Thank you Taylor and Secret for your warmth and hospitality. It's a nice feeling to be wanted, but not one I'm use to or have been very comfortable with for that matter; but I think I like it. Actually, I know I do, and I'd be kidding myself and everyone else to say I don't.
I started today off with yet another MRI. I've been having seizures rather frequently; not something I'd recommend to anyone. While I've had small absence seizures for years, these new ones are a bit more intense and unlike "normal" people; I don't lose consciousness. I'm all there, tucked securely in my mind, while my body gets disconnected and the two parts of myself go wildly astray from each other. It's not a pleasant sensation. They're looking for new tumor growth; but personally, I believe it's scar tissue growth. I don't know what the outcome will be. I'm scared, I'm pissed and I'm goddamn tired of all this shit. The result of it is I'm spending as much time and energy as I can muster having fun. I crank my tunes as early as I can get away with it, and I dance. I can only do that for small increments, and then I have to rest; but as soon as I get my breath back, I get up and dance some more. The hell with it! I'm going out with my dancing shoes on..while I'm dancing. I'll take my last breath in the middle of a funky move, thank you very much. No, I'm probably not dying..well, I mean critically ill dying anyway. But the way our medical system handles illness these days, they force whatever time we do have into a death walk, and I'm not playin. Every minute of my time and every ounce of my energy will NOT be spent visiting doctors any more...simple as that. But anyway..enough about the trials and tribulations of aging in America.
My son recently has taken a job in Shanghai, China. He will be working with a former college mate who has started his own animation studio there. He hopes to produce historical animations and wants Justin to assure their historical and English language accuracy. I'm not sure if this friend knows what he's getting himself into with my son...Justin believes in true history, not what we hear on FOX News. I hope his associate is prepared to present history the way it really happened, as it is found to be according to historical documents; and not the way particular history books and authors would like us to believe. If there is one way I would describe my son, politically correct isn't it. It ought to be very interesting seeing that he will be working in a Communist country!
My daughter is in the biggest pickle of her life~ simultaneously she has been offered the position of a life time, and, has met the man of her dreams. She was recently promoted to management at Olive Garden, which after only 4 years and starting as a server, is almost unheard of. The last two people promoted to management had either a college degree in business or 15 years at Olive Garden! At the same time, she and a man she has already known for 10 years and who travels in the same circle of friends; became single at the same time. They have always had a wonderful friendship and in the back of their minds, an attraction for each other; but were always involved with other people so never really acknowledged the attraction. During this man's breakup with a woman he has been with for the past 5 years, he started calling Alyssa for advice; which was not uncommon in their relationship. Somehow during this comforting, they have discovered very deep feelings for each other and have fallen head over heels in love. Neither of them are kids, she is 27 and he is 30, so they are well aware of all the implications. But I think they have realized these feelings have always been there, just waiting to be allowed to come out. What's worse, all their mutual friends have stepped forward and said, "Well, it's about time! We always felt you two should be together". The problem is, she is now suppose to move to PA, and he just got his dream job, in northern Michigan! She's absolutely beside herself about what to do...
Recently while I was having a seizure and didn't really know what the heck was going on...literally thought I might be chuckin it...the one thing that stood out quite clearly to me...burned brightly as a neon sign about life in general against all other things. Love is the most important. Nothing else matters. What's a job? What's money? What's a car? What do any of those things mean....they don't mean a thing, not in the long run. Sure, they are lots of fun in the moment, and that's fine. Life should be fun.
But when you're facing eternity baby, you're not thinking about your car, or your job..or what so and so thought about you and how you lived your life...you're thinking about the PEOPLE you LOVE. You're thinking "I want to spend one more minute with that person so I can LOVE them just a little bit more". THAT'S what you be thinking.
I told my daughter...I've taken a lot of flack through the years. The reason being is because I made all of my decisions with my heart. I always allowed my mind to have it's say; but in the end, my heart was what made the choice and many, many people told me I was wrong. I was wrong about how I raised my kids especially. I even had a school principal tell me I was a bad mother once..and was dooming my daughter to failure. It was at that point that I pulled her out of school. Did I mention Alyssa is a middle school dropout? That's right, she never went past the 9th grade. Not in public school anyway. That's not to say I didn't educate her, and she did get almost a perfect score on her GED, 5 years later. The study program she entered had to design a special program for her because what they already had was so simple for her, she did the entire workbook the first class.
But anyway. Here we are some 30 years later...and suddenly people are coming up to me and saying things like, y'know Susan, you may have been right after all. Well, thanks, I appreciate that..and it's nice to be told that after being harassed for so many years. I mean, Alyssa and I did literally have to move in the night at one point because they threatened to take her away from me for neglect, because in those days, they didn't have home schooling. But I digress...none of this matters either. The only part that does is that I made all my decisions with my heart..inspite of the fact that everyone told me I was wrong. Now it turns out I was probably right. OK Fine.
The point is...the mind is only here to aid the heart. Not the other way around. Our feelings come first. We feel before we think. We feel and then we consider our feelings. We should base our thoughts on what we feel. Right now in our culture, many people have completely turned their feelings off. All their decisions are being made on thought alone. This is a disaster and you don't have to look too far to know I'm right about that. This is why we have a medical system that bears profit! Which is just outrageous. This is why "there is no room for art in our culture"...again, outrageous. This is why, when told how the people of this country "feel" about something, Dick Cheney can look into the camera and say, "so what?" Because Dick Cheney has lost the ability to feel.
In the Bible it states that in the end days the hearts of many will grow cold, and that is no doubt true if these be the end days. There are many reasons this is happening, though not the least of this being that life is painful. All one has to do is watch the news and you feel pain; at least if you are still capable of feeling, you feel pain. I don't imagine too many people who watch television feel very much any more, given the nature of the leading shows. Law & Order and the many CSI derivatives are so dehumanizing that after not watching them for several months I myself was amazed at the level of alienation it required on my own behalf to watch the show, much less enjoy it. We are so well conditioned to viewing bodies as things and nothing more, we can watch one covered in blood and think nothing of it. Turn off your television for a couple of months and then watch one of these shows and see if you don't feel differently. I guarantee you will be horrified. Whether orchestrated or not, we are being lulled into a hypnotic state of uncaring and dis-compassion, and my friends, we must stop it.
We must allow ourselves to feel the pain because only in feeling that pain are we going to be motivated to make the changes we need to make. Half of our society is now on mood altering pharmaceuticals. We're not even talking about the people who self-medicate. They aren't doing this because they are weak. They are doing this because they are afraid, and they are alone. The sooner we realize the guy or gal standing next to us is just like we are and we stop being afraid to share ourselves, the sooner this pain is going to stop and the sooner we can get to the work at hand.
We're all built just the same way; but we've all got a slightly, or even radically different point of view on our experience in this world. That's the cool part! That's what makes it interesting..and we shouldn't be threatened by that, we should be fascinated by that. And the thing is, if we don't stop being threatened pretty soon, there may not be anything left to be threatened about...
Wait a minute, there's no 'chewing' icon...well, you'll just have to take my word that I'm munching on them. Ok, I told you to turn off your television sets..that it was destroying your minds...dehumanizing you..and this is all true. But then I found out THEY'RE BRINGING SPEEDLE BACK TO CSI MIAMI!!!! AHHHH! 
