Sad...

I feel sad. Sad all over. Sad in my bones. I have never quite felt like this before. Hopeless really.... not sure I have ever felt so hopeless before. And alone. I feel so utterly, terribly, Alone.

I went south to find sunshine...

I saw Shasta Dam...

I purchased a rock that looks like the ocean...

I went to the Monterey Peninsula. ..

I visited my friend Sandy, on her ranch near Porterville...

And then I realized it was getting too hot to get all the way down to Arizona. Havasu getting into the 90s, with no offer from my dad to allow my cats in the house. The idea of traveling across the desert to Vegas seemed overwhelming and dangerous.

Life feels overwhelming.

I started driving north toward cooler weather.

"No where to go, and no one to care if I don't get there."

I got to the lowest point I think I have ever really gotten to in my life. I thought about suicide. I didn't actually contemplate it, but I gave it thought. I mean, what is the purpose of living now? God is being silent. My boys are grown, living on the other side of the world.... they have family that is younger, more affluent, who love them... what do they really need me for? I am just something they have to worry about. What do I have to offer them anymore?

I met and had a long conversation with a man who was playing Disk Golf in the park while I was walking. Much of what he said made me realize all that I will never have... a career, a home of my own, the stuff I have collected around me for use... no, I am just one transmission away from homelessness. That is SO scary to me.

I worked with a young lady once who kept us entertained with wild stories and bits of her father's sage advice while we numerically input orders on a temporary job assignment.

"He told me, "If you don't want to be married to a garbage man, then don't date a garbage man! Because you never know who you are going to fall in love with!"

Unfortunately for me, I already had a ring on my finger. And I was committed to a loveless marriage with a man who had promised me nothing. ... and as the years would prove out, he did not go back on his word.