Not a matter of painful. At least not anymore. It would just be inappropriate. It may surprise some, given the open discussion of the sujbect matter of this thread, but I actually DO have some sense of what's appropriate and what's not! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> But this challenge has also helped to form who I am, even if it stands always in the shadows.

Glad the visit went OK, is over, and you can relax again. Any spare cake?

t&l

P.S. Will try to go online later at work. Hope it's better than last night. What a zoo! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

I started a post for this thread, lost it part way through (rats!) and am working on it again. May not finish tonight.

Been reading a little between phone calls and appointments. I can post and run for fun, but serious posts take me a long time. Well, ones this long do.

I should wait until tomorrow, you'll be at work anyway.

SS

t&l,

I'm basking...I'm basking!!!!

Hey t&l, give me the formula to take the pain away <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

I bought a book about suicide written by the chair at Johns Hopkins Psychiatry department. She tried to commit suicide a couple of times...
One thing she says really got to me: the mental pain was so bad she wanted to end her life. Now I know what she means... It's the mental pain that I can't get rid of.
I never feared death, but lately, everytime I hear somebody died I feel sort of envy <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> that's how bad it is. I wonder how long it will last...

But again, enough of me. [color:"red"]When is the next chapter? [/color] [color:"purple"]You promised [/color] <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

t&l, still checking your thread every day.

I'm the person who sat mesmerized and profoundly affected FOR FIVE HOURS (sorry for caps; haven't figured out how to do italics!)reading your thread.

First, let me explain that I have several children, so given interruptions, it might take me five hours to read "The Little Engine That Could" these days.

Still, have you any idea how many pages this thread would use if you printed it? I daresay it would be several hundred pages. I promise! I know this because I once began printing a 15-page thread that I finally stopped after 100 pages came through the printer!

So, when is the next chapter? I think I have a few hours free this weekend. (Insert rolly eyes here -- I simply must learn this new forum if I'm going to stick around!)
PM

You know, all this fluff between the meat of the story is getting kinda.... like... fluffy you know, and I'd really, if you please, like to hear the ...

well, you know you're a good, like story teller and you have maybe a really interesting story and

Where is it!?

In case you forgot, you were travelling alone, in a rental car with your suitcase and post-surgical complications near the very city in which YS (not MS) lived, and then you just winked out.

I think you're making this all up and got yourself boxed in a corner and can't figure out what ending to write. Yeah, that must be it. <grumble>

If I don't see more production on this line, I'm going to shut it down and lay all y'all off.

-AD

Well, at least I know how much interest there'll be in the actual me once my story is over! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> And I was having such a good time chatting, too.

t&l

I count the whole thing as important, none of it as fluff.

SS

AD, that is too too funny. I know, if she doesn't hurry we'll take turns telling the story for her. You know, each of us tell a paragraph or two, then the next person takes a whack at it...see who gets the closest to the actual events. Maybe we can offer a cyberprize to the winner?

Oh oh oh! Me first, me first! "Riding along in her automobile... with no particular place to go..." she accidentally runs into him on the sidewalk. No, silly. Not "ran him over with the car" but saw him, waved, and happily ever after?!?!?!?!?!??!?!? I like happily ever after stories. Especially when life sucks enough already, however, even with a sad ending, its REAL. Not Hollywood fake. And THAT is what matters.

Life is hard sometimes - <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

(This is in reference to my life, not yours - just so you know.)

I told you that I would think about things. I have been doing that, and perhaps it is time to talk a little bit.

I am keeping in mind that I am a fellow traveler. I'll just say what I think, which is my opinion, and I admit that's what it is.

Some people believe in unconditional love. I do, along these lines:
"Charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endurth forever. And whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him."

This from memory, and it may be off a little, but it will do for the purposes of this discussion.

It's hard to be married to a clam. It's hard to love one.

YOU love pretty much everyone. I can tell. You have charity. I see it, and I bet your pt's see it. Oh, I know you have to be hard sometimes, but you love them. You love your kids, and your H, and fellow church members. I would venture a guess that you love most everyone, and would help if you could. I doubt if the "good Samaritan" has much on you.

