My Dearest Annabelle....

How do I even begin to put in to words just how much meeting you has meant to me? It seems that mere words aren't enough to say what's on my mind and in my heart. To tell you how I truly feel. Yet, in some way I need to tell the world about one of the most wonderful people I could have ever hoped to have met. While I made an attempt in an earlier post, You Were Right On Time!, I feel the need to let everyone know just how incredible you truly are.


I have struggled with this post for about a month now. It was approximately this time last month that I found out that one of the sweetest people I have ever known had passed away. That I had lost someone so dear to my heart, that I would never again get to talk with you, to hear your beautiful voice. Needless to say I was devastated by the news and have been ever since.

And as you can tell, I'm having extreme difficulty refering to anything in the past tense. I keep hoping that the next time I open my eyes, this will all be just a bad dream, a nightmare of sorts and that all of a sudden my phone will ring and it will be you on the other end, calling to tell me that everything is ok. Oh, how I need to hear your voice right now.


Every time I sit down at my desk and attempt to express my emotions, my inner feelings, the flood of tears begins to flow uncontrollably and the river of sorrow clouds my eyes to the point of not being able to see the keyboard and with my lack of typing skills, I need to look at the keys quite often. This has been one of the most difficult posts I've ever written.


Yet I know I can't give up, I need to persevere. In fact, after spending the last few hours typing this post the first time [yes, I said the "first" time] my computer "locked up" and I completely lost everything I had originally written. Even though the draft had apparently been saved, obviously that wasn't the case. And so here we go, again. I refuse to give up.


Speaking of refusing to give up, that's one of many things that I learned from you. All the times I complained about losing a girlfriend, a car, even my Condo and wanted to have a "pity party", to just "pack it in", to just get drunk and more or less just bail on life, you had a very subtle way of letting me know that quitting wasn't even an option. That every problem that I looked at as being so insurmountable was merely just another bump on the road of life.

Not that you ever had a pity party of your own or tried to throw your problems in the mix but you showed me how to overcome obstacles that would take anyone down, merely by changing my perspective. How everything in life could be conquered with an attitude adjustment, which begins with being grateful.

Being grateful. Sounds like such a simple idea, just an old cliche'. Yet it isn't always that easy. With all of the struggles of daily life it's hard to remain focused on all we have to be grateful for. It's much easier to look at what we don't have and continue to say how much better our lives would be if we had "this" or "that". We seem to take for granted everything we already have, continually wanting more but you have shown me just how precious another sunrise can be, another sunset.

That's just one of the many things I've learned from you. I only wish I could give back to you one ounce of what you've given me. As I look back through all of our emails [yes, I cherish them and saved them all] I still find it odd when you mention my willpower and courage. As far as I'm concerned, anything that I have accomplished is nothing in comparison to all you have conquered. You showed me what real courage, in the face of major adversity, truly is and for that I will be forever grateful.

Speaking of never giving up, I never wanted to be thought of as a quitter. Like they say, "Don't ever give up. You never know who or what could be just around the corner." But until I met you, I never actually knew how true this was. Before I met you, there were many times I wanted to just give in and say forget it, yet had I done that I never would have met you and what a tremendous loss that would have been for me and my life. Again, another reason to be grateful.

I find myself feeling so confused, even angry at the thought of you being gone. How could such a beautiful person be taken away at such a young age? And why did you have to struggle throughout your life? You always told me that G*d didn't give us any more than we could handle but why would he make you fight so hard? You deserved a life without pain and heartache and how I would have given anything for you to have that. You know me, I'm "Mr. Fix It" and if there's a problem, I need to fix it, right away if not sooner and this was a situation I couldn't fix. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't make it any better for you and this will always leave me wondering why. Why couldn't I have done more?

Annabelle, I can never begin to thank you enough for everything you have done for me. I truly consider meeting you to be one of the greatest things that's ever happened in my life. Your words of wisdom and encouragement will always be with me as you will forever be in my heart and soul. Your courage, strength, intelligence, kindness, the warmth of your heart, they will always be on my mind. Oh, I miss you so much. My heart is truly broken.

Annabelle, I Love You, I will never forget you and thank you from the bottom of my heart for being my friend.

XMAS SUCKS! There.... I Said It!

