In about 72 hours, I will be kissing the love of my life goodbye for now, and the surgical team will start prepping me for surgery. I will have checked-in at the registration desk at 6:00 a.m., but I will have been awake for hours… possibly all night. No worries, I will be able to catch up on my sleep[…]
On My Heart (A Series) … 6 Days Away
Friday, the surgeon’s nurse called with some details of my upcoming surgery. A double heart valve transplant could take 5-7 hours. Some people stay in the hospital for two days, some stay two weeks. But, the average stay is seven days. I decided to treat that like my car’s GPS and try to beat it by about 20%. She said[…]
On My Heart…. (A Series) August 25
My heart has been broken many times over my 59 years; the majority of which were not from romantic disappointments. Friends and family have broken my heart. My heart has been broken by the loss of pets. It broke when actress Bette Davis died. When I watched the tree outside the poet Robert Frost’s historical home be taken down due[…]
On Are Things Getting Better …? (Part 2).
Part II. Environment. For Part I see here: On Are Things Getting Better …? (Part I) – They Cant Eat Ya My family and I adopted the mile we live on in the “Adopt A City Street” program and named it for our mother and father, who died in 2018 and 2020, respectively. Our part of the program is cleaning[…]
On Are Things Getting Better …? (Part I)
The problem I see with most social causes is the reluctance of the organizations that support them to admit it when things are getting better.
On Another Mother’s Day…
In early March, I found myself at Tractor Supply, a chain of stores that sells things to people who have tractors or secretly want to. There is everything there from fencing to feed. In the spring, they have flowers and vegetables for sale. Charles had a coupon for a percentage off a purchase of $50, and he was short a[…]
On Birthdays…
I turned 59 yesterday. My birthdays, especially those 9th ones (29, 39, 49…), tend gnaw at me more than the others because the next year “I will be old.” Let me preface this by stating without hesitation that I am happier now than I have been at any of my prior 9th birthdays. I would not go back to 29,[…]
On What Makes a Good Day…
What qualifies as a good day? For me, what makes a good day at 58, is much different than it was at 48 or 38. It is actually closer to what it was when I was 8. Last Saturday was a good day. I received my final grade for the biology class I had struggled through – a low A,[…]
On Anticipation…
“If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death.[…]
On What We Need…
I’ve been wondering about what I deserve versus what I need. Are they the same? I have a good life. It hasn’t always been that way; there have been mornings I was disappointed to wake up. But, overall, life has been good. Now, it is wonderful. How do I receive the good, without taking too much? How do I take[…]