It's happy 47th ...choke...sob...birthday for my sweet husband, Daniel! The first birthday I celebrated with him was his 18th... I'm happy be still be sharing cake with the guy! Last weekend when we woke up we had THAT view out our door. (Notice our recently cut HUGE and DEAD pines...) Today I have to scoot, off to the market, meeting friends there! More later..

Well, I'm back. Geeez, Dan gets so tired of my upbeat chattiness, I want to tell my life story to everyone I meet at the market, and he is a very quiet, leaning toward bitter, kind-o-guy. I can see where I could be a drag, but he should have to live with a bitchy, angry person for awhile for comparison. It's not so bad to live with an optimist.

I saw Peggy at the meat store (geeez, what would I have to write about if I were a vegetarian), I went to college with her, back when my firstborn was a baby. She said she was just thinking of me this morning, while vacuuming. She said I wrote a piece for our English class about when company popped in, you spray Pledge in the air, and make those sweeper lines in the carpet, and it gives the illusion of a clean house... I had forgotten writing that, but it sounds like me. I was thinking I should go in the basement and fish out my old essays. It would be a snapshot of who I was at 26... it would be a nice perspective point for the laura i am today, a full-on woman, girl no more.

Anyway, it was soooo excellent to see Peggy- you know how you go along and you don't see someone for months or years, but when you meet it's like kismet all over again? The conversation flows as if there was never a 2 year lull, I always says that's a friendship that feels like "comfortable shoes". Peggy is a great pair of shoes!

Further, it's good I met her again now, I'm in a position to be a friend to her, the last time we met I was very low, just after my dad died, and now, at this point in my life I'm capable of BEING a friend again.

You know, this has been an amazing summer, full of the most sensational emotional highs and lows supplied by both family and friends. I had a crossroads where I could have chosen to dwell on my problems, on my anger, to cry and stew. But i thought of my dad. My father was an amazing man,- at 90 he was walking to a gym to work out- but his liver illness took hold fast, and caring for him during that time taught me so many things. All his life was a gift to me and our family, but as he died, he really modeled for me how to live. He greeted every day with a "oh, it's a great morning isn't it?" and he was truly happy to see us, an upbeat outlook. He took pleasure in all the small things- snow uninterrupted by squirrel prints, a well-cooked egg, the minutiae of life that just felt good. He had an insatiable curiosity to the end; he was really interested in the people around him, and expressed his love freely. All of this while knowing he was dying.

How could i, when faced with a disappointment in my life, when feeling let down by the people I love, or angry about the choices that face me, how could i face my obstacles with anything less than those attitudes evinced by my father as he faced insurmountable odds? Anything I'm facing is not life or death.

So, This is how i got over great disappointment this summer... I worked on my attitude and outlook, because people don't like to hang around with negative people. I tried to think before I spoke, and i kept more in. I don't have to share all my issues all the time. So, there I have bottled up anger, what then? I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. Pages of how I felt, just to help me get my thoughts organized. It was better than bombarding other people with my thought spores all the time, infecting people with a bad moood like black lung-black heart, instead. Then, after awhile I was able to get past it, stop writing, and get more interested in the people around me. And, not dwelling on anger, I was more accessible. During this time, I didn't rush my healing process; I took more pleasure in the small things, focusing more on my senses, using this time when i felt vulnerable to try to rework some of the things in my life with which I was unhappy, cleaning up habits and house, both. i worked on doing good things for other people, and being responsible for myself, and once comfortable with me, I discovered a mellower me, a me I like better, and a me I'm ready to share. And just this week i have had two lovely old friends come back into my life. And like the old dominos, good things keep happening, and the bad and scary that has come at me, I am more prepared to deal with.

That's what i did with my summer, inside my head. Oh- outside my head i kept busy busy busy! Cooking and cleaning and painting and reading and spending a lot of really great family time.

And that's how I got over my problems this summer, oh that, and lexapro, baby. NEVER skip your meds. It makes my clear thinking possible.