I didn't plan it this way ...

I never planned to be the person I have become -- it just worked out this way due to circumstances beyond my control. Had things been different, I may have been a whole different ballgame. I may have been the life of the party. I may have been a very diligent sort who always follows up on things I've said I'd do. Who knows?!?

But grief got in my way. Not to belabor the point (well, maybe), but today marks 21 years since the death of one of our sons, and I cannot help but wonder how that can be possible. My Friend Most Faithful went with me to the cemetery today, to tidy up and leave some flowers to make it pretty. Twenty. One. Years. I look at the date on the gravestone in disbelief. Did I pass in-and-back-out of a coma for many years without anyone noticing? In some ways, it seems like that horrible day was just yesterday. But in other ways, it seems like it's been forever ago that coping became a lifestyle, and living became a quest for better coping skills.

I do take pleasure in lots of things, but they tend to be the simple things, the quieter things. My idea of a party is the colors in a quilt, or a bed of flowers. Stuff like petty arguments and power grabs grate my nerves, and because my nerves have "had it," I like to stay away from the likes of those things.

Want a glimpse of a "party" I've recently been invited to? Here ya go:

It's Linda M's Civil War repro quilt. In the second picture, I flipped it over so you can see part of the back (that's homespun on back -- and it quilted up with no issues, surprisingly!)