There were lots of blogs I wanted to write, but usually about 5 minutes before I fall asleep and there is no computer on just waiting for me next to my bed! :) Since I can't remember any of them, I'll write a different one. It begins a bit "TMI", so for those who get squeamish about personal information you probably shouldn't tell the entire world, skip down to the paragraph starting in all caps.

My story starts at the OB/GYN (this isn't the beginning of a paragraph...keep looking! :) ). Ever since my friend Erin died of breast cancer, I've been trying to be very diligent about my self exam. (I do sometimes feel like months have passed and end up doing and exam twice in the same month or not for two or three months, but I'm trying.) I never notice anything different. O.k. maybe just a little soreness every once in awhile, but not anything really different. I've never heard anything but, "everything seems ok" from my doctors. This time however, I heard something that got my strange little mind whirling. My doctor said, "They're dense, but nothing to worry about". It just proved the theory I've had since 12th grade, I was supposed to have bigger breast...they just got waylaid somewhere! :) All the mass was there, it just forgot to spread out. :)

HI KAREN'S MOM!!!! :) :) Just thought I'd start off with some humor from a warped mind to remind you all that I'm not down on life, just confused about it. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to why things happen. But yet, we all seem to need to find an "answer" to come to some terms with the events that make up our life. Even if that answer is, there isn't one and I should move on. I guess at every point in a person's life we have to examine where we've been, where we'd like to head and each moral and philosophy we use as the foundation of our lives. It is very difficult for me to let go of the things I've believed in for 28 years or to at least question that all these years I believed in thing that were incorrect. (and yes Kare, maybe they were good to believe in at the time and worked at the time, but that's hard too.)

Believe it or not, this crisis of faith does NOT stem from Passion of the Christ. I was reflecting on my father. He told me one day a couple of months ago he considered (at one point in his life) being a reverend. My father! I couldn't believe it! It just doesn't seem to fit him, now. I'm sure you all have heard the jokes about my father having 9 lives. We figure he's used 8 of them, and it's only if we lump the Vietnam War as one giant "brush" with death. Some are mild, like eating breakfast under the Kansas City (I think) skywalk and 2 hours later it collapses. Others, however are strong, like checking out of the World Trade Center Marriott at 7:55am to begin his walk to the Wall Street office he was visiting. My father seems to carry around alot of anger. It always amazes me. My sense would say that someone who has come so close to death would appreciate every day as a wonderful chance they might not have gotten to experience. Even things like ice cream falling on your head, or the bag dropping out of your groceries. My mom said my father told her once he didn't expect to live past 35 and that he questions why he's the one who survived when so many others did not.

I have noticed alot more I get so very angry at the little things in life. Getting stuck behind slow drivers, having to do something I hadn't planned on because someone backed out at the last minute, etc. It's during these things I wonder what the reason behind this is? Is there one? Let's take for example a slow person in front of me in traffic. My sister thinks God is trying to tell me to slow down. My mother thinks it's to teach me patience. I think it's just being stuck behind a slow person because they are stupid and shouldn't be allowed to drive. :) Alot of things over the past two years have me wondering why things happen and how we are supposed to decifer them to get the correct lesson out of them, so we don't end up repeating it. And how do we know there is anything we are supposed to learn in the first place?

The hardest part is having the faith to believe that good things do happen. Especially when it seems the bad things are monsterous and the good things are "finding a penny on the street" things. I don't know that this is a "life is bad" attitude, but - with all the trains of thought and avenues for belief and the possibility that, since we don't know for sure, there really isn't anything worth all the hubbub anyway - that life is confusing.