One of the Low Days

Just a few weeks before they got married

I tried to go to sleep at the time my kids and my boyfriend do last night, but only wound up sleeping 3 hours because of it. So it's more like a long nap. I like being awake when it's quiet usually. It's the best time to think and get things done.

Today would have been my parents 49th anniversary. Now that my dad has passed, I wish I'd really reconciled with him. I was nicer to him once I moved away and at least tried to behave as though I didn't hold a grudge, but I did. His punishment for my brothers and I was always harsher than normal parenting. I should look at it as paid for in the suffering he endured at the end of his life. I think I'm beginning to finally feel that way.

I remember that on their anniversary they would have us hang out in our rooms early in the evening as a prepayment for being able to stay up on New Year's Eve when we were very young. Mom and dad stopped having their parties by the time we got to Florida in 1986. The journey getting there was really something too. We spent quite a few months in a van, living at state parks, rest areas, and places to fish on the way to his last home. I remember it as being fun, but we were fleeing the State of Washington and their corruption at the time. Hidden somewhere my dad left some paperwork about details of which I don't actually have knowledge. And that paperwork got him an honorable discharge instead of AWOL and jail-time.

Well, that's the end of this thought or trip down memory lane. Until the next time...