Passions

I suppose all of us have at least one passion in our life. Reading has always been a passion of mine, but then writing has also been one of my passions, too. I've always thought that I was capeable of writing a book, always known I've had a story inside of me, but whenever I've sat down to write that story I've learned just how hard writing is. I understand why writers, or should I say "authors" make so much money from the sale of their books. Writing is grueling work! It's not easy to put something down on paper that makes sense, that other people will find intresting enough to read. Hell, it's not east to put something down on paper that makes sense, that I will find intresting enought to read!! Yes, writing is a passion and the hardest work I think I have ever attempted, and yet here I am trying my hand at it. The silliest part of this entire project is, as you can see, I don't have a subject to write about. I have covered and entire paragraph right here about absolutely nothing. Now, thats talent, if I do say so myself. Not, too bad, is it? What do you think? Do I still have your intrest? Have I lost you yet? I'll bet you are still hanging on only to see where I am going to take you, right? I know I'd better make up my mind fast about where this thing is going to go, or you are the one that's going to be gone. See, what I mean about this writing thisng being hard? yep, it's much harder than it looks.

I used to think writing was so easy. Just pick a topic and start writing away. Back when I was so sure that I was capeable of writing a book, I was going to write about my screwed up life and even screwer family, so I sat down and began with my birth. You can't tell a story in sequence like that in the first place. It's very boring and then you forget things. By the time I had gotten to my teenage years I realized that I had only covered about three paragraphs and had omitted probably seven or eight important years of my life. So, I had to go back and then I had things so confussed and messed up I had to start all over. By this time I was discouraged and so I quit. A few years later I decided again that I was going to write a book so again I sat down and began to write from the beginning and once again I made the very same mistakes. How dumb can one person be, I thought. I was doing the exact same thing again, writing in sequence again. Yet, I knew I had never in my life read a book that was written from the time a person was born until the time that person died. It's just not done that way. Most books that are written about a person's life begin in the middle of that person's life and then they flashback to the beginning and then jump back to the present, flashback again and so on. Gradually they continue on as the person ages and then the main character of the book dies and bam! You have a life story. At least that's the way it goes in most of the books I have read. But stupid me here has always wanted to begin at the beginning and end at the end. Books just aren't done that way. I don't know what I was trying to prove. Maybe that I didn't know the first thing about writing? That sounds completely logical to me.

Now that I know how NOT to write a book, I probably should not even attempt it. As I said, it's grueling work. Knowing me, I would forget so much that was important to the story and so much that I wanted to put into it. You can be sure that whaatever my main idea was I would omit it, or dance around it. I'd probably forget my most important characters. And descriptions get me, too. When I am reading a book the hardest parts for me to read are what I lovingly refer to as the "who hung the bathroom curtains" parts. Those are the descriptive parts that are so important to the background of the story but that I couldn't care less about. I don't like reading those parts and usually only just skim them; I can't hardly imagine me spending much time writing about them and yet to make any book intresting they have to be included. If I were going to describe a bright blue sky, that is exactly how I would describe it....a bright blue sky. I seriousy doubt if I would have the patience to describe it as a wonderful descriptive writer would describe that sky to where you would be able to picture it in your minds eye so perfectly as to be able to see the huge white clouds billowing in the breeze as they floated lazily towards the east while the sun made shadows dance on the ground from the sway of the trees on a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon in late May, where off in the distance you could hear the sounds of children laughing and birds singing...are you getting the idea, here? Like I said, writing is tough work and authors earn their money.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, my other great passion is reading what others write. Ever since I can remember, I have been escaping this world through books. I would curl up in a corner someplace with a book and as far as I knew, I was invisible to those around me. People could call my name over and over again and I would not hear a thing. My mother used to have to come right up to me and shake me by the shoulder to bring me back from whatever place it was that I had gone off to via the book I happened to be reading at the time. I could have been as far away as another culture and century or I could have been as close as the next county, but my mind was never with what was going on in the present, in our home. If I had a book, I had escaped. This practice began with me when I was about eight years old and has continued my entire life. Reading has always been a priviledge for me. I have been blessed to be able to visit other countries, different cultures; I have learned about things I never knew existed because of the miracle of the written word. There have been times when I have thought that books and my ability to completely escape reality in them has quite literally saved my life. I have used reading as a tool for pleaseure, for learning, for relaxation, and for a complete vacation from everyday life. To stop reading, for me, would be equivalent to stopping breathing and to ever make me choose between the two would be so unfair; for me the two go hand in hand.

