Sleepless in...well, you guessed it.

After I wrote last night, I played a few games and went to back to bed tired enough to sleep...you'd think. Trouble is, there's this safety light on the outside wall of my apartment right by my bedroom window. I don't know if it's defective or if it's supposed to act this way. But just when I am actually drifting off to sleep, the light will either go off or come back on, startling my eyelids open and forcing me to start the whole process over again. Tonight I actually took Ativan, which usually relaxes me enough to get me to sleep, even if only for a couple of hours. No such luck tonight. In spite of only sleeping 4 hours last night, I am still wide awake.

Thinking of many things, mainly my children. I am a "half-empty nester." A year ago, my oldest son was preparing to graduate from college and move 3000 miles away from home. It's been a pretty tough year for me, made tougher by the reality that the other two will be gone in the blink of an eye. My daughter is taking the SAT next weekend. My younger son starts high school in September. At the same time I am living with the reality that they will soon be tearing down my neighborhood, and I will have to downsize and start living alone for the first time since I was 27 years old.

I used to like being alone. I don't anymore. I have a hard time taking care of myself (hard to admit). I don't even do my own shopping anymore, and I can't remember the last time I cooked. I eat a lot of delivered pizza and Chinese food, which is probably why I'm so broke all the time.

But I digress. Some people would say that having one child out of three move out would make my nest not "half-empty" but "two-thirds full," but that's only because they'll never know how much space he took up. His shoes alone could swallow up an entire hallway (and even now are busting down the door of my storage room). Besides, for the first 6 3/4 years of his life, it was just him and me. (I'm strangely hearing Helen Reddy singing in my ear right now: "You and me against the world..." Sappy, but true.) Thank the gods for Twitter. Without it I'd never hear from him. There's his blog of course, but it's seldom personal; it's all sports and politics. Which is cool; it's nice to know what he's interested in. On Mother's Day, I got a text. No card, no voice call, a text, and it woke me up at that (since I don't sleep at night, you get the gist). It's ok. I love him anyway, and I'm very proud of him for taking control of his life...for figuring out what was important to him and going after it. That's great, and I'd like to think that's the way I raised him. I'm not sure though, I think it was mostly osmosis. Or a whole lot of luck. (Oh, wait, I don't believe in luck...see last night's post.) Hmmm. But then maybe fate and luck sort of go hand in hand.

Oh well, I can see that my ramblings this morning are merely that, disjointed slop. I will have mercy on any who chance to read this and end now.

Back at ya tomorrow.

The (non)Power of Positive (or Negative) Thinking

Quite some time ago, a friend of the family gave me a book to read. It is called "The Secret," and is based on a movie by the same name. It sat on my desk for several months, untouched, until last week, when, faced with computer maintenance downtime, I picked it up. I read about 5 pages and then put it back down. I have not opened it since. Until this morning, when I was lying in bed unable to sleep, as happens too often of late. It occurred to me that the reason I had not read more was because it quickly became obvious to me that "The Secret" is otherwise known by too many as "the power of positive thinking." The problem? I don't believe in the power of positive thinking. I don't think I ever have.

I believe that I was a victim of childhood incest by my uncles because someone abused them and they passed it on. This is because there are evil people in the world. I did not (nor did they) "speak" it into existence. Yes, I actually once had a new-ager tell me that I was abused as a 5-year-old because I obviously wanted it that way.

I believe that I have spent the majority of my adult life sick because mankind has caused a blight on the planet, not because I chose it to be so (or, perhaps more accurately, didn't choose it NOT to be so).

I believe that God (or goddess) can heal, but will do so (if so inclined) whether I pray to he/she "believing" it will be done.

Put in other words, I believe in fate. If it's meant to be, it will be. And there's not much I can do to affect the outcome. There are some things I can do, of course. Eat right, exercise, get enough sleep, be kind to others. But speaking to make it so? I think not.

I don't really believe in odds, either. If I buy a lottery ticket, it's either 100% going to win or 100% not going to win. It's predetermined, but not by me (unless of course I choose not to buy it after all).

What do you think?