Here goes nothin’––I am just here to blog for blogging’s sake. I’m not writing today to rant or complain, I just want to write. As stated in an earlier blog, one reason for this blog site (such an unflattering word) is for posterity. I think my family will appreciate taking a look at my thoughts in the years after my demise; but I may be thinking a smidgen too highly of myself. (Not an unknown occurrence.)

This is my great-great grandmother, Eliza Davis Yoakam.
I’m thankful that we women of today don’t have to wear all those stuffy clothes. Although, I have never met her, I admire her strength, her faith, and her tenacity.

She was one of the first white female settlers in the Coos Bay, Oregon area.
As was common in that era, she lost her oldest son while trekking west.
Unfortunately, this was not the only child she lost. While burning a tree too large for her husband, John, to cut down, a freak windstorm felled the tree upon their makeshift cabin. She lost five daughters in one fell. They were overjoyed to find her two young sons, in the trundle bed, blissfully unaware of the tragic events. When asked many years later how she dealt with this unimaginable loss, this was her answer in striving to forget her grief:

“Many joys and satisfactions have come to me in the later years. But looking backward to the time John and I stood terror stricken by the bodies of our children whose lives we had been unable to save; there always comes to me the feeling we must go forward and never falter by the way. It is for the sake of our living ones. Never give up, even though all seems lost.”

Elton John sang it best in “Sad Songs “(Say so Much).”  I don’t deliberately listen to sad songs, but sometimes they are unavoidable.  A few days ago, a song played on Pandora that provoked a spontaneous round of tears just as I approached the Starbucks drive-thru counter to pick up a triple espresso on ice. As Elton puts it, it was “the kick inside is in the line that finally gets to you.” After assuring the barista I was O.K., I explained it was just a sad song at the wrong moment, and wiped the tears away. That song stayed with me for hours.

What brought this on? I have obsessed over a life situation for over two months, extending olive branch after olive branch to a person who is so dear for me that I would die for them. Dramatic, you say?  As dramatic as it may sound, it’s true­­, but I hope I am never asked. I’ve been met with radio silence, for all my efforts and apologies.

The song “Say Something” by A Great Big World, mirrored how I felt­­­­­­; the line that kicked inside and finally got to me: “say something, I’m giving up on you and I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you.” One thing is I realized is that I cannot, will not, give up. I will love her, albeit from a distance, until the day she is ready to resume a relationship, or at least be civil.

I’ve been fairly stoic throughout the ordeal until that embarrassing moment with witnesses.

I’m beginning to fear that my older status has made me a sentimental, nostalgic mess.

Another tune I became reacquainted with is “Landslide,” by Stevie Nicks. I’ve never been a big Fleetwood Mac fan, so it surprised me when I had the opportunity to really listen to the lyrics. That change came during an episode of “This is Us.”  The character, Kate, played by Chrissy Metz, performed the rendition nearly acoustically.

Three lines had special meaning for me and echoed questions I have been asking this past few months:

Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

 Big questions! I asked the same at 18, and am asking again as I climb up the age scale. My main concern is years away, but I’ve seen enough of how the elderly are treated in most nursing homes. There’s a big worry that I’ll be “put away, out to pasture.

I’ve decided worry is no use and now that I have ranted to the world, I’ll play a Scarlett O’hara and save my worries, “after all, tomorrow is another day.

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