MUSINGS

It's been so long since I made this a regular thing, I have almost forgotten how to spill it.  Something in the last year or two flipped in me that made me not want to type anything out.  Kind of a self censorship because I began telling myself that I shouldn't be putting all the things out there the way I have in the past.  Then it hit me in the last 24 hours that when I was typing the BS out of my head, it was much easier to manage.  It's irrelevant to me if anyone else reads it, it was always about clearing the cobwebs out of my own head.  So why'd I stop? We're still tending wounds as the year winds down.  Wounds of all sorts and kinds: physical ones, mental ones, internal and external.  There are going to be some lasting impressions once all of this dies down.  If last year was a roller coaster, this year must be a drop ride.  Ya know the ones, they take you way high in the air, let you think you're safe and then suddenly it lets go an...

Right now...I feel like I'm covered in them.  The usual array that show up here and there because I'm clumsy, a deep deep one just below my elbow (makes doing common things challenging), and a fresh one in the webbing between my thumb and forefinger on the same arm as the elbow bruise.  A beaten and battered heart that is taking a lot longer to heal up. So.  This time last year my father passed away.  I didn't announce it to many people, even though I shared the funeral details on social media...most people didn't connect that the person was my own dad.  A little over a month ago my old boss and mentor passed away, unexpectedly to me.  I hadn't seen him in quite a while and didn't know if his illnesses had progressed.  Most recently my former father in law.  He was in my life for the last 17 years.  Ex left the state about 4 years ago, that left me to bring the Girl to see her grandparents and make sure she spent time with them.  A one...

A while back I addressed the issue of attrition .  I've addressed my own anger and whatnot in regard to my divorce and even tried to give a little advice to someone trying to weather that storm.  I've come to realizations, had questions answered, found out who my friends are...all manner of growth type things.  Hell, I even sat for a day or so in the psychologists office as well as picking the brain of certain smarter-than-me folks. For some strange reason, I am having a hard time getting a handle on the panic and anxiety.  That's not normal for me...that I recall.  Maybe it is, I don't know anymore.  My mind is so confused as to what may or may not be real in that regard.  I do know that prior to boot camp I was fairly good at controlling my emotional state, at least from an outside perspective.  I knew how to cry on command, temper my anger, or reign back utter glee.  My assumption is that changed after boot camp because I remember raging...

People often remark that I don't talk about my time in the Corps.  Most folks know, at least within either the initial introduction or the first few talks that I served.  My Honey brought it up a few times after we'd been together for a while that he knew nothing of my experiences when I was overseas.  He got one or two snipits about Japan here and there and that was about it.  Basically what everyone gets, the "safe" stories.  There are things best left in the past.  That being said, I am here to bare the soul a bit and offer up a story or two, names shall be changed to protect the not-so-innocent and maintain the status quo.  Grab a beer, it might get interesting. Many moons ago there was a young woman who was a new mom, a new wife and incredibly poor.  She drank far too much and spent too much time running behind a certain best friend who was the gunpowder to her lead.  She was adjusting to life as much as she could, broke, miserable, an...

I have a bit of a beef with today's medicine. Yes, I'm jaded because of how substandard the VA is, but this is somewhat more mainstream and widespread. Because there are so many veterans now, the VA has basically become like the free clinic, minus the free condoms. The care tries to keep up with the demand but it's hard, and I do recognize that. No, this particular issue is just medicine in general. How many of you have noticed exactly how much time the actual doctor spends in the room with you when you go for an illness or a checkup? Do they ever actually touch you? Or take your temperature? Do they go over various causes for something before they hand you a little yellow pill and say take these till the scrip runs out...and don't call me in the morning? I didn't think so. I was sent to physical therapy a while back because I have osteoarthritis in both my knees. I fell on a concrete dock and the fall sent what was a normal degeneration int...