2001-02-25 - 19:31 MST

February 25, 2001

Overleaf

In wandering through my memories, as I said the good ones emerge, washed, shining and with clear colors.

Ah, but there are the bad ones also. The ones I am thinking of are not of the Great Depression, hunger and neediness -- we all had those monkeys on our backs.

My bad memories I have that ride me still are the sins of omission and comission that I instigated and/or disintegrated. The hurts I inflicted when support was needed. The turning of the head to look the other way in order to evade my responsibilities. The times of fatigue when my curt, cutting, unkind comments should not even have been said. The times of ultimate frustration when I lashed out at those who would help me. And the times when instead of ignoring ones as I did, I should have given love and encouragement.

As I grow older, the ones in the past ride lightly, the ones of recent times tend to make me try to avoid causing hurts any more.

Am I succeeding ? Depends on how you measure success. Heather is being even more diplomatic and gentle than she ever has been -- which is really almost impossible to improve on to begin with. Gratefully she is avoiding pushing buttons that each wife has a list of which will fit her old man. I guess what irritates a man is, when he knows that his woman is pushing those buttons deliberately knowing there will be fire in the hole.

So any obtuse, crass boo-boo's I cause are all on my shoulders, all to my blame. The flak coming at me can be ducked or absorbed. Pretty hard to severly hurt an old dude who has been over the road for many years and has had it all done to him before and returned fire too. Now is the time to ground my arms, take off the militant clothes and wash off the war paint. Now is the time to concentrate on making my loved ones happy and content -- at peace. So, as the people before me and the ones after me, on the page showing my good deeds and gold stars, there is another, blackened and smeared - - - the Overleaf . . . . . .

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