Just another country walk, the same gravel road, the same Sherridan River, my heart is still heavy.  I still just want to pour out my heart to someone.  I caanot go for the cup of Java st the Kirksville Cafe friend, because I cannot drive.  I caanot even go for a gallon of milk if my kids life depended on it. Likely  they are all big, and one does drive. Even if I could, would I?  Sometimes I feel that I hardly exist.  When I talk I am full of life.  I have a giggle in my smile.  The girl at Wal-mart is dear, the girl at the bank is dear, and just about every other female who waits up on me becomes dear.  Last Saturday at the bank I could not even say, have a good day at our teller.  That’s what verbal abuse does to you.  I am a strong spirit, but sometimes I too break.  I am telling myself I may had lost the fight, but yet it’s uncertain if I lost the war.   Some things get personal and you just can’t share all the words that are spoken.  And though I understand we all loose our tempers and say things we should not, degrading someone when they have wronged you to feel better is just not right.  Sometimes it takes a very big person to say, yes, I wronged you.  It sounds easy to do doesn’t it, but yet those say people twist things around so they can make their egoes feel good!   It is not just depression or the blues. It is a big stigma that leaves it’s mark on you no matter how many years goes by.  My mother use to say the tongue bones it doesn’t have yet bones it can break.  Funny from a woman who uses that same tongue to cause negative setbacks that can never be undone, combine it with the actions, and your all set.  It makes it hard to turn the other cheeck.  I should know I have done just that all my life.  But at the same time I have my mind set to ahieve the things that I have in my mind before I leave this earth.  Going for a walk will not change my life in anyway, and it can take me away from achieving these things, but if I stay in I won’t accomplish them anyway, because of the rituals, because I can’t function the way I am suppose to.  I will continue with the creative writing, and what comes of it may.  It makes you think how much we can get awy with in this life!  I talk to Marry and tell her Mary, don’t overthink, Mary don’t let things get to you.  Then before I close the phone with my daughter I say, you know, here I am telling you that, when I let things get to me, and I am the same.  I continue to tell her, you know Mary it took me to go to business school and it all comes down to, how you react to something, it is not what is said to you, but how you react that counts.  She knows that’s hard, and it sounds very simple, till you have to put it in practice.  I talked to my daughter cause she has things that frustrate her too.  I tell her I love her, but I just can’t deal with much more.  Please try to focuss on your life I say.  Try to focuss on positive things, and put your energy on positive things.  Don’t worry about his relatives, it’s you and him that counts.  It all sounds so simple and easy to do, but, in real life when we have to put it in practice it becomes a whole other story.  Still, I must jive courage, guidance, wisdom, love, and a million other things a mother must give to a child.  I have to stand back and focuss on her, because one day I won’t be here with her, and these words will give her the wisdon, the strenght, the preserverance to carry on in her life.  Therefore I need to step back, and give the strength the same one that I never had from no one, yet somehow, sometimes I don’t know from where it comes, but i muster up the strenght to do so.  For now I sleep on the coach to prove to myself, yes choices were made for me, an I had many times chose wrongly myelf, because I was pushed or because I stayed here for I did not have the full strength of what society calls, strong and independent, but then again I am standing here, maybe sometimes I am in shreds, but I have not fallen! Maybe cause I am bull heade, maybe because I have perserverance like my Vo-Tech councelor had said, maybe by the sheer will of God!  Who knows?! And believe me I deal with the rituals, the racing thoughts to hurt myself, the depression the anxiety, I hide it ALL SO VERY- VERY-WELL, but "you know friends" I just cannot hide it from myself.   God gives us the strength, we give it so dearingly to others, but sometimes we are just cut short when we have to give it to ourselves!  So sometimes you may get that kiss on the cheeck, an say mam this and that, but the negativiy outweighs the "so called" love, that someone "thinks" they are giving us. It is not the kind we need, it is not the kind we want, nor deserve in this life, cause, yes, life it too short, way too short.  So give back the kind of love you know that the others person wants and needs, not the kind that you just want, or the one that just benefits "YOU"!  I truely hope I am not misunderstood by anyone.  I try to do the creative writing, sometimes I just can’t but I do push myself every chance I get!  Everyone take care.  Love, Ekaterini-Kathy