h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's ballsy, I'll give them that.

A bit late, but here goes.

New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

--Mark Twain

My resolutions are the same this year as they have been for the last several years:



1024 x 768 at home, 1600 x 1200 at work.

My braibn isn't up to that this early in the new year. Heck, my brain isn't up to much lately. I assume I do still have a brain, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

My typing is just as bad as ever this year, so that at least provides a constant. And it lets all of you know it's really me and not an alien pod.

When Elektra started on h2g2, everybody at first claimed it was me using a sock puppet...

...until they got a load of her spelling. Apparently, they didn't believe I was smart enough to do that on purpose.

I like that Mark Twain quote. It means people having been doing that dumb New Year's Resolution trick for at least 100 years.

Now, you guys have complained that you don't like holidays. That you don't like Halloween customs, etc.

The only thing I get really curmudgeonly about is this resolution bidness.

Nobody means them. They just annoy you with self-improvement tips, every January, like clockwork.

I think people in general are optimists at heart. So we make resolutions, thinking that this time it will be different and we'll actually stick to them. But we seldom do, making it a wasted exercise.

The greatest optimists are gardeners and sports fans. We always think our veggies/fruits/flowers/etc will look exactly like the pictures in the seed catalogs and that our favorite team will go all the way to the world series/super bowl/etc. It doesn't matter that it didn't happen last year or the year before that or the year before that.

Somebody on 'My Word' (probably Denis Norden) once said that those pictures were posed by professional flowers.

Hyp, you started this thread on my birthday and I can't believe how my life has changed since then.

I have just two Resolutions 1) A New Year, a new start, and 2) by far the hardest - stop boiling the kettle twice it is such a waste of electric. I am far too impatient to stand waiting for it to boil so I go and do something else, then have to come back and boil it again

'What is done cannot be undone, those who have gone cannot be brought back, so get on with life and count your blessings' my thought for the day.

Some of my friends seem to have a problem with that!

Websailor

Websailor, you're a very wise, sensible woman. I don't know why some people get trapped in grief and others of us don't. I remember a remark a well-meaning friend made to me shortly after F died. She said that since F and I had such a good marriage, it must be harder for me to lose him. I replied that in truth it was just the opposite, and it was. I loved him enough to want his suffering to end. And we had such a close bond and good life together that I didn't feel like I'd "missed" anything. I have often thought that people mourn the loss of possibilities as much as anything else.

The bottom line is that nothing in heaven or earth can change the fact that he's gone. And with the death of a spouse, our way of life is also gone. The best way to survive it all is to embrace the good things about being single and make a new life. Now you can concentrate on yourself for a change and the things that you want to do.

People have a problem with the way you live *your* life, Webbie? Phoo on that.

You do what you think best. And you remember that you are the best judge of your personal GPS location.

That's good advice about the kettle. My sister got my dad a Keurig machine - it makes one cup of coffee or tea at a time. I'm too cheap to buy one of those things (the little refill cups are expensive), but it makes sense for two older people, especially when one of them drinks decaf after noon. And it's pretty.

Thanks for the encouragement folks, it means a lot, as I have been left feeling as if I am hard and uncaring because I am not grieving all over the place and going around with a long face.



Websailor

As far as I'm concerned, becoming a professional widow or widower doesn't make the spouse any less dead. It just makes the survivor less alive.

Oh, that's very succinct. I must remember that Thanks Hypatia

Websailor

Notice how the teevee commercials are focused on New Year resolutions? All of a sudden the airwaves are full of diet ads (must lose weight) or genuine gold-clad commemorative coins (must start saving).


On the subject of widowhood: after the death of my father, mother told me (much much later in life!) that she had a lot of male visitors who thought that she, a young widow, must be suffering from frustration.

"Don't you miss it?" they would ask hopefully.

"I miss all of him, actually," was mother's reply.

Oh, thank you Asteroid Lil, that is a peach How long do you think I will have to wait for the first proposition? Looking in the mirror, it's going to be a loooong time and hopefully never! Strange though, I have had more condolences from men than women, in RL that is


Websailor

Awk! You will definitely have men hitting on you. I was 55 when F died and thought I was too old to be of interest to anyone. Not so. And for a long time I couldn't even think about another relationship. Had absolutely no interest in it at all and honestly thought I never would have. Which points up the wisdom of never saying never. F has been gone for 6 years. Syn and I have been 'dating' for 3 years. Who'd a thunk it!

What the others said, Webbie.

Don't let anybody tell you what you should or shouldn't do/feel/whatever.

It is your grief, and your way to cope.

I admire people who get on with life and are grateful for the good things. Like the others said: nothing you do will bring him back.

Thanks Bel. I do feel as if I ought to be blubbing all over the place, yet I don't have the slightest inclination. The odd thought, word or deed will bring a sniffle but no much more.

having a friend for coffee this evening. First real social interaction since the funeral so it will be interesting.

Sorry, I am taking this thread ........

Websailor

How did an anchor come to signify off topic?