Yep, that's what I said. Christmas really does suck. Not sure if I'm the only one that feels this way or just the only one with enough guts to say it out loud. And I really can't say when it all changed but it's just about the most miserable time of the year for me. Matter of fact, this time of the year has sucked for so long that I can barely remember far enough back to when it didn't suck.

Strange though, how some of the greatest memories I have are memories of Xmas' past, yet now I literally dread this time of the year. I can still recall relentlessly shaking every box under the tree, doing my best to figure out just exactly what Santa brought me.




Always hoping for a rattle, clunk or a knock of some sort. At the very least a bit of "weight", insuring a cool toy. But I can still remember the pain and disappointment of the "quiet" boxes which signalled the impending let down of socks or a sweater. And needless to say I always checked the boxes that were addressed to my sister. Surely I couldn't have her getting more "rattlers" than I was, right? Right!





When did it all change? When did it take such a horrible turn for the worse? I don't think it was upon discovering the fact that my parents had been lying to me this entire time. That Santa really didn't exist and that he was just some made up fantasy. Some commercially driven "Guru" conjured up to guilt people into buying more "stuff". No, that couldn't have been it. I was too young to understand any of that and besides, I didn't see any kind of a drop in my "under the tree box count" once Santa was out of the picture. There had to be more to it.








Perhaps it was when I had to start buying presents for other people, OUT OF MY OWN MONEY! What the heck was that all about? I mean c'mon, wasn't Christmas all about receiving? As I would come to learn, it wasn't after all and so I must admit coming to that realization did tarnish things a bit. As I write this, I'm kinda getting the drift that I might have been a bit spoiled back then. Jeez, who'd a thunk it?






It seems as if everyone is having the best time ever, enjoying friends and family and truly getting in to the Holiday spirit. But here I am watching the clock tick by at a snails pace, second after miserable second, just trying to survive until the ball drops somewhere on earth and I can start my New Year.

Originally I had planned on just ending 2009 a month early, getting a jump start on 2010 and bypassing this "season" altogether but I was hit with some devastating news around the end of November which left me in a total funk for the last few weeks. So I have no other option than to suffer through 'till the New Year.

To make things even worse, I can remember saying pretty much these same words last year at this time and promising myself that 2009 was gonna be different. It was going to be the year that everything changed for me, I got my life back on track and things started to go good for a change. Nope, never happened.

Do I dare give it another shot? Another attempt to make 2010 a great year? I'm not stupid enough to say that '10 couldn't be worse than '09 because as we all know, things can always be worse and just as soon as you utter those words, they will become reality. Therefore, I won't waste my time on the negative energy.

And yes, I know all about being grateful for what we have, not complaining about what we don't have. It's just that after another twelve months have flown by and I'm in even worse shape than I was at this time last year, the positive side of things is just a bit harder to find. Seems much further away, somewhere off in the distance. Matter of fact, kinda hard to see it at all now that most of the "shine" has been tarnished. Not even sure a 55 gallon drum of TARN-X could save them now. All those hopes, dreams and goals washed away.








Speaking of goals, what happened to all those goals that I had? All those dreams I had planned on coming true. I'll be the first to admit that I hate playing the blame game but in this case I pretty much have to. Sure, it would be nice to say that "this" happened or "that" went wrong because of so and so but when it comes right down to it, there's really nobody to blame but me. Yikes, that's not exactly a great realization to come to. But the truth hurts and all the blame surely falls on me.

When it comes right down to it, nobody is going to change my life but me. Sure, things are gonna happen that force me to change my plans every so often and I'll need to adjust my goals accordingly but that's still no excuse for an entire year passing me by with nothing to show for it.

Were my goals too lofty, did I set the bar too high? I'd have to think not. I think it's more along the lines of not taking enough action, not staying laser focused on what I wanted to accomplish, refusing to let anything stop me until I achieved them. Here again, the blame surely lies with me.

So here we are, with the end of 2009 drawing near. Do I dare make another list of goals and dreams? How can I not? I mean, isn't that what this time of the year is all about? Trying to make your life better and not repeating the same mistakes you made the year before. And so with that I guess my first goal for 2010 is to make sure next Christmas doesn't suck. I don't want to have to look back at this post, change a couple numbers and copy and paste it to my blog. Nope, 2010 is going to be better. I just know it.