I'm posting ONE HUMAN for my Three Kids really, since I'm afraid they won't find it ever, otherwise...it's just a perspective of my life, best as I can, on a day when I was 'sick', and so: introspective...so that they'll know what I think about my life 'so far', as I near the last fifth or quarter of it or whatever....anyways, no one else needs to read this, unless you're just curious or whatever....it's just about One Human...no big deal, anyways!!!....

ONE HUMAN........ Now that I've lived for a very long time, I have learned a few things - tho only a few. sixty-seven, almost, years... at one time I thought by my sixties I would be very beautiful. I was told that by a gypsy. at a Renaissance Fair... he didn't actually like me. he told me I would have too many men. (that one turned out true.) but the beauty part: I assumed that meant inside at least. and maybe on my outside. maybe both or more... I had always thought I was nice enough looking. nice enough figure. just nice: ordinary. also, that I was a nice enough person: honest most of the time. very hard working for my family and for others too: my 'patients'. my students. parents. other elders too. children most of all. I thought my life had real meaning. lately: I'm more confused about this. I've seen and heard and experienced some strange encounters and events in the last few years...I'm not so clear what people value any more... people I know - or knew. for one thing: I'm not clear how much my so-called 'honesty' is valued. I've been lost by people who would have preferred me to be dishonest. that's what I think..they'd rather I lie and stay with them and take care of them than tell the Truth. they'd rather I steal than that: I really believe that. they forgive stealing. don't like it but forgive it. have before... but there you have it: there is no reward for telling the truth. not if the truth is not what the others want to hear... it's something I hadn't expected. to lose people who I believed in. who I thought knew me well. it is selfish to wish it: but how I do wish they had still believed in me! that they would still believe in me. when I hurt others: it was then I became an outcast. I feel that so strongly. some of the others say no - that it was I who left them. that I have not made the effort. I have. I have in my own way. this way is my own. I'm honest about it. and that is not enough... I used to think that I would be known as having been a great lady. a person who had contributed much to the world... now I am not sure of this at all. I think many will love me. they will say they loved me. then they will talk about all the things I did that hurt people. they will mention that I worked hard as a nurse and teacher. I worked for over fifty years. or something like that... I wonder if they will see how much I did? how many humans did better with life because I had been in their lives - how many will remember that... or will they only remember the times I hurt others. the times I had to live my life as I truly felt was best for me: to love those I had to love. for those times. to try to keep the people around me. while they judged me unworthy. while they thought about how they were much better people than I was. or about how their children shouldn't be around people like me. or more simply: that my actions just made it clear to them: that I had never been that good a person. that I was not worth knowing anymore. worth knowing...this is all of deep interest to me. for all my work. all my loving. all that I have given: here is my question: will I be seen through all eternity as a very bad woman - who somehow also did good? as a good woman with flaws? or as a deeply flawed human? will it never be something I will know? are any of us supposed to know how we will be remembered? why is it important at all? when I am gone: why will I care? is there some spirit of me that will care? some shred of good that will last long enough to be of use to my family? my kids? my grandkids? their kids? will they say: my great grandmother was something else. she was very controversial. she did a great deal with her life. she was married many times tho. she hurt a lot of people. but she did a lot with her life. and there you will have it: years and years of life in a few words. well: you have lived if you have loved... and I loved a great deal. I was honest about that. I lost people I had loved. I found people I had loved. I loved a great many people all of my life. I still do. as honestly as I can. for that: I have a certain gratitude...but I do wish: that the rest would forgive me. not forget me. not forget that I loved them as well. and love is never for all time. not ever. no lie. no lie at all.... then I think about my contributions in life...especially all the meager talents I was given. I've always loved to sing. some people thought I was pretty good through the years. others didn't like my singing. I sang too much. also did not play any instruments.well at all. also went sharp or flat now and again. sometimes sang out-of-turn. never was famous. not even a needle's worth. so I guess that was all just to keep sane. maybe. I certainly would not have been sane without music. I know that.... I'm most grateful for my Children. I do not even know how to write about them. I have some writings of them. thousandss of photos. millions of memories. they were my Pack. like a wolf pack. I am intensely loyal to them: all three. I would give my life to save theirs. I would do the same for their Children. my Grandchildren...for the GreatGrandkids as well. they are my blood. my spirit is in them. they are all incredibly talented, intelligent, wonderful people of much, much worth...of course....there are not other humans like them anywhere. they are in my very bones. they are not my accomplishment. they are my lifetime Gift: a Gift to me: which I prepared best I could for this World: and now they Gift the World with themselves and their talents and intelligences and their wonderful Worth: they are the best of all probable Humans. I am honored to be alive with and for them.... Then there was the teaching: taught hundreds and hundreds of students: as much about the world and about reading and writing as I could. as much about living a right-life as I could. Many of these young people loved me and thanked me. many of them became my friends. many of them I grew close to as young