TGIF

Boy, does it seem like there are some weeks when Friday can't come soon enough? I don't know why exactly, but this seems to be one of those weeks. This week was a little "blue" around the edges; a week where an extra dose of my anti-depressant could have been a good thing.

The skies about our fair city are still choked with smoke. Breathing is not getting any easier and the gray pallor is downright depressing. I can only imagine how the people whose houses have burned to the ground are feeling.

Locally, another one of our city's young men has fallen in service to his country. This is the second young man in as many months; both went to my kids' high school and both were in their early twenties. Don't even ask me how I feel about our current administration (GWB) and this lousy, crappy, unwarranted, disastrous, deadly, incomprehensible war. Enough, already. Bring 'em home. This is like Vietnam, or deja vu all over again. What a waste of lives.

Even more depressing, adding to my sense of foreboding and "blue"-ness, is news that fuel prices are expected to hit $7 per gallon within the next 18 months. I am thankful that my commute to work is about 2 miles each way, but there are things I do regularly - go to the gym, attend Al-Anon meetings, see my therapist - that take me across town and eat into my fuel budget. Fear can get the better of me if I let it, trying to figure out today how I'm going to survive financially tomorrow. I've heard in my Al-Anon meetings the following: "If you have resentments you are living in the past. If you have fears, you are living in the future. The only day we have is the present." No hard guess to figure out exactly where my head's at.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I married my first husband in August, 1982. The wedding was planned from California, but took place in my childhood town of Elmont, New York. I had the pre-wedding jitters, but still plowed ahead with my plans to get hitched.

It turns out my jitters weren't really from nerves. They were from the strong desire to scream and run away from the commitment. While standing on the altar, when the priest asked if anyone objected to the wedding, I so desperately wanted someone to stand up and be my voice. The voice I couldn't muster up myself. I had delusions that the love of my life would walk through the doors of the church and declare his undying love for me and I would run off with him and live happily ever after. Yeah, well, that didn't happen and I went through with the wedding.

One of the first signs of impending trouble was the little conversation my husband and I had in the limo. I thought it was absolutely horrible that he had just sat on our marriage license and proceeded to make a big stink about it. You would've thought that he committed an act of heinous proportions. Not looking too good for a happily ever after life together....