I have so much in life to be grateful for. My husband is supportive and has encouraged me to do so many things I was afraid to do or thought I couldn’t do well enough. My gratitude to him is endless.

I am grateful for my health and even more so than usual after being miserably ill for a month and a half. It feels so very good to feel normal again! After you are sick, being healthy feels extra good. I am extra appreciative of my health.

I’m also extra appreciative of the warm and comfortable shelter I have in the form of a house, especially at a time when natural disasters have taken away that kind of comfort from so many thousands. I am grateful that I can do anything, even if only send money, to assist others.

Then there are friends. What would the world be like without
friends? Friends are warm hugs and emotional support and smiles and
sometimes tears and shared stories and shared experiences. We can share
joy and sorrow with friends.

I never express enough gratitude to my mother-in-law for her being
who she is. She has inspired me too, encouraged me in art, been
generous with her heart, and has lead by example. I need to thank her
more and communicate with her more.

While today is beginning as a cloudy gray day, it is within 48 hours
of a Halloween party that I am going to as a clown! Yea! I have been so
looking forward to this party! I can’t recall ever going to a Halloween
party. I have the opportunity to dress up for this one. I am cooking
for it too. It is a fundraiser for a nonprofit that I do volunteer work
for. I will be the official photographer and take photos of people at
their request and for a fee which will go to the nonprofit. We have
sold tickets. I have my costume which I found at an auction. It is an
old Halloween clown costume. I have been having such fun with this.
Friends will be there.

I am making a cake in the shape of a pumpkin and a pumpkin nog. I hope they come out all right.

A friend sent me an email this morning and shared a saying that she
had heard somewhere. The saying is, "Rejection is God’s protection."
Hmmmmm. There is probably a lot of wisdom in that saying. To make it
more appropriate to me, the saying might be changed to, "Rejection is
your Higher Power’s protection." I’ve often wondered about that idea
over the last 10 years. I’ve seen others hurt worse. I hadn’t heard the
saying until today but the concept has occurred to me. So I guess this
is time to say Thank You to my Higher Power. "THANK YOU, HIGHER POWER!"
Tony might not be so fortunate. Maybe if he started to pray now? Pray
hard, Tony, pray hard!

There are several stories about things that Robin says I said on her
website. The bottom line is that they are fictions. If someone said
them, it wasn’t me. I was and still am proud of Robin. I did love her
and still love her although I do NOT like her. It is possible to be
proud of someone you do not like. I did like her years ago. I adored
her. But I definitely do not adore her any more.

I am proud of her accomplishments as a business person, proud of her
making a change in career. I was proud of her at her graduations, both
of them. I am proud of her concern for the welfare of dogs. Although
maybe it is a matter of semantics but I almost hate to say that I am
proud because expressing pride seems to have an element of taking
credit for someone else’s accomplishments. I give her full credit for
what she has achieved. Maybe my being her mom helped create a backbone
that assisted her in accomplishing these things but I don’t know. I
think we all have a core of something that makes us go forward and get
what we want in life, regardless of who and how our parents were.

About the fictional stories. one of them, the one about telling her
that she was best when she was five years old, was said by her father
to her. I should say "allegedly" said because I don’t know if he really
said it. I only know that Robin told me he said it back when she still
talked to me.

I don’t know where the other stories came from. Years ago when I
read what she wrote to me, I thought that she had me all mixed up with
my mother. I am not like my mother except for my thyroid problem and my
occasional clinical depression which is like an ant hill compared to my
mother’s clinical depressions and other psychiatric problems. There
certainly is a vulnerability in my family to certain physical and
psychiatric ailments. I also have high cholesterol as both of my
parents have had and I cannot drink alcohol as I invariably would get
drunk and embarrassing. I haven’t had a drink since1972. I do have
cousins on my mother’s side who have bipolar illnesses for which they
get treatment. I don’t really know them and never see them but have
been told that they are very creative people in the sense of creating
art.

Some of the fictional stories may have come from my mother and maybe
some from Tony, her father. I don’t know. I don’t know why Robin
believes them or remembers them as being done by me, assuming that she
does believe them and is not lyiing. The reason for why she tells the
stories about me may be at the heart of whatever Robin’s problems are.

I have attributed some of Robin’s reactions to me as
supersensitivity which does happen between mothers and daughters. I
have been guilty of it too. Look at how I react to her stating her
disappointment that she had no photos around the pool at the wedding. I
took this personally as I was the photographer but maybe she didn’t
mean it that way and was just making a statement of disappointment. If
we were normal people having a normal conversation and not a mother
trying to be in touch with her daughter in some small way by reading
her website, then I might have expressed my dismay that she was
disappointed and she might have told me that she was not referring to
my performance as the photographer when she talked about the pool at
the wedding. Since we are estranged, we cannot have normal
conversations. The bottom line is that I wanted her to be happy with my
photography of the wedding and if we were normal people in a normal
relationship and not a mother estranged from her bitter daughter we
might have been able to have that conversation and it wouldn’t have
been any big deal. If only if only if only if only …

Thinking about the if only’s makes me sad and brings tears to my eyes.

I still don’t know why things are the way they are and I am sad that
they are this way but I do accept it. And I thank my friend for the
saying, "Rejection is God’s protection." That may be so very true.

I know that it is impossible to have a relationship with someone who
attacks me and then refuses to allow me to talk WITH her. I wonder if
she has asked herself what would she do if she discovered with
incontrovertible proof that I am NOT the person whom she thinks I am
and that I am someone who many people love? What would she do if she
found out that she was WRONG? Not in the sense of me being right and
her being wrong. I am not saying that I am always right about stuff.
But what if she discovered that her entire image of me as a self
absorbed joyless person incapable of acting like a human is ABOUT AS
WRONG AS SHE COULD POSSIBLY BE? Would she change anything? Or would she
just go on as she has? Self righteous right up till the day I die and
beyond. Continuing to project every nasty thought and fiction on me
that she can? Would she ever be able to admit that she has been cruel
and vicious to a mother who loved her and was kind to her and wanted
every good thing in life for her just as she was? Would she be able to
admit that my love was true and my motivations always sincere? Would
she?

Well enough of this sad digression from the rest of my life,
although this is indeed part of my life. Happy Halloween, all you
ghouls and ghoulies! I am off to bake and make myself cheerful again!

Snicks