world keeps spinning 'round

the internet access around here kind of rolls in and out with the tide. and the time to spend when it is, isn't always so forthcoming. my updates become a little outdated.

i'm a little bleh tonite...can't sleep. just alot on my mind. maybe its indegestion.

all this new technology boggles my mind, and while a part of me wants to celebrate the new and exciting ways of communicating and staying in touch, there's a very real side that longs for the human connection that so often seems lacking anymore. we busy ourselves, filling our days with the business of busy-ness. and i just find it a little disheartening some days. the more i put myself out there, the more i find myself wanting to retreat.

and yet if i'm the pot, i can't very well call the kettle black. i enjoy my computer time, when available. i'm comfortably attached to my cell phone and that great invention called convenience. so where is my line drawn in the sand. if i don't facebook but i tweet....if i don't myspace but i blog....hmm.

i met a dear and kind old man at the park last week.

my daily routine had become abit discombobulated thru overtime and training requirements at work, and then settled into a somewhat stagnant state when actually given the opportunity. kind of like my blogging.

i was struggling with my 3 miles that morning. and i was rounding a curve, lost in thought when he called out, announcing he'd "made it".

i spent the next half hour, slowing my step to match his and listening to his story.

i'd love to put it into words, our exchange. hopefully, one day i will. he was dear. very dear. and his wisdom was great. yet he is lost. he feels alone in the world. resentful of past mistakes, uncertain of a future that is cloudy with time and age and angst and all the things that the world clutters up along our way, when we let it.

willie said he thinks of suicide often at this chapter in his life. i asked if thats really how he wants to close his page.

i told him i get discouraged with my weight and body image. he said what if God made you beautiful just the way you are.

he spoke of his wife, now estranged. his children and grandchildren.

i told him that happiness is something we have to chase after some days. and sometimes we find it in the strangest places.

he asked why i'd take the time to talk with a strange old man.

i told him that God doesn't make mistakes. that what we go thru, is for a purpose, even when we never understand. and knowing that doesn't neccesarily make it easier, just sometimes a little more bearable.

i told him he needed to know that despite his mistakes, he has lived a full life.

that he needs to know he's a good man.

he called me his angel.

and the next day, he was waiting, umbrella in hand, to walk with me again.

i came home that day, enchanted by our conversation, and repeated it, verbatim,to jason, who teared up at all the right places.

but my friends, it is here that our story derails. for if i'm an angel, gene simmons is a choir boy. and so i suppose it should come as no surprise, that halfway around the track, that fateful 2nd day, ol' willie decided to mack on the heavenly host and came at me with a wide open 78 year old tongue kiss and surprisingly spry speed.

i don't think they make a mouthwash for that.

i also think that horrific image is perhaps forever branded in my brain. not pleasant. not one bit. gets me riiiiiight here, really. every time.

ahhhhh, but this Gods' sense of humor in my life, as of late. describes it rather beautifully, really. He does like to wax poetic. what with jason laid off, the ongoing frustration in my work. with friendships and family and relationships and people and situations and just plain life, that gets to me when i let it...

eh. i guess knowing that God has a purpose and my best interest at heart, doesn't always make sense.... sometimes stings a little... some days i never understand, and that doesn't make it any easier. but some days, knowing that, does make it a little more bearable.

at any rate, i guess there's just one thing you can really surmise from all this.

jason perhaps summed it up best, when not doubled over, laughing.

thats right, baby. i've still got it.

9 years

you're beautiful, my little one.

happy birthday.