My Two Cents Worth...

I guess since everyone else seems to have something to say on this Terri Schiavo situation (for lack of a better word) I'll put my two cents in, as well. But before I say one word, ket me state that this is my opinion and like everyone else, I am entitled to that opinion whether you agree with it or not. Anyone who reads this is more than welcome to comment, but let me remind you before you do; this is my playground, so please, keep your comments to a polite nature. Please remember that I am a person with feelings, just like you are. This is a hot button issue, folks, and everyone who has an opinion, feels strongly about that opinion. I understand that. You very well may not agree with me and that's fine, you have just as much right to your opinion and feelings about this subject as I do; but please respect my opinions just as much as you want me to respect yours. Remember that you are a guest here and I am unviting you to leave a comment...act accordingly in my home. Thank you and now, on with the show!

I'll begin my little tirade my saying that I am livid that congress has the aduasity to think that they have any right to stick their big fat noses into this in the first place! Just who in the hell do these people think that they are? Our parents, for God's sake? Just where does the government of this country get off at thinking that they have the right, for one minute, to insinuate themselves into a matter that is a private family matter? I maean, EXCUSE ME?!? I think that the last time I looked we ere still living in America, the land of the free, the place where we have our very own rights and freedoms; or am I mistaken and have we been wisked off in the middle of the night to some third world country where there is some who-doo leader thinking he has the right to tell everyone of us just when to come inout of the rain? Whether Terri's husband is right or wrong to remove her feeding tube, at this point is a moot point. The first order of business is that congress needs to be monding it's own damn business! Don't they have enough petty business to be conducting? They honestly do not need to be sticking their noses into something that first needs to be left to a family and secondly is WAY over their heads and out of their expertiese. Not a one of them is educated enough, sympathetic enough or informed enough to be making any decisions even close to this caliber. These bunch of idiots need to be sticking to doing what they do best....they need to keep working on passing legislation to build bird houses in gated communities (as I read recently they were doing someplace) or other such important issues such as that. You know, things in thier area of expertiese, just nothing too brain straining, certainly not anything as important as deciding someone's fate based on a moral issue for God's sake! What in God's name would a bunch of Senators and Congressmen know about morals and integrity in the first place? If any one can give me an intelligent answer to that question, I might change my views, but I seriously doubt anyone can find 10 moral legislators that even have integrity in the whole of Capitol Hill! I'll tell ya what...let's make it 5....I'll make it easy on you.

As for whether or not Terri's husband is wrong for wanting to end her life, I can only sympathize with this man. He has been through so much and my heart breaks for him. I believe with all my heart that his wife told him before she ever had that heart attack that she never did want to be kept alive by any artificial or heroic means, and I seriously doubt that she would want to live as she is today. Would you? Would anyone? I know that I wouldn't. The one thing I would love to have the opportunity to do would be to stand in front of Terri mother and look her in the ey while I asked her if she, herself would want to live if she were int he exact same state that Terri were in and had been like that for the past 15 years. I am willing to bet my life on her answer being, "No, I would not want to live like that." I believe with all my heart that Terri's mother loves her daughter and is wanting to keep her alive for her own selfish reasons. She knows her daughter is so out of it that and has no clue of what is going on around her that she is not suffering. If she were suffering, she would want a completely different outcome to this story, that's another thing I am willing to bet my life on. I've seen the same clips as everyone else, That poor woman sits there looking for all the world like a helpless little puppy while she is being teased and played with like she is some sort of baby there for her mother's enjoyment and pleasure. But what kind of life is this for Terri? What is Terri getting out of this besides being her mother's teddy bear? I am amazed that any mother would want to watch her daughter, day after day reduced to this, compared ot he vibrant, beautiful woman she was fifteen years ago.

It amazes me that this woman would want to spend all this time, energy and money fighting this, when she should just go to that nursing home, spend some quality time with her daughter and then kiss her goodbye and let her go and finally be with the Lord and at peace for once and for all. She was not put on this earth to be her mother's grown up baby doll, nor was she put here for the entire country to have a huge fight over. Yes, God did allow Terri's life to mean something and perhaps He is showing us now just exactly what He wanted all of us to learn from Terri's life. To me, I think God is wanting us all to understand that sometimes having mercy is the best thing we can have for a person and that it just might be time to re-visit euthanasia, if Congress is so insistant on becoming involved. And then again, I could be wrong about all of it; that is very possible. I am certainly not God and I don't have a clue as to what His motives are here. But one thing I am sure of and that's that legislating Terri's life is wrong and no matter how you look at it or how you word it, anytime the government gets involved in what should stay a private family matter it is wrong and as Americans, we just should not stand for it.

