Nothing...

I spent the past five hours trying to write a response to an article that someone posted.  In the end, I deleted everything.

Mostly, I think that my thoughts do not matter.  I mean, not as Dr. __________ anymore.  Not as communications staff anymore.  Not as knowledge management staff anymore.  Not really as anything.

But there is the problem that, these days, whenever I try to say something important to me, to try and present my view, I tank at it.  I really do.  I offend.  The very opposite of what I mean comes across as what I am saying.  I sound stupid.  I sound callous.  I mean, just about every negative response there can be comes back at me.

The one that always cuts the deepest is: you always ....

This is also, for that matter, why I believe I will never escape my past, be it what happened to me or mistakes I made.  Gosh, even my childish likes and youthful preferences are fodder for what's wrong with Myrtle some three or four decades later.

I thought that once I hit 50, things would change.  I would no longer be the child, no longer be viewed as someone who can be dismissed so easily.  But even I say, even I realize, that there is a little girl inside of me who has never grown up.  Truth be told: She's never felt safe.

Anyway, I read through what I wrote dozens of times and ended up just saying nothing at all.

These days, there is ever so much that I want to say.
And I do talk a lot, at times.
But I say nothing at all.

Ah, life...

I go to write and then I find that the evening has gone into the night and not a word has been posted here.  Many, many days pass by with little more than battling my body, especially nausea and exhaustion.  But I thought of something:  my Facebook posts.

On Facebook, I am Myrtle Bernice Adams. You can click on that name and it will take you to my Facebook profile.  I post nearly everything public these days, because I did not always want to accept friend requests from folk I do not necessarily know.  But if they want to know what I post, read away.   I made it so that folk can follow me if they wish.

I have been posting more and more of life things.  Things I would post here if I could write several times a day.  Some of them have been long and introspective.  I post about being ill.  I post about Amos.  I post about cooking.  It is a feed that is neither a one of a life that is hunky-dory nor that of a suffering saint.  I fail to praise God in my suffering ... fail to trust Him to care and provide.  In short, the darkness wins when I am lost in pain or nausea or presyncope or a blood sugar or blood pressure crash.

But I sure do savor the Word of God.
Especially the psalter.

I started volunteering with hospice.  It took me months and months and months to do the online training and the final interview.  Honestly, volunteering with hospice is an honor and a privilege.  It is a marvel, at times, that I get to sit with the dying.  And, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why I did not return to volunteering with hospice after returning from Africa.  How could I have forgotten about the blessings of volunteering with hospice, especially all that you learn?  Boggles the mind.

One of the myriad ways I've been battling my body is the torture of my mind when I manage to sleep.  If I do sleep—nausea and pain make sleeping rather difficult—I have terrible dreams.  Sometimes they are dreams on a theme, but most of the time they are chapter dreams, where I wake up for fresh ice packs, fall back to sleep, and find myself right back where the dream left off. Even when I've begged God for some respite.

They are often hard for me, my dreams.  I have a different life in some of them.  Many of them.  A few lives.  Or rather I have one life in which I live three different places. I have houses that are just as real to me as my beloved home here in Fort Wayne.  Leslie is my realtor there, as well.  But she is different ... or I am.

I keep losing my vehicle via not being able to remember where I parked.  I never have my cell phone charged.  And, when I try to use it, I cannot dial it. I am oft without phone and money.  Sometimes, I am going back to college for a second Ph.D.  Only I know that I cannot go because of my cheese-hrain of mine.  I fail class after class, being unable to take in new information and to concentrate.  It is almost comical, if you think about it.  But it is not comical for me.

When I wake, I am often confused as to what is real: the dream or the life I am living now.  It is difficult to explain.  Even as I am telling myself that it is just a dream, I think about what I just did or what I need to do for the dream world.  I tell myself again and again that it was just a dream.  And then  Leslie will ask me what kind of tea will I want, and I start noting in my mind things for her visit, such as the books I would like for us to read in or reading group.  Only we have no reading group. I know the dreams are not real, but I continue trying to live that life in the real world for a while, before I can fully grasp what this is on in them for a while.  

I have dreams where I am trying to escape.  I am climbing and crawling and walking and running.  The exhaustion is so great that I have to push and push and push in the hopes that I can get home.  The endless physical struggle to get home is exhausting, and I wake much more tired that when I was asleep.  Being in such a horrible place and mindset, I despair over the mind torture and have started to dread going to sleep.

Right now, however, I am falling asleep.  I always try to date on the "day" I am writing, regardless of the hour. Hence so many posts marked at 11:59.  It is, however, just after 4:00 AM.  The nausea that has been ever present for many days now has eased enough for me to sleep.  So, I am going to drag myself upstairs.  But ...

... but I have posted, have given my Facebook profile for those who want to follow what is going on in my life on the days I fail to post, and have tried to write down a thought I have, a trial I am facing, even as I, in my dreams, found myself repeatedly being left alone even though I have folk who could come to be with me.

I've spent the past fifteen minutes now trying to fix a sentence on there.  No forgetting. IBN. I wouldn't want to ... crap.  I'm going to sleep without re-reading this.  I hope you understand, at least, that dreams are plaguing