stealth as a virtue

I have never been much of a player, as most of you know. I say what I think when it pops into this middle aged stressed out brain of mine. This can cause men with whom I have fallen hopelessly in love to run and hide in the man cave. At least that's been my experience thus far. I've loved several of them without shame, and dealt with the humiliation that comes with having my words handed back to me thus and so.....

I think a lot of ya'll up there in Dyersburg.

Sheesh...I never thought of you as anything but a friend.

Me.me.me.me.me.me and so on and so forth.

Shhh...I'm playing family man.

Fine then! I'll go live in a hotel.

Those final words were spitten out in anger at me yesterday when I confronted my Dad with his latest "trying to take care of the bills" thing yesterday. Fronto-temporal dementia is all about OCD and schedules and loss of interest in anything else other than getting onto the next item on the agenda. Wake up on the couch. Eat cereal with bananas and orange juice. Watch TV. Make sure the wife gets up sometime mid-morning and makes it church on Sunday. Get mad when kids and grandgirl come by and interrupt the OCDfest. Rinse, lather and repeat.

It hit me like a ton of bricks today that my father has never been or ever will be capable of freely showing any other emotion than anger. During our childhood, mom was the healer of all things hurtful, playing the peacemaker on a daily basis in our family of five. She worked full-time at careers that she enjoyed, made sure we all ate three meals a day and lost herself in the process. So did I. Trying to be good enough is a tough job.

Faith is a virtue as well. I know in my heart that there's a plan and Big Ernie is in charge so that allows me to sleep well at night and get up and go at it again when the alarm goes off. It gives me the freedom to run hot water in the tub and soak my tired old bones so that maybe....just maybe, I can get up and at it and still believe in rainbows. She snores on my couch while Daisy is out trying to sniff her way back home. Faith is all about keepin' on when it seems impossible to do so.

^j^