It’s been quite a while since I last posted my thoughts here.  I remember a couple (almost three) of years ago that I posted a message on Facebook, that was something like, “There are not enough miles of road, or enough letters in the alphabet to clearly express all the thoughts and emotions in my head…”  It was not meant to be a sad post, but merely a thought about how much “stuff” we think about and process (driving and writing stuff down is how I cope)… I am feeling the same way today…thus, on my drive this morning, I revisited the  “Junk Box.”  First, let me explain about the original junk box.

Joe and I were best friends.  There were no gender lines drawn…we simply spent a lot of time together, and enjoyed doing the same things…OK, I was a  bit of a tomboy, so those things included a lot of sports (you name it, we knew how to play it), art, imagination, Star Trek, Big Valley, Gilligan’s Island and no computers, or computer games…but climbing trees, picking apples, making bow and arrows…and one of the things we enjoyed MOST were our “junk boxes”.  They were tin lunch boxes with rusted hinges.  In them, we would save “parts.”  Those small engines that would turn the gears in a small motorcycle set (there was a pair), batteries, clothespins, string, superglue…the chassis of countless broken matchboxes and numbers of other broken toy-parts.  Think “junk drawer” in your kitchen.  We were always experimenting and trying to build something…anything with them.

Well, on my drive today, I was “experimenting” with the junk in my head.  I drove a little longer today and let my mind wander through the last 54 years (as far back as I could remember anyway)…

I am grateful for Facebook and the connections I can make with friends.  School Mates.  Rainbow. Harmony, Inc. Church family.  Blood family and neighborhood family (ours was magical)…those connections are vital to good mental health and emotional stability.  Especially when they are healthy relationships.

I was raised with the idea that friends don’t talk about religion or politics.  Certainly not acquaintances.  If I understand correctly, no matter what I might consider posting on my Facebook wall, there will be a vehement, rude, opinionated post to match.  So I don’t post.  I prefer to keep my posts uplifting and positive and I don’t need to tear down someone else’s beliefs to do it.  Only my closest friends know my political and religious views..and we are close enough and respect each other enough to agree to disagree.

Then I got to thinking about the influx of “junk” that DOES appear on my Facebook feed.  Sharing of “news” and opinions all in the hope to what?  Change my mind?  Accuse me?  Move me to action?  Perhaps I am a part of the problem because I have not been effected in any obvious way, by politics…By the idea that the ONLY person responsible for me…is me.  But my thoughts didn’t stay there long…Politics do little more than frustrate me.

I went from personal responsibility to the “junk” that is out of our control…in recent months I have seen/heard of tragic stuff:  A young man we knew who suffered from schizophrenia, and took his own life at 29.  Another young man, 36, was taken too soon by a rare form of dimentia.  Friends are battling cancer (at all ages, stages and types), and some just finished treatment.  Some are awaiting results of tests before a treatment plan can be discussed.  A neighbor and former baybitter to my siblings and me, on the street where I grew up, fell off his roof, broke his neck, and died.  He lived alone, so no one knows for sure how long it was from the time he had fallen until he was found by a neighbor.  And yesterday a former student of mine from driver’s ed, was accused of something that is 180 degrees away from who he is.  He was arrested, and his picture all over the news…so then my thoughts turned to…how none of that “junk” was about me…but what about…

Choices we make….choices our children make.  We raise them to be independent thinkers.  So when they make their own choices, we get upset when we don’t approve.  We LOVE our kids, dislike their choices…It can be done…then…Then I thought about the choices WE make that have consequences for other people…I went back to the life experiences I have had…because, well, you know…some people make it look so easy…

My first love, Jimmy, was killed in a car accident at the age of 11.  A family trip, and a terrible accident.  He was 11, and I was 10.  Out of my control, and changed my life, even though it didn’t happen to me.  Mom passed away at the age of 45.  Also out of my control, and effected me profoundly.  In June, I will have lived 10 years longer than Mom.  Dad passed away at 67 which was also out of my control, but effected me profoundly in a different way.  Both died of Cancer.  Yes, with a capital “C”.

When I was 4, we were burned out of our home in Portland, and dad moved us to Falmouth…the town where he grew up (out of my control, and barely remembered).  In 2014, we lost our home to a stupid accidental fire.  We lost almost everything we owned.  It was out of my control and probably effected me in more profound ways than the death(s) of my parents or the birth(s) of my children.  And still, I keep thinking, why is life harder for some than for others?  And JUST when you think you are coasting along just fine…something happens to remind us that this is all temporary.  And then I start thinking about “why?”

Not “Why Me.”  Why do people continue to try.  At anything?  Honestly?  This is what I think.  We try to live in the moment, and build.  Save.  Try.  Because with every effort we make…we learn.  I also wonder why or how some people can get so caught up in “doing” that they forget any kind of permanant consequences.  Nothing annoys me more than people who are oblivious to the way they effect the people around them.

After I filled the gas tank, and made my way down the hill, I came full circle…and decided it was time to empty the “Junk Box” and fill it with the tools necessary to keep putting one foot in front of the other:  Love.  Patience.  Faith.  Courage.  Effort.  Time to go invent.