I would love to get a chance to be incognito at one of your family gatherings. Even with all you have told us, there is usually much left unsaid. I would love to watch the interaction. To listen, to learn. I suspect there are still things that can be done to get the clam to open up, but then, you are probably smarter than I, and as yet have not been able to produce results. Or, not been able to produce acceptable results. My mind just can't get a lock on things needing to stay as they are. It keeps searching for something else.........

I was listening to music yesterday morning as I was waking up, and getting ready for the day. One of the songs stood out in my mind as being true for many marriages - certainly mine for many years, and probably yours too. At least it is in my mind.

Tale as old as time
True as it can be
Barely even friends
Then somebody bends
Unexpectedly
Just a little change
Small to say the least
Both a little scared
Neither one prepared
Beauty and the Beast

Ever just the same
Ever a surprise
Ever as before
Ever just as sure
As the sun will rise

Tale as old as time
Tune as old as song
Bittersweet and strange
Finding you can change
Learning you were wrong
Certain as the sun
Rising in the east
Tale as old as time
Song as old as rhyme
Beauty and the Beast

Tale as old as time
Song as old as rhyme
Beauty and the Beast


I thought about that for a long time. Beauty and the Beast.

Why does it have to be that way?
Of course, it does not, but so very often it is.

Because the shell of the beast feels comfortable to us, we live in it, refuse to shed it. It seems natural, and friendly. Leaving it, so unnatural, so harsh.

To be kind, to communicate, seem so difficult, and degrading. So that you don't misunderstand, I am speaking as men as the beast. This is not a judgement, I think of myself that way often, and wonder why I don't do better.

Then I heard another song -

People
Barbra Streisand

People,
People who need people,
Are the luckiest people in the world
We're children, needing other children
And yet letting a grown-up pride
Hide all the need inside
Acting more like children than children
Lovers are very special people
They're the luckiest people in the world
With one person one very special person
A feeling deep in your soul
Says you were half now you're whole
No more hunger and thirst
But first be a person who needs people
People who need people
Are the luckiest people in the world
With one person one very special person
No more hunger and thirst
But first be a person who needs people
People who need people
Are the luckiest people in the world...


So then I thought about the great clam.

Even people who are clams have feelings. They just don't talk about them.
I wondered why?
I think once you said there were reasons.... there usually are.

I thought about the pain the clam must feel sometimes. I wondered that he keeps it inside.

I wondered if he knew of the feelings you once had for someone else, and the death wish, and everything. I wondered how that affected his mindset.

There is much that I know, but much that I don't know. I continue to read, sometimes silent, sometimes vocal.

I am not making any kind of judgment about the things I wonder about. I don't know if my wondering help you at all. I hope they don't hurt, it is not intended that they do.
If the truth were known, I wish to help, but as yet have not seen a way to do so.

In a way, you are a clam too. You talk, but sometimes the talk hides the hurt that would ordinarily show on your face, or in your eyes.

It is not really obvious - please don't think you are transparent. You have a lot invested in who you are, I don't mean to try to change you.

You spent a lot of time trying to be who you thought HP wanted. Not sure where you are now - now that you realize it wasn't going to work.

I think you need to be yourself, and not worry about it. Perhaps you are already doing that.
Yourself is a pretty wonderful person. Do you know that?
I don't mean "Yes, we are all children of God, and he made us to be successful, and happy etc, etc, etc."

I mean YOU - you - the Susan that is now. You are a pretty wonderful person. It's in the way you write, the way you work, the way you smile. You would have to be a much better actress to hide it, I don't think it could be done by anyone mortal. Of course, the immortal would not want to hide it, they being what they are.

I'm still thinking. I hope you don't mind me talking to you about my thoughts. Please feel free to point out the flaws in my reasoning as they appear to you, I just wrote the thoughts that came to me.

I know God has information you don't have. I am wondering how he will get it to you. I keep praying things will get better.

