Sounds of Hope

Yesterday I was wondering a lot about whether I should keep telling my story in this blog or beyond. I got a really nice comment from someone that meant a lot. I didn’t really expect a lot of comments. I was just trying to be honest about how I felt. It was a legitimate question. I have this amazing memory. I don’t take it for granted. I realize that memory is a powerful gift. Like all powerful things, it can be a mixture of blessing and curse.  There are many times I wish I didn’t have such a good memory. Often I wish I could hit some button and clean the hard drive of my brain or at least defrag. Memories that are painful don’t leave a person with a good memory either. My memory causes me to remember names of people from my long past. Every so often a name will pop into my head. Now in the days of google, I can google them and see what I find.  I was trolling memories last night. From previous such activities on Facebook, I had found the children of the Sunday ...

This morning my status on Facebook reads, “ Wondering if I should blog this a.m.? ” I’ve been asking this question of myself a lot lately. When I was writing the eight part series One Hundred Fourteen Days that begins here and the blogging as my mother slipped from this life to the next (beginning here ), I felt compelled to write.   Never sure if it was for my own mental health or for the benefit of the reader, every day I would effortless express my thoughts on paper. The blog I wrote after my Ash Wednesday experience was so appreciated by the church I visited that they have asked permission to reproduce it and distribute it. Thrilled, of course I said yes. First, they were going to put it in their newsletter but decided it should stand alone so as not to get lost when the newsletters are gone. If you didn’t read it already, go here for the original version. A former employee came into my office once and said that she struggled with the demon of external validation. I said I...

I have a house that is sorely in need of cleaning. I was reading about preparation for Passover last night. I would not make a good observant Jew. I don’t think I could clean my house that thoroughly. In the area of cleaning, I am not Norwegian.  I also have weeks of school work to catch up on in order to get through this semester. I believe this will be the semester where the GPA takes a nosedive. I just can’t focus. I didn’t sleep well last night at all. I woke up more tired than when I went to bed. Even when I sleep well, I still don’t feel rested. I feel I could sleep for days. I wish I could sleep for days. I also wish I could quit school. Nevertheless, here I sit writing blogs. Recently I’ve thought I would have been better not to even start this blogging business. It hasn’t been since my Junior High School blue diary that locked, that I have written this much. Then I tried to keep my thoughts secret. That was why it had a lock. Then I lost the key so I had to cut the strap...