Musing on Life, death, and everything between

    I have a fantastic imagination (I should note here that the word fantastic isn't meant to be a synonym for "really good"...more like "unreal or based in fantasy").  As a child, I spent hours in my room imagining I was on adventures or had run away.  Once (okay...more than once), I cut the tip off of a feather, squeezed the ink out of a whole bunch of markers, and proceeded to write a few letters to my imaginary family in rudimentary cursive.      I have not lost this ability, and it can be useful.  Like I've mentioned before, I have to talk (or write) to process things, and sometimes I'll have imaginary conversations with people before I actually talk to them.  This helps me figure out what I want to say and how I want to say it (downside: I look a little crazy).  However, i t isn't always a useful thing for me, and sometimes it's downright harmful.  But before I talk about my specific brand of imagination, I'm going to look at easy

  Mostly this blog post is cathartic for me, just in case you want to stop reading. As many people know from the copious amount of pictures posted on Facebook, I went out to Canada this summer to see my Grandma.  My mom's mom who I haven't seen since I was about 13 (18 years ago).    This trip felt hard and important for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I'm not sure I'll ever see her again.  What a strange thing to write.  I mean, you never really know what God's got planned until it's happening, but given that I went 18 years without seeing her, and her health is poor...I mean I can connect dots as well as anyone else. There are a lot of qualities that I get from her.  I am a good story teller, I am independent, I enjoy the process of cooking, and I enjoy gardening.  We also could probably go head to head in a battle of wills, and I'm not entirely sure who would win.  Probably no one, because that's how battles of will usually end.

  I have written and rewritten this post several times in an effort to control the narrative. To control the thoughts I put out into the world.  I'd like to believe that I can control your perception of me.    Just like how I used to believe that I was good at hiding my emotions.  I thought I was generally a cheerfully stoic person, then I realized I was leaking emotion all over the place.  Then I thought that maybe I was only leaking the emotions I wanted people to see.  False.  I was shedding emotion all over the place like a dog in springtime.  Clumps of emotion would wind up all over everything and definitely clogged my vacuum cleaner...and I think I may have taken this analogy to its limit.   This is not the first time I've talked about my issues with control and trust. Just in the past week, I've talked about It with at least 7 people.  I'm also sure it is also not the last time I will talk about it.   I've always valued the appearance of independence and