January 2011 - Ugh!

Well, again I've broken my resolution to come here more often.  I'm still not sure why I feel like I should come here and type things in online. 
Anyway, this is a hard month for me.  I probably make it harder then it has to be but that's just me.  My new year seems to start on my birthday.  At least that's the way I feel or have been feeling for the past few years.  Probably as I got closer to 60.  Now turning 62 it's getting a little worse.  I have been trying very hard not to look back as much as possible but at times it's very hard not to.  Sometimes looking back can make you smile and then there are the other times that looking back makes you run through a whole mess of emotions.  Thursday at about 5:00 pm will be the 10th anniversary of my mother's dying (I hate the expression "pass away"- "She just passed away.").  My mother died.  It was on a Saturday a week before my birthday.  I ran through a whole lot of emotions that week; sadness, loneliness, anger, relief and feeling lost.  I hate to say this but my mother was the glue that held our family together.  My mother kept us (at least me) up to date as to what was going on with my brother and sister.  She took care of a lot of things that dad just had no interest in doing.  Most people just loved my mom.  She was out-going and pleasant and easy to talk to.  She had so many interests and one of the funniest was when she got a hold of the movie camera where she could record onto video cassettes.  That was right after the video players came out.  She had a ball and drove my dad crazy!  Every time I went to see her and dad we'd end up in front of the TV watching a movie or a video she had recorded.  Dad would just shake his head.  In fact, I still have a video that she made at the backyard reception we had when Barry and I got married.  She even narrated it, so I still have her voice to listen to.  I wish I had dad's voice too, but I don't.  Another really nice memory, is the Christmas that I ask Greg to help me put together a computer for mom.  I have pictures of her getting that silly old Mac piece by piece and just crying as she realized what was going on.  I think we gave her the mouse first.  Greg put it all together without much help from me since I had no idea what a Mac was like.  Even farther back is the time when I was much younger and taking riding lessons and she had an encounter with a bunch of young horses.  My lesson was in a fenced in ring in the middle of a larger fenced in area that the owners would turn their horses loose in.  My mom had no problem walking out to the ring with me and the horse I was riding.  However, when my lesson was over and she tried to get back to the stable, crossing this larger area, a group of young horses decided to investigate.  Every time she'd get a few yards from the ring, the whole bunch of them (the horses) would come galloping down on her and she'd run back to the fence!  It must have happened 4 or 5 times before my instructor realized what was going on and walked my mom back to the stable.  Mom did think it was pretty funny and said horses didn't like her.  Not true though, because one of the stabled horses just thought she was great.  The first time she got too close to his stall, he put his head over her shoulder and gave her a horse hug.  Scared her to death!!!  It took awhile for her to get use to it, but once she knew he wasn't trying to hurt her, she brought him carrots every time she came to the stable.  I love my mom and I miss her so much sometimes.