things i miss

Someone to talk with.

Noise in the house made by someone else.

Kissing.

Having dinner with someone special.

Looking forward to something fun.

Love.

Being truly happy.

Cuddling up at night.

Waking up and feeling like i slept.

Sex.

Personal phone calls.

Friends that contact me with something to do.

A day without tears.

Plans.

Teasing and being teased.

Hugs.

Feeling as though there is meaning in this life.

Her.

Having things work out my way now and then.

Holding hands.

Telling someone special, "I love you."

NH

The New Hampshire trip is over. I'm very glad to be back home. Over the last 2 years it's become more difficult for me to be away. I don't like it. Weird.

On the flip side I had been working too hard and too long this year without a vacation. It literally took me from Saturday till Thursday before I felt relaxed. I could finally feel the anxiety leave me. What an amazingly good feeling to be free of that. I'm gonna work hard to prevent it from coming back to that extent again. Not sure how but that's my plan anyway.

The weather wasn't the greatest. Even the days we did hike were hazy and foggy. The pictures below aren't too bad. Another year we will hope for clearer sky.

NH Pictures

weather

socked in with crummy weather. read two books yesterday. today will be just as bad. no more hiking this year. but we had two great hikes anyway and I was able to release my echo. looking forward to getting home. looking forward to what time will bring. praying for good things to begin to unfold.

change

Plans change...things happen. I try not to be amazed by the myriad of bizarre events that continue to plague my existence.

I keep thinking...after a while God even gave Job a break. I mean is this fun for you. How much stress can Gern take. Let's see if we can break him. May I have one visit with mom when she isn't in distress?

Maybe I'm a bad person. Perhaps too self centered. It's not about me. I'm just a part of the whole and right now wishing I was not. I just want to be on the top of a mountain where no one can find me. No one knows I exist and where the silence is so deep you can taste it. The view is so breath taking you feel like you can fly.

Yet I'm here in Vermont in my sister's living room again. Over 4 hours away from the White mountains of New Hampshire and trying to figure out why my mom thinks her collar bone that she broke 2 days ago is healed already. She's so confused. Maybe its the pain medicine. Maybe she's just slipping further and further away from us. I feel like I should tie a mental rope around her to keep her here. How do you do that?

My friend had to rush off to KY to do a funeral which was a Godsend because he is driving me crazy after only 3 days. I keep praying for a normal life. For someone to enjoy a vacation with. It's too weird to spend this much time with another guy. He's my best friend in the whole world...yet I need smaller doses.

I'm sorry buddy. I love you but we need to plan smaller more frequent visits. And I need a change. But not this change...one that doesn't involve the hospital or any medical procedure at all. Is this too much to ask?

close

I will be as close to God as one can get physically this coming week. (on the East Coast anyway) That is if you think of Heaven as being up which I do. So I'm a simpleton.

Mount Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire is the highest point on this side of the country. On a clear day you can see the ocean if you look east from the top.

I miss the mountains sometimes. But while I'm gone...I miss here. As I write this I haven't even left yet but I have such a pang over someone I will miss while being so far away. I will call out to her across the mountain tops of New Hampshire leaving an echo traveling through time and space. One day it's essence may reach her.

One day I will hold her in my arms and it will be ok to do so. One day...one day...one day

Fading

We are loosing her. She seems to continually take two steps forward and three steps back. Which makes it all so deceiving. Poor Dad with two extremely sick women to care for, I don't know how he does it. But it is taking a toll on him...sapping slightly more energy each day than he gets back that night. I hear it in his voice. I see it in his face and he knows it.

The self preservation instinct does not kick in for him. He allows the stress and strain of it all to devour his life force sacrificially. I one day hope to be half the man he is. Three years ago I ran away from my family. I ran here to save myself. To become a whole person again. How selfish is that? How self serving? They need my help...but what can I do from here. How simply convenient for me.

I don't know how any single person could ever live there. So little to do. So hard to make a living. Single income households all but extinct. After a while even the beauty of the mountains, valleys, trees, dirt roads and covered bridges becomes meaningless when you don't know where you'll get the money to pay the oil company for heat. The beauty of it all is wonderful and valuable, but you can't burn it in the fireplace or eat it. So you trade it for bill boards and Mercury Blvd and summers so oppressively hot that one can't survive without air conditioning.

And through all this there is the thoughts of those left behind. With home values plummeting. Businesses, churches, schools, Dr's offices and even two wings of the hospital closed down. It's like I got out in time and those left behind are out of luck. I know I shouldn't feel guilty, but I do. I also selfishly wish my sister was here. I miss her so much. She seems to be the only one that really knows me...the only one willing to accept me for all my faults and love me anyway. And believe me that's no small thing because I have lots.

Yet I was drawn here. There is a purpose for my move. There is a plan (not my own) that I be here. She brightens my life. She makes me feel alive, whole, purposeful. I would hold her one day. I would welcome a chance to be there. We would make everything brand new.

I'm way off topic here...I should erase it but...