Arachnoiditis-My Companion

"Arachnoiditis" is a spinal disease that attacks the arachnoid layer of the spine and destroy it. It affects the nerve endings and causes them to basically grow together and this causes severe pain. There is no cure for this disease and the only thing that can be done for it is to treat the pain. There are not many doctors who are willing to treat only pain because with this disease, the best way to treat this pain is with opiads, or class ll narcotics. Doctors are worried about the FDA coming down on them, they are also worried about patients becoming addicted to pain meds and them sueing them, and so a lot of us with this disease are left to suffer. The worst part of it is in how this disease is contracted; the medical profession gives it to us through mylograms and through Epidural Steroid Injections and as long as these procedures are allowed, this disease will continue to spread with no known cure in sight and no treatment forthcoming from the very profession that breeds it.

I had my first mylogram in the early 1970's and the doctor who administered the test needed it to find out the extent of the rupture in my disc. Naturally, this test was not going to cause me any lasting problems. He was going to inject dye into my spine but that dye was going to be absorbed into my body and then I would pee and the dye would be gone. Here we are now in 2005 and if you look at an x-ray of my spine that very dye is still visable along with my destroyed spinal colunm. Years later, to ease pain in my hips and legs caused my this horrid disease another doctor, a pain management specialist, decided that what I needed were Epidural Steriod Injections because these would definitly numb the pain and would not hurt me one bit. Once again, I trusted a doctor and later learned that another main cause of Arachnoiditis is Epidural Steriod Injections.

These guys get you to sign a release that does not have this disease mentioned anywhere on the paper at all, because according to them, it does not exist; they like to call it "failed back syndrome" because to list this disease is to accept blame. The medical profession does not want to acknowledge it, however Social Security has acknowledged it as a disabling disease.

Arachnoiditis has been my companion since mid 1994 and it's been quite an experience learning to live with this crippling disease daily. There have been days when I have not been able to walk, there have been nights when I have not been able to sleep. I have lost count of the miles I have walked in my house during those nights when my legs have decided to jump with spasms so bad that laying down was impossible. I have had charlie horses in my feet so badly that my toes have curled under and I have cried out in pain. I have spent more time sitting in hot water, because wet heat is my friend, that my skin has turned to leather. I have had my 3 year-old ask me, "Mommy, does you legs hurt today?" knowing that my answer meant the difference between his being able to play outside or having to stay cooped up inside the house on a beautiful sunny day. At 50 years old, I walk with the speed of an 80 year old and some days much slower, stooped and leaning on a cane and I get out mostly just to visit the doctor for him to write my pain meds. In a sentence, it's a shitty existence and some days I know death would have to be a relief. This disease has been compared to the pain of cancer but without the sweet relief of death, because sadly, it does not kill; but it has driven some to suicide. There is no recourse because the maker of the mylogram dye is Kodak and no lawyer is willing to take them on in a court. And so, I wait, I sit and along with an estimated three million others in the United States alone who are living with this disease who go ignored and living in pain, try and cope daily just getting thru to another day to do the same thing all over again. Hobble from one room to another on our canes, some in wheel chairs, all hurting, spasming and crying, begging for pain meds for some small reprive from the pain we must live with 24 long hours a day from a disease we had no control over. A disease we contracted simply because we had the idiocy to trust the medical profession for giving to us. What a country we live in, huh?

Best Friends

I can imagine that pretty much all of us has friends or at the very least we have acquaintances . There are vast difference between the two, you know, but I am not going to sit here and explain those differences to you. I figure you should know what those differences are. What I am going to talk about, as you can tell by the title, is "Best Friends,"

Is a best friend defined by how well you know one another? Are they defined by how long you've known one another? Do you decide on their "Best Friend" status by how much the two of you have been through together? What exactly is the criteria for achieving this honor?

