I used to love blogging…
After a lifetime of using words to express my thoughts and emotions, it seems strange to struggle for words. But for the last six months or so, that’s been the case. Writer’s block? No. Just no motivation to write. I don’t know if it’s the battle with lyme disease robbing me of expressiveness, or just a phase in my life.
I used to keep a diary, a journal of things I experienced. But I guess that was one of those crazy spells in my life where I was afraid I would forget something important. Now I have sixty years of experiences, too many to remember, and I’m not even interested much in remembering them.
I’ve never been someone who likes to look back. I don’t page through old photo albums or scrapbooks. The last time I kept any sort of scrapbook was high school.
I have boxes of photos taken over the years, watching the kids grow, moving from house to house, whatever life changes happened. Now I have a camera on my cellphone and I haven’t used it more than a dozen times in the last six months. Is it because I haven’t seen anything interesting? No. I have relished beautiful sunrises and sunsets and opening flowers and thunderstorms. But somehow I don’t feel any urge to “record” those memories. I have them stored on my internal hard drive in my head, for better or worse. But I just don’t reach out to share those experiences anymore, and I wonder why…
May 14, 2016 @ 4:51 pm
Don’t stop Rosie, you are appreciated by those who read your blog.
May 14, 2016 @ 5:18 pm
Thanks, Sid. I have a lot of strong thoughts I like to share about things that cross my path, but mostly I forget them when I get home to the computer.
May 14, 2016 @ 5:18 pm
Hey, it does not get any better. I just had my 75th bd.
May 14, 2016 @ 5:31 pm
I hear ya. I’ve been considering using my cellphone to record when I have these things I want to write about so I can go back and listen again and see if i want to actually write that out.
May 14, 2016 @ 5:31 pm
I just went to read this–and read the one on cemetery lights and roadside memorials. I thought I was the only one who declared them tacky and tasteless. (I felt bad about feeling that way, knowing someone’s loved one had died–but not bad enough not to threaten my family that if I died in a car accident they had better not even think about putting those garish plastic flowers there.—In fact, except growing wild, I don’t really care about flowers period—don’t put flowers around me. I said they wouldn’t grow for me when I was alive, they can NOT use my bed when I’m dead. Mutual hate relationship.
May 14, 2016 @ 5:33 pm
My grandmother used to wire plastic flowers (back before silk ones came out) to her bushes so she could look out the window and see flowers all year long.
May 14, 2016 @ 5:32 pm
ROFL, I hear you. And because of my understanding of the state of the dead, I personally feel cemeteries are a waste of real estate. If you’re going to become ashes, why spend all that money on a box and a hole in the ground? Just senseless to me. Cremation is quick, less expensive, and efficient, and all you have to deal with is a few pounds of ashes that can be buried or scattered anywhere.
May 14, 2016 @ 5:53 pm
And have you seen a graveyard after a particularly windy funeral day?! A patient I had in ICU once told me, a neighbor of his had died and left a young wife and two children. No insurance, big hospital bills, and he knew for a fact that his daughter needed new shoes badly, that she had holes in the soles. He said his yard abutted the grave yard—and all these flower arrangements from his funeral had blown over into his yard. He said as he picked them up to put them back–he realized that at $35-75/per arrangement–he had picked up over 350-500 in flowers, that the money would have been MUCH better spent to give to the widow for groceries, and shoes for the kids. And BOTH patient and I swore we would NEVER spend money on funeral flowers again. What an unjustifiable WASTE.
May 14, 2016 @ 6:35 pm
The average funeral today is minimum of $5000 and most are double that. Senseless just for all that silly tradition.
May 14, 2016 @ 5:55 pm
PS–I’m the same way about flowers at the pulpit–WT??? Who STARTED this stupidity? I’ve seen arrangements that would cost well over 150. Why not GIVE that money to missions. I tried to do some research and as close as I can figure it was a pagan practice from EGYPT. So WHY would any church keep following such a practice.
May 14, 2016 @ 5:57 pm
Much prefer a BIBLE as a centerpiece.
May 14, 2016 @ 7:36 pm
Re: Cemeteries: Rose, I think you and I believe very similarly on the state of the dead. Short version – The person no longer inhabits the flesh, but is “asleep” awaiting the resurrection when they/we will be given a new body. That being said, as a genealogist grave yards have a special importance to me. There is much to be learned about family trees from cemeteries. I heard it once said best “I’m a genealogist, I seek dead people.” From experience I can tell you there is something special that connects us to our ancestors when you touch the marker of your great-great-great grandfather and know his body’s final resting place. No, he is not there, he is gone awaiting the resurrection, but still there is a connection. Just another point of view. 🙂