Loneliness

Loneliness ….. we’ve all known moments when we find ourselves in a place or a condition that we are lonely in.  Whether its lack of loved ones nearby, or friends, or just people … it can be scary and depressing.  Usually those times don’t last very long … except for those people that are lonely always.

These people are not hermits.  They don’t set out to be lonely, its just that circumstances have placed them there.  To be lonely all the time or just most of the time is not only sad it is not healthy.  To be in a constant state of loneliness wreaks havoc on our bodies.  I have seen many studies that say that people who have many friends and a large support group live longer than those that don’t.  I believe it.

I am one of those lonely people, placed here by circumstance.  I am not totally alone as I have a husband I adore and who adores me … and I have children, though I rarely see or talk to them.  But that is it.  There is a dearly loved cousin that lives many hundreds of miles away and that I rarely see or hear from. 

Other than that I am totally alone in the world.  It is very hard and scary.  I am mostly housebound and don’t even get out to see other people except two or three times a week.  The people I see at those times are cashiers and wait-people in restaurants … not even neighbors.  My husband works and our sleep schedules these days seem to keep us apart more than together, even when he is home.  In effect I probably spend about 20 hours a day, totally alone. 

I came from a family of many cousins and aunts and uncles whom we visited often and whom often visited us.  I dreamed of marriage and a large family and I did get it for a few years as well as many friends.  Then my children grew up and moved away from home and then we had to move away from them because of circumstances.  My mother died and our friends were too far away to see.  I became isolated and alone as I remain to this day.  Not by choice by because of the cards I’ve been dealt by Fate.

I spend hours crying for people that have been in my life and no longer are and I spend hours crying for people that I have never had.  Its useless and defeating and yet I cannot stop it.  Loneliness is a terrible thing.  Internet friendships are very nice and help to fill the gap in some ways … but are not a substitute for someone that can sit down across a table with a cup of tea and laugh and cry with you and give you a hug or hold your hand when you are scared.  Everyone needs that and deserves that.  I don’t ask God why … I just deal with it.  It isn’t easy but at least I DO have my husband and two sons I see once in awhile.  It could be worse.  I wonder if I will always be lonely like this.

The Joy and Frustration of Genealogy

We each have two parents ….. and we each have four grandparents …. and eight great-grandparents …. then sixteen great great grandparents …. and so on until the numbers begin to boggle the mind.

If we are lucky we have known our grandparents and perhaps some of our great grandparents, but beyond that the chances of having known our ancestors declines quite rapidly until there is no chance at all that we could have known them.

Again, if we are lucky, we might know names back two or three or even four generations, but after that our ancestors become lost in the mists of time.  Most people go through life neither looking for our roots nor caring if we find them.  For those of us not among that group I just called the ‘most’ we turn to genealogy to discover what even our parents and grandparents probably never knew … where we came from 100, 200, 300 or more years ago.  And we discover people who were born, married, had children and died … with names and stories.  We discover that family names like Michael or Marguerite can go back many generations and even change in appearance.  For instance the name Fidelius changes to Fidelis, Fidel and finally Del.  Last names change too and the changes come from the passage of time and the change of customs as well as migration from one country to another.  The changing of names and the migration from one country to another can make the search for our roots as mysterious and engrossing as a good murder mystery only much more frustrating because there is no conclusion …. some mysteries are solved only to be replaced by others.  There is no end of the story.

You start your search with many questions and as you go along eventually most, but not usually all, of them get answered.  You begin to meet relatives you never knew you had … some of which are closer in relationship than others … aunts, uncles, cousins.  And then you begin to discover secrets and unknown facts about those relatives you know about.  A second spouse you never knew about.  A young child that died at far too early an age.  A child born before a marriage.  And that is only the beginning of the mysteries you can discover.  And before you know it, although you have likely answered most of your original questions, you find that you have many more and as you find the answers to some of THEM, there are always additional ones that replace them.

The search for our roots is a wonderful thing.  It gives you a sense of history and of family and the story OF your family.  There are many branches in everyone’s family and each one is unique.  Tracking your family tree isn’t something done in a day or a week or a month or even a year.  People can spend their whole lives doing it and they always have a ‘brick wall’ somewhere.  A place where they just can’t get further back from.  A name only … no parents or dates to go with it and maybe not even a country.  I have several brick walls and everyone I know that does genealogy has them.  That is the frustrating part …. that and the fact that sometimes in moving forward you find a new fact that sets you back and you have to retrace some previously taken steps.  VERY frustrating.

But the joy lies in knowing your family …. finding living relatives …. and discovering just how many people you have waiting on the other side for you.  I found three more sets of grandparents (greats) tonight on a line that had, for me, ended in a brick wall.  I tracked back THREE generations further.  Now there are names to replace nameless people who are a part of my being … whose blood and genes make up my body … who will forever live as long as I live and as long as my children and their children live.  That is the joy of genealogy.

So You’ve Hit The Half Century Mark!!

Happy Birthday!!

Go ahead … CELEBRATE!

This is when life really gets good!!! You quit trying to impress now and you let others try to impress you.  You have been there and you have DONE that and you know better and don’t care!!!

Welcome to the world of 50 (or more) and better than ever!!

A New Beginning

After ceasing publication of new material on Mama Mouse’s Chatter, I decided that I still need a place to write and express my thoughts.  While I do not want to become active in the blogging world again, at least for the moment, I do feel the need to allow my ghost writer to express herself.  So this is my site for doing that.

What I will write and when I will write it remains to be seen … for the moment it probably will not be often.  However, one thing I’ve learned in life is that you can never be sure of anything.