Knocking on heaven's door

have you got peyote again?

cause you dint call and say hey, you really need to come see me...(you know what I'm sayin')

Boida's spirit keeps me away from my dark spot quite often.

she's pretty damned amazing.

Very heavy topic, dyslexia. I often think about "quality of life" issues, but it is difficult to discuss something like this.

For some it is not the distance of the next sunrise, it is the hope that it will rise and the longing to be there to see it.

It's how you get there that counts most.

I was thinking that's what I said. Oh well, it is what I meant.

Oh man, that is pretty heavy. I don't have much to contribute. But if you're in any particular funk today yourself, I hope it gets better soon.

O one whose name is writ with mine in sour misfortune's book.

I'm sure it's possible to stop caring, to feel like calling it quits. And I think that's a perfectly reasonable response to the dire circumstances some people find themselves in. I can easily imagine feeling this way if the going ever gets much too rough, too much of a struggle ...

but, but ...

That's how a person might be feeling one day, or over a period of time. And sometimes, you know, it could be something as simple as the first signs of spring, the first darling buds appearing ... and that might just be enough to feel like it could be be worth hanging around to see the rest of the beauty which you know will follow. And be part of it again.

There comes an age where looking into a brighter future is somewhat an oxymoron. Surviving another day can be a very positive thing or a very depressing, depending on how you look at life and what you're looking forward
to.

What would it take to better your life, dys, and what is holding you from working on it?

I have never thought of myself as a strong person and don't think of myself as one now. I'm a pragmatist. What happens happens. I do what I should do. Either it works or it doesn't.

I've had many dark days. Wonder why I'm bothering to struggle. What have I got to look forward to except more of the same. I've made some decisions about what I'd do if my health takes yet another turn for the worse.

But the bottom line is that I don't think I'd be in therapy if I didn't want things to be better. If I didn't want the gray days to have some color and the black days to lighten up.

I often want to just crawl in a hole. Other times I feel like I'm in a hole and am clawing to get out.

I'm physically and emotionally exhausted, but I don't think I'm ready to give up--yet.

I'm throwing this in because it has an emormous effect on how I feel. I believe strongly that if money weren't a constant worry, I'd be coping better. Just another thing that leaves me exhausted and spent.

I used to be an interesting person with an active life. I've become one dimensional and have an inactive life. I used to be very smart. I'm still smart but less so than I was. I used to be quick. Very quick. Now I'm slower. Some of this is age. Much of it is from illness and stress. I miss the life I had and the person I was.

Heavy duty topic for discussion, dys. It's sometimes hard to accept reality. But I wanted to be honest with you. I truly understand how you feel. Sighing big time.

I am very sorry you are feeling like that, hon.

You know, the studies re ageing happily seem to suggest that one of the secrets lies in setting your goals to be just within your abilities.

I do wonder if.

a. Your abilities are greater than you think....

b. That you are a bit stuck in grieving the losses

c. That you MIGHT be happier if you weren't trying to be the who you were, exactly?


I hardly dare say that, (mainly because I sound like, and likely am, an arrogant pig) but also because I don't really know if you still have the exhaustion and pain so very badly? I hope you don't, that time and the drugs have helped a bit?

Otherwise, Dys....yes, I can readily imagine feeling that the game was no longer worth the candle, and I am a strong supporter of voluntary euthanasia.

That being said, I think it is VERY hard to sort out depression, which may lift, from the true state of being better dead. Of COURSE, this is subjective, but if you speak of yourself Dys, it seems to me that you are surrounded by love and give great delight to many.

Probably many, many more than you know.

I'd hate to lose you.

Well, WE think you are amazingly strong.

What a recommendation for kvetching!!!

Dys is one of the strongest men I've ever known, enduring pain that would leave most people perpetually insane. It is no surprise that he, after his first stroke in late 2003, has lost so much interest and joy in life. And I have contributed to much of the stress, partly through my own worry over him. I wish that I could find, or help him find, better stress reducers that actually interest him.

His greatest influence was his grandfather, a man who never let anything get him down. That influence has helped form Dys into a man who has the ability to keep going regardless of what comes his way; but after awhile, the appeal of continuing loses its appeal if there seems no end in sight.

Then, there is the word "feisty." If anything describes Dys, feistyness (a real word?), is the one. And he is a fighter, in his own, quiet way. He does keep on keeping on.

If only I had half his strength.

A few peple realize that there is a refusal that has nothing to do with renunciation. what meaning do words like future, improvement, accomplishment have now? Is there a today? a tomorrow? shall I refuse all the "later on's ofn this world because I haveno desire? Have I become an adherent of a medical religion? Do the medications I take ritually alter the person I was? Are my thought really my thoughts or are they the chemicals that course and curse throught the membranes of my blood, my heart, my brain? Everything I am offered seeks to deliver me from me from the weight of who I was and lead me on another path of who I am becoming; a pharmaceutical somatic automaton. I do need some sense of tomorrow but it is not a strong sense, it is not gravity; it is more akin to "do I buy the good tea or is twinnings adequate." Will I some day be able to tie my shoes or keep wearing the slip-ons? I suppose I want to be remembered but I no longer know what I should be remember for. I'm guessing me Stetsons will become my heritage, they and, of course, my terseness. I'm not really cranky but I don't suppose that matters.
It rained a bit last night.

randy newman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60AChuvfzUo

(i was gonna play short people, but this is better...)

ditto those thunks.

A paraphrase from War and Peace .... Tolstoy's main Character Pierre Bezukof (or something like that ... a character who wanders through the novel trying to figure what life is all about, -- and who is a prisioner of the retreating French army, making its way out of Russia as winter envelops it and partisan attacks bleed it ) contemplates his situation, a cold and hungry prisoner of a dying army - and he discovers a great truth ...
' there is a limit to joy and a limit to sorrow,... and those limits are soon reached. A man suffering from a crumpled petal in his bed of roses, suffers just as much as he.....'

Pierre was given to overstatement throughout the novel, but the point is good.

I've always thought of Tolstoy as a bit of a wacko.

He had his eccentricities, however, he was a very good writer indeed and, in my opinion very insightful about human nature.

I believe his point about joy and sorrow was a very good one.