thoughts from a freckle-faced pisces
Early after Mark died when I was talking to my therapist, I asked how I could possibly fill the enormous hole in my life when so much of it revolved around the husband who was dead and what he did for a living. Many times over she told me that I would eventually build a Continue reading "Surrender"
When Mark and I moved to Kansas City 34 years ago, we thought of it as a 5-10 year stay and that once he got his career established we d move to a city with a bigger university. In those first few years if he d have said, Let s blow this joint, I would have had the Continue reading "A Host City"
My retail background started years ago when I was shopping at my favorite store and the manager came up to me one day and asked me if I would be interested in working there. I was a stay-at-home mom at the time and the idea of getting out of the house for hours at a Continue reading "Theft"
Since the spring I feel like I have been living my life on a non-stop carnival ride. First it was getting the house ready for a renter then that blowing up followed by getting it ready to be put on the market to be sold. Post sale there has been paperwork and banking to take Continue reading "Then Now"
Remember that story I wrote in March about making the decision to rent my sweet, little cape cod? The one I fell head over heels with the minute Mark and I saw it? Turns out that short-lived experience was a disaster in many ways and in the immediate aftermath I realized that the landlord life Continue reading "Small Treasures"
On the first phone call Mark ever made to me when sight unseen he was going to ask me out on a date, he told me that there was a full moon that night and I needed to see it. I told him I would be sure to do that after we hung up and Continue reading "The Nightlight"
When I arrived in first grade as a freckled-faced six year old, I was immediately overwhelmed. Back then classes were huge numbering 40+in desks lined up row after row that to my little eyes seemed to go on forever. While I was used to a lot of people in a small space these were Continue reading "Making Friends"
If you were to ask me if I had a baby other than my three kids, I would tell you that I most certainly did and it was the house Mark and I bought 34 years ago. Months after moving to the Midwest from the DC area, where buying a house seemed to be for Continue reading "Vacant"
For months before Mark died I had been struggling with sciatica. I had it many times over the years but that time was the worst it had ever been. I did all the usual things alternated heat and ice, took lots of ibuprofen, got massages, did stretching videos I found on Youtube, and went Continue reading "Pain"
When we were newly married and living in a small college town, Mark and I did our share of smoking illegal crops. I had more access to it after getting to know several car dealers (who took a wide assortment of drugs) that called their loan applications into the bank where I was working. It Continue reading "High"