While working on the bathroom today I have reflected on a great number of things. I won't go into them here as I don't think I am mentally able, but will reflect on those thoughts a bit. I think 2008 will be a year where I close some doors on my past. No new doors or opening, but the room I am left in is comfortable. I have made a lot of bad choices in my life. I'd like to think I made as many good ones. Even some of my bad choices have yielded gifts that I would not have expected. The cost has been difficult to accept, but I think that is what life is about. I have always had a need to control things in my life. Annie does, too, but her reason for arriving at that mentality are different than mine. In fact, I haven't quite figured out when it happened to me. I have read enough Dale Carnegie, and believe it, that I 90% of the time try to rationalize why someone would do something with which I disagree. However, I have noticed that most people do not feel the need to take that approach with me. I don't long for control anymore, I just want to influence in a positive manner. I make few decisions that require action without serious consideration. Many people disagree with me on my parenting approach. I am sure I am making mistakes, but I think I am doing the right thing. I do not think there is such thing as a perfect parent, and I confess that I think it is a little more difficult when doing it alone. However, should I see that my decisions have a negative outcome, I am perfectly willing to admit that I was wrong, and work to better the situation. Frankly, this has not happened, yet. Is it because I am blind or have I been doing the right thing? I don't know. Lord knows I have been blind to situations in front of me quite a number of times.

I balance precariously on my three-legged stool: family, work, & home. It has been six years since I stood smiling on top of that stool not knowing or wanting to believe that most of the legs had fractures in them, and one of them was snapping off completely. A friend of mine said something yesterday that struck me. I may have misinterpreted what he was really saying, given that it struck a cord with me. I had thought it for quite some time. My reaction and response to the difficulties in my life have resulted in a very different person than I used to be. He didn't say it, but I can't help but think that I liked me much better back then. Some time during graduate school I said that I realized that I was not going to do anything earth shattering. I had always believed that when I was younger. But it was then that I thought that my offspring would. I don't know if she will be able to do that. She deals with a lot more than she should have to. Maybe all kids do, and I don't see it. She struggles with things that she shouldn't even have to think about. She doesn't have any problems with school work, has the typical problems associated with elementary kids regarding friends, is comfortable in her home, loves her animals and all animals that we come across, laughs when she farts, she's healthy, but she spends an inordinate amount of time fretting about her family situation. Is it real? Is she somehow trying to protect me? Is she afraid of hurting my feelings somehow? I don't know. I reassure her as much as I can, but she still struggles. She is ruled by fear...

Oh well, I will continue the fight because there is nothing else I can do. I leave you with the words of one of my favorite songs over the course of my life. It does not all apply to me, but a lot of it rings true:

Good Ole Boys Like Me - Don Williams

When I was a kid Uncle Remus he put me to bed
With a picture of Stonewall Jackson above my head
Then daddy came in to kiss his little man
With gin on his breath and a Bible in his hand
He talked about honor and things I should know
Then he'd stagger a little as he went out the door

CHORUS:
I can still hear the soft Southern winds in the live oak trees
And those Williams boys they still mean a lot to me
Hank and Tennessee
I guess we're all gonna be what we're gonna be
So what do you do with good ole boys like me

CHORUS:

Nothing makes a sound in the night like the wind does
But you ain't afraid if you're washed in the blood like I was
The smell of cape jasmine thru the window screen
John R. and the Wolfman kept me company
By the light of the radio by my bed
With Thomas Wolfe whispering in my head

CHORUS:

When I was in school I ran with kid down the street
But I watched him burn himself up on bourbon and speed
But I was smarter than most and I could choose
Learned to talk like the man on the six o'clock news
When I was eighteen, Lord, I hit the road
But it really doesn't matter how far I go

CHORUS:

Muddy