I have often wondered about this very thing, as I am a woman whom, I believe, is one of the extremely lucky ones in that I have more than one friend whom falls into several of the above catagories. Does this necessairly make them a "Best Friend?" And is the title of "Best Friend" such an impressive one and so coveted; do people vie for it to the point of feeling jealous if they aren't lifted to that status; that this otherwise perfectly wonderful person will feel less than adequite if they aren't told they are your "Best friend?" How terrifying to have that much power over someone that you love. I suppose we all have more power than we would like when it comes to our friends and most of the time, we don't even realize it. My friends are so important to me that I would rather die than hurt any of them and I would never knowingly, on purpose hurt any one of them for anything in the world. Each of them, in their own way is so special they deserve to have their very own tribute but the thought of that task scares the hell out of me. What if I were to write a tribute to them and they compared them and one was better than the other? What if I forgot and left out some very important fact about one of them? When I first sat down here with this idea of a "Friends Tribute" it was a pretty good idea, I thought. But the more I am thinking about it the more i am sure this idea stinks badly. To tribute all of them is a disaster in the making.....but to tell you about one, hmmmmmm which one do I pick? Do I pick the funniest? Should I pick the smartest? How about the one who is most thoughtful? How about if I tell you about the friend I have that I have known the longest? I don't even have to think about that one. I've known Cheryl ever since I was 9 years old. We've come a long way since 1963 and Mrs. Baron's 4th grade class and a lot has changed since then, too. But one thing has remained consistent; Cheryl and I have stayed "Best Friends." Oh, there were years that we lost track of one another and then we'd run into each other and our friendship would pick up right where it left off. During the past 42 years we have shared many many secrets, gone through many changes, we've fought like sisters and made up again. We've raised kids together and watched them marry and have kids of their own. Now, we are grandmothers together. The two of us have come nearly full circle. We used to always say that when we grew up we would share an apartment and grow old together. I think we should hurry.....we're almost old! She sent me a picture frame recently and on it were two old ladies and a saying I shall cherish for the rest of my days, "If we should live to 103, Best Friends we shall always be."

My thoughts exactly.

When I look back on years gone by

It seems you were always there

My earliest memory are those of you

And all that we did share...

....The years have faded into mist

Like ships that fade at sea

But I still hold you in my heart

In every memory.

I love you, Girlfriend....always

Dreams

"All of our dreams come true,

If we have the courage to prusue them."

What does it take to pursue our dreams? I think, like it says in the above quote, that it does take a lot of courage; first and formost. Sometimes we have big dreams that look impossibly unattainable and without courage they very well might be; but if we have courage to step out and reach for whatever it is that we are dreaming for--it's not so impossible. In fact, the more we believe in ourselves, that we can reach our goals--the closer we come to making our dreams realities.

Besides courage, another thing that we need is vision. We must be able to see ourselves actually living out our dreams. If we can see it and believe it--we can achieve it.

Last and probably most important of all, we need to have the determination to keep pushing ourselves toward those dreams and never stop believing in ourselves.

With courage, vision and determination we can make the impossible happen. All we have to do is remember this and our dreams are within our grasp and the world is ours to conquer.

"The future belongs

to those who believe

in the beauty of their dreams."

Without dreams, will there be a future? Without dreams, what kind of future are we destined to have? Without dreams, where is the beauty in looking forward to tomorrow?

It is from those individuals who believe in their dreams for tomorrow that this world belongs to. For it is those very people that the rest of us are looking to for our answers, entertainment, beliefs, even our very thoughts and opinions, in some cases. We've all been told as children,that in America we can grow up to be anything or anybody we want to be-even President of the USA, if we so desire-but in reality-only the personwho believes in the beauty of his own dreams is the one that can really be the President-he's the one who had a dream so large and one that seemed so impossibly unattainable-but he had the courage, the determination and the Belief in himself to know that he could reach his impossible goal.

He remembered, he grasped his dreams and he conquered the world!