a necessary risk if we're to know love. This means loving enough to let someone in on our most hidden parts, daring to share the awful truths about ourselves. When we hold a dreaded memory within, or fail to disclose our darkest secret, we're haunted by the fear that another's love is both conditional and long gone if the truth about us is revealed.

Though seldom remembered, one of the greatest tributes we can give one another is full expression of who we were, who we are, and who we hope to become. During any single moment, we are a composite of feelings, memories, and projections. Our reality is many faceted, and being intimate requires that we enrich each other's lives with the full expression of ourselves.

Being real is courageous; it takes a decision and practice, and it is demanded if we're to know love.
From: Worthy of Love by Karen Casey