And that's my two cents worth.

I Wanna.....

I've been sitting here reading through Rosie's Blog. I'd like to write like that. To be able to spit out whatever comes into my mind, without stopping to think about how it will sound, or how others will take it. But for some reason I can't seem to just let myself go like that. I love writing. I love story telling. My dream one day is to be able to write a story, a long story, OK a book, that is actually intresting enough that someone might read. I only have about a million subjects running around in my head that I think will make good stories.

I want to leave something behind when I go from this world. Something worthwhile, something to make people remember me. I want to be remembered as a good person, someone who cared about others. I want my children to remember me as a good mother. I want my grandchildren to miss me. I want my grandchildren to know me, first. I wanto create special memories with each of them.

I want all the conflict in my life to go away. I want people to quit misunderstanding what I am saying to them. I want people to quit telling me how I should live my life...unless those people want to pay my bills, put a roof over my head and give me an unlimited amount of money to spend. Then, I think, they would have a right to tell me how to live my life. But there is no one to do that, yet there are still many people who think they know better than I do, how I should be living my life.

I want to go through the rest of my life not feeling the physical pain from this disease everyday. I want to be able to do what I want, when I want and how I want, not when, how, and what the disease will allow. I am tired of being a slave to arachnoiditis. I want good pain relief. I want my doctor's nurse to quit looking at me each month as if I am only there for another "fix." I want just a little respect for what I have to endure day anfter day after day after day.

I want contentment. Is that really asking too much in this life? What is left of this life? As my sister says, "I have already lived more years than I have left to live." I am nearly 51 years old. I have paid my dues. I have cried a river of tears, had a mountain of heartache and more hard times than I care to remember. Too many nights I went to bed hungry, too many nights I went to bed and was unable to sleep because of worry and fear of what tomorrow would bring. I want to go to bed and sleep a peaceful sleep. The kind of sleep I used to get when I was lying next to Bud and I knew that he would take care of me and everything else.

I want to know that someone values me. I want to know that someone respects me. I want to know that someone can't live without me. I want to be needed. I want my children to need me. I want my children to want me. I want my children to like me. I want a legacy.

I've been looking online for courses to take to better myself so that maybe I can find out what's wrong with me. Maybe I can learn why I have so much trouble feeling secure in my relationships with those I love. Maybe my insecurities right now come from having so much conflict lately. I've had more than one person cut me from their life. I know that one of those was my fault. I even asked for it. I even deserved it. I wonder sometimes if I will ever fix it. Sometimes I think I will and other times I am positive I won't. It comes from anger and my anger is something that I am working on diligently. I'll figure that out one day. I hope it's not too late when I do.

My Kelle called me tonight. She reminds me of myself sometimes. She has this need to fix things that are not right. She's decided she is going to "fix" this thing between her brother and I. She's going to make him see the light. She got angry when I told her that he is resenting that I "took in someone else's child." She got very angry. This someone else's child is still her brother and she resented that Robbie said that....or even felt that. And if he doesn't feel that way he should have never told Cindy he did. It was a horrible thing to tell someone else. Especially someone who is capeable of being so vicisous when you make her angry. She's a truly wonderful person....as long as things go exactly her way. She's never wrong, you know. I worry about people who are never ever wrong. But as I think back, in all the years I have known her not one time do I ever remember her saying that she made a mistake. It must be nice to be that perfect. It must be exhausting to be that perfect. I make mistakes and I am glad that I am woman enough to admit them. And I make them and admit them regularly. I'm good at making mistakes and even better at admitting them. Sometimes I ain't too bad at fixing them, either.

I have my soft places that I can fall. Not as many as I used to have, but thats ok. The ones I do have I cherish. I have my most favorite soft spot...the one I've had for more than 40 years. And she's still there. And I have Nancy, my newest soft place. Although she's not been there as much as I've needed. But then maybe I am just too needy. I'd ask her if we were ever in the same room awake for more than 10 minutes.

