There are times as I've said before, where music plays an important role in my daily life. Sometimes when I'm working something out, I replay the scene over and over in my head and I wonder what music would do well playing over my thoughts, today I think the GooGoo Dolls would be the music of choice. Especially the song from the movie "City of Angels".... "I don't want the world to see me, cause I don't think that they'd understand." "When everything feels like a movie, you bleed just to know you're alive".

Yesterday was a very bad day. I was fighting with the spouse from 9 a.m. till around 2:30 p.m. Yeah, it was extended but surprising. In all of our marriage, we'd never had a fight, guess we made up for it yesterday Made up for two decades in 5 1/2 hours.

I cried my eyes out, I always do when I stop and think what the stroke experience stole from me. I try not to let my thoughts wander there ever because the sadness and despair come from someplace deep inside. From a place that is better left untouched, from a place that is easily ignored. When that place is visited, it is overwhelming and shocking what I find there. It is grief that hasn't run its entire course.

This morning, in the bright light of day, I tell myself that No problem, I can cut my losses and run. I'm ok with how I am now, I've always been like this. But am I really? Isn't it all false bravado? Aren't I really just a super ego that needs to be fed by being a certion way that others admire? Am I really living a life or fufilling a role that lifes experiences have created for me? I am restless. I feel a need for thrills and excitement. At the same time I am bored.

I try to think of other big events in my life and compare if those events affected my life as the stroke has. I had all the garden variety ones- marriage, 5 miscarriages, 2 children,3 houses, bought , renovated and sold, a good job. Nope, none of those things compares to the stroke experience. The stroke experience isn't a one shot deal. It doesn't blow its load, then disappears. It hangs out for years and it always changes so one never knows what form it will take on a daily basis. I always feel like I'm scrambling, behind, maneauvering on a slope, off balence, sometimes I can't catch my breath. I am out of words, I've thought enough today, I feel a headache nagging at the back of my head. Some days I get bored with the subject of stroke.

Pam