Should I keep talking? I should probably quit for today. Thanks for letting me visit, I like this thread. The story is interresting, but it's the person behind the story that keeps my interrest. I wonder if she knows that?

SS

At the risk of interfering, I am going to express my opinion that it has been quite a few years since Mom stopped trying to be what Dad wanted and started just being herself. He hasn't left yet, so she can't be too bad. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> As far as what can be done now, I couldn't begin to guess.

Thanks,
There is so much I do not know. I admit again, I do not know if I can be of any use with this, but I'll give my thoughts from time to time.

When she is herself, she is pretty amazing, isn't she. Or is that the right word? I know she has bad days, but it looks like she acomplishes so much, and I bet she does it with all her heart. To me, that is amazing.

SS

BTW Neak,
You are feeling well today?

SS

Oh, I'm so pleased you asked. This is my third day in a row of feeling really good, by comparison anyway. Hopefully it lasts, but I have reached the point that in most of my other pregnancies was the worst it got. Tired, passingly queasy, and hardly dizzy. This is truly an improvement over unbelievably exhausted, nauseated morning to night, and so dizzy some of the time that I could hardly stand.

Just in time. I have been cracking the whip on the kids in a big way. I'm getting callouses on my hands, and they, well they have callouses elsewhere. I'm driving a little wagon with letters that say, "Obedience or Bust". And then I bust. And bust again.

Yes, she's incredible. (At first I spelled it incredibile by mistake, but perhaps that would in a small way express the paradox of my family, lol.) You would pick her out of any crowd immediately.

Oh, this is hilarious. DD6, the pwintheth, just brought me the health paper she wrote.

StrechinG

You STreCh bcus You are worming up yor boty.

Anybody else feel a need to worm up?

Nah,
I just got de-wormed

Maybe next time. (Poor joke, but I tried.)

You know, they are so ..... I don't know if there is a word for it - but it would be a really, really good word.

I love kids.

Glad YOU are doing well. I don't know how it feels, but I watched it happen 7 times. I tried to help, poor though it must have been.

SS

Whew, what a relief!! I thought you were talking about me personally. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

I've got to get ready for work, but will hope to be able to log on tonight, at least on my break. I think I'll postpone a real response to this until after the end of the Sad Saga, which is nearing (although there are other peripheral Sagas, in case my "fluff" [!] isn't sufficiently entertaining)...which approaching end has been making me think about what conclusions I myself have drawn both from the living, and the retelling, of my life. Much of what you said fits neatly into that corner of the puzzle, and since we're so near, I'm going to save it until the right time.

Just so you know you weren't being ignored...

t&l

You have SEVEN kids? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> Holy cow, Neak. No more complaining from you, girlfriend. And SS, if that wasn't a misprint, and you really fathered 7 children, trust me on this...you don't need to "help." You've done more than enough. Really! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

t&l

>You've done more than enough. Really!

ROTFLMAO!!!!

O Lordy!

Both of us were from large families, we wanted children.

One day when we had 6 (and I was happy about having 6) my W turned to me (this was in church) and said "Where are the kids?"

All 6 were between us on the bench - and I counted them just to make sure. Yep, 1,2,3,4,5,6 - all there. I told her "they are right here.......... all of them."

She looked at me funny, and looked at the kids, and then she kind of shook the feeling off and wispered "I'll talk to you later."

At home she told me we had two more children yet to come. She said she saw them on the bench, but then they were gone, and she wondered where they went.

A few years later the twins were born, so now we have 8.

I watched it happen 7 times, but the last were twins, so we have 8. We love them all.

Now 5 are married, our last son leaves home in a few weeks, and the twins (girls) are 12 years old. We have three grand children.


Much of what you said fits neatly into that corner of the puzzle, and since we're so near, I'm going to save it until the right time.

Just so you know you weren't being ignored...

I don't worry about that so much, but I hate to offend, or cause bad feelings. I worry about THAT a lot. Life is hard enough without getting hurt on a forum from someone you don't even know well.

Remember, I don't count any of it as fluff..... people's feelings are important, too important to label like that.

I'll be reading right along, even if I don't have time to post regulary.

SS