For now, I guess I am going to take my "wants" and put them and me to bed. It's getting late and I'm getting tired. I dont make a lot of sense when I get tired. And I have work to do tomorrow. The Best Friends Blog needs work and I have promised myself to work on it. And I am going to work on that post in Bits and Pieces as well.

Blog blog blog along. I love my blogs! Hell, I love everybody's blogs! This is my favorite one because this is where I can be me and who ever doesn't like it....oh well. I just may take the comment part out just because I don't want to hear if someone doesn;t like what i have to say. If you aren't liking what I have to say, take your comment and kindly, "stick it up your ass!"

"When They Are Little, They Step on Your Feet

....and when they grow up they step on your heart" My mother-in-law used to tell me that and no truer words were ever spoken. As parents we try the best we can to do the best job we can with our children. Very few parents ignore their children and let them just drag themselves up. I know some parents who let their own parents raise their kids and I know parents who, after their children are grown and don't turn out the way the parents want to think that they should, put the blame someplace else...even on their own parents saying that they were "brainwashed." But there are some of us who are actually willing, more than willing, to take responsibility for the way their kids have turned out and even wonder for years just where they went wrong. That's the situation I am finding myself in these days. Where did I go wrong with this one child of mine? This kid was raised just like the others were, was loved just as much as the others were, was given just as much as the others were and yet this kid wants to blame every bad break on the fact that childhood dealt dirty blows. This kid had a terrible mother, this kid was "thrown away," this kid was knocked around, this por kik this and this poor kid that. Truth is, this "poor kid" routine is just that, a "routine." This is no more a "poor kid" than any of my other kids and yet, the others have turned out just fine, have no problems with Mom, are not jealous of their siblings, not even the one who is constantly getting all Mom's attention, money, love and everything else because of the "poor kid" routine. And everyone that the "poor kid" comes in contact with has come down on Mom because the poor kid has fed them so many "poor mistreated kid" stories and they are all so convincing and so believable, that people who have known Mom for years and years have suddenly turned on her and now believe her to be a horrible person who has always hated this child of hers. She "threw him away for no reason at all." I couldn't understand throwing away a child in the first place, under any circumstances. But then today, there is a lot of things I don't understand.

I don't understand people who say they care about you lying to you and turning on you so quickly. I don't understand people who say they know you, misunderstanding something you have said and not telling you that they didn't understand what you said, but instead taking offence and getting angry and thinking it is their place to "teach you a lesson." No one has a right to teach another grown person a lesson. Parents are supposed to teach children lessons. People who call themselves friends have no right to be teaching you lessons. Those are not friends, those are simply people who believe they are better than you lording that fact over you. And some people are so dumb they just don't see it.

I have heard that with wisdom comes understanding. If that is true, then wise will be very enlightening.

Betraying Confidences

When we get so comfortable inside a friendship that we forget ourselves and let down all our defences and guards, we are, most times, only asking to be betrayed.

I thought I had lived long enough and been through enough and even been hurt enough that by now, I had gained some sort of wisdom where people in general were concerned. I was under the mistaken impression that I was able, by now, to be able to know those people that I was able to trust and those I was not. However, once again I opened myself up, poured my heart out to a "friend," someone I would have trusted with my life, and I was betrayed in the worst way. The saddest part of this story is that I deserved exactly what I got.

There is an old saying, "Live and learn," and I suppose that as long as we live, we are always learning. Learning is one of those good things in life and something we should always be willing to do although learning should not come with such a high price. In this particular case, learning quite possibly has cost me the ultimate price, one I was not willing to pay. Had I known that in the beginning, I would have never opened myself up in the beginning.

So, my lesson learned at nearly 51 years old is this: that no matter how well you know someone or how close you think you might be to that person, if there is something in your heart that you don't want repeated as common knowledge, keep it to yourself. No matter how much a person may promisse you that they will keep your confidence, the time will come that for one reason or another, what you say to another person will be repeated because it's just not possible for people to keep a secret. A secret is not a secret if it's told. There is no such thing as a confidence. People just are not capeable of keeping them. People, in general, have this need to tell what they know. Whether it be for self-importance or self-gratification, I don't know. But for whatever reason, if someone has priviledged information, they have this uncontrollable urge and they cannot help themselves, they just have to tell someone else.