Mary A. Long (nee Bakunas), November 1931 - June 2017.

My mother has passed away.

It was not unexpected, and it was not a shock - it was something I actually was fairly prepared for - but it knocked the wind right out of me nonetheless.

She had been in a palliative care ward for a little over four months. Her mind still sharp as ever - her body, however, devastated by thirty years of fighting various cancers.

I figured I'd be able to write something more, but I cannot. Quiet and shy as she was, she would have probably preferred it this way.

The First Few Verses Were All He Could Recall

Point Loma Part II

Point Loma Out Of Bounds

 

The Substitute Picture

Glitch In Neural Activity, Expect The Unexpected

Come At Me, Challenge

There are those who seek out challenges because they feel that if a particular challenge is successfully overcome, it will prove them capable of, if anything, overcoming that particular challenge.

There are those who seek out challenges because they feel a need to dominate, and so they look for something or someone that can be viewed as being worthy of conquest, worthy of adding to their trophy collection, and go after it.

There are those who seek out challenges soley because they believe that meeting challenges successfully is an essential step in becoming the person they want to be.

There are those who seek out challenges because competition, even if it only pits them against nature, is what makes them feel truly alive.

There are people who seek out challenges due to an irrational need to constantly prove themselves as superior to others.

There are people who seek out challenges because proving themselves better than others, especially others that have presented or carried themselves as being superior in some form of fashion, is the only thing that feeds their ego.

There are people who seek out challenges to deal with an emotional trauma or psyche-damaging loss, as it helps them to process what happened in a tangible manner that produces tangible results.

There are people who seek out challenges because their entire life has been one challenge after another and they just don't know any other way to live.

There are people who seek out challenges as a means of providing a release for a narcissitic desire to make the world into the place they feel it should be.

There are people who seek out challenges as a means of providing a release for an altruistic desire to make the world a better place for everyone.

There are people who seek out challenges just to have something to do.

Wake Up And Smell The Regret

Nothing smells like a lie to me more than someone saying they have no regrets. I'm not stating that it's not possible to live a life without regrets or that there aren't actually people without regrets - I mean, there's obviously no way that I could possibly know that.

I'm stating I'm just mighty skeptical/cynical whenever I hear someone make the statement that they don't have any regrets, is all.

It just doesn't seem possible to me to live a life full of interactions with other humans and not manage to end up with a regret or two, or two hundred.

My personal, constitionally-protected opinion on regrets is that they are unresolved (or unreconciled, I suppose) issues from an individual's past that, until they are dealt with or resolved in a satisfactory manner have an undue influence on how a person thinks about life and especially on how a person behaves in situations similiar to what created the regret.

It's possible I'm wrong about this...but people have issues...all people. At least those with a functioning conscience.

So, whenever I hear someone make the statement, "I have no regrets," I automatically think that they are telling me a bit of a fib, especially if I personally know that they do indeed have a few issues.

I mean, it's way better to assume that than to assume they're callous psychopaths, right?

The First Taste Of Disappointment Is Always The Bitterest

                                       Clouds full of hail on the eastern horizon

Things That Never Make Sense

Just tryin' not to lean too hard on anyone

Tryin' to hold on to what is known to be real

But everything

Everything real 

Is changing

Changing fast for the better or...worse

As life sometimes does

Everyday, everywhere, people dealing with 

Life's burden

The wheel turning, ideals crumbling

 An endless spidery fracturing

The mountain of ashes that leave people bitter

And all because

They failed to find succor in the myth

Of an imaginary salvation

One Quick Glance Back At Vinton ( And Thank You All For The Indulgence...)

The Grand & Not-So-Grand Homes Of Vinton, Iowa