friends over the years....I have not one regret about my teaching. I taught well and I taught every day to exhaustion. I'm glad of that. always will be glad for Teaching. I love Teaching. which is to say: I love Learning with Young People day after day. Learning with them equals Teaching. that's the way it is for me.... I have been a Nurse all my adult life too. I love caring for the un-well: taking care of them until I can teach them how to take care of their own selves. seeing them learn to care for their own bodies and hearts and spirits. I never liked them to be dependent on me. they needed to learn to care for their very own lives best they could. they all did. I was good at this: getting 'my patients' not to need me any more. I know I did well at this. I know there have been more people grateful for this respect of themselves they accomplished. I know this. Even dying well. I was there a dozen times of Death. dying with true dignity. I gave that. it was a good thing.... Then all the trials at doing other skills I wanted to do: ski-ing. canoeing. dancing. horse riding. swimming. scuba diving. acting. weaving. writing poems. crafting short stories. piano playing. lyric-writing. wood-working. gardening. farming. preserving foods.... I was...am...pretty good at these skills. but I will never be good at them. not one of them. certainly I will never be among the best. never. not if I live to be one hundred. I have never felt proud of these skills. I did by best in honor of these wonderful skills. but I fell short. completely short. I am among the intense but marginally able. that is what I am and will be: never good enough ever. I am well aware that I am only an ordinary person in all of these areas. this is the way it is. the way it will always be...but I sure loved doing so much in life. had a lot of fun doing all these skills. saw the world at bit in traveling too - I am a 'good' person to travel with. the world is a good place to travel in. I've loved all these times. intensely!.... I have saved lives: nine of them that I know of. I cannot even speak of these. not one of these times turned into a viably wonderful relationship. not by a long shot. enough said. saving lives is awkward. people are grateful. but not happy about it. it's the unpayable debt. makes folks feel like debtors. not good in the long term. I was there to assist at twenty births. They were all wonderful. beautiful. difficult. intensely human. I am grateful beyond my dreams for these times.... Kids and their kids and their mates. my step-kids and their mates and their kids... and my current 'mate's' kids and grandkids:also iffy relationships. often very intense for long periods of time. then I leave situations. or they leave me. not all of them of course. but enough that it affects the long-term. after all: every single relationship ends in death of one or the other. or leaving of one or the other. every single relationship ends in loss. without fail: in one of those four ways. or combinations thereof. so it goes.... and then there is near-death. the times I've almost died. which has been five episodes - of dying - all told. so far. once by a fall off a waterfall. once by hitting my head in a fall and almost drowning. once by allergy to Penicillin - a cardiac arrest. once by respiratory arrest - from Demerol. and last by a cardiac episode where my heartbeat went into a tachycardia at 200 beats a minute for almost two hours... this is what I learned from these experiences: that death is way too easy. it is life that is almost impossible to do well. life that is hard to live through. not death. death is almost a real relief: that's a fact. I've lived through death without a sign. but I cry my way through much of the futility and poignancy of life. life is very, very hard to do well. to live well. to live decently at all.... I avoided feeling regrets ever until lately now I realize that I regret a great deal. or at least I feel a sorrow. maybe: not regret... but that I would not change a thing. I did not know how to change a thing. and I do not know how to change a thing now that I'm older. less than before. and I can't judge others or myself anymore. I simply have lost any will to judge. any ability to judge. now I just let feelings come through: love first. then hate. I let both feelings go as they will. they exchange places like wild fire.I may or may not react or act to the tune of these feelings. but I let the song go on. no matter how foolish or wise it is. it doesn't matter anymore. that's real to me.... another thing about getting older I have to mention in passing: I don't think a lot of folks believe someone over sixty...heck, even over fifty...really would want and enjoy a lot of sex. I mean a LOT of sex. I know younger folks can be very embarrassed at my even saying that much. let me set the record clear tho: I've known a good many from fifty to ninety who have really wanted sex and intimacy. cuddles and kisses. lots of hugs. and the whole rest of the yards on the ball field. a little. or a lot. I'm in the Sex Ball Game. I like to get and give as much as possible. and people don't stop having orgasms just because they're older either. LOTs of them: it's possible. and it's great. older people are less likely to get STDs too. I think that's true anyway. at least the clinics don't seem to get them as customers. maybe that's enough said on all of that. but maybe not... some people -not naming names here - have rich sex lives all the way home. just saying.... now about health: some people are lucky and have good health all the way into being very, very old. I'm not one of those people. I've never been a smoker. about twenty years of my sixty-seven: I've been fat. simply fat. nice-looking. but fat. I've been every size known to woman practically. that's a fact. I rarely have been a drinker. I've eaten an absolutely sinful amount of ice cream. all of my days. I will not say I'm sorry I did. I've know very few pain-free days in my life since age twelve. due to polio and a wreck of a lower spine. my heart has done tachycardia that could have taken me home for sure. I've had influenzas that almost killed me. along with all the other ways I've almost died. yet: here I still am. and everything I ever wanted to do with this kindly body: I have done the best I could. so I will not say I'm sorry for what few excesses I've done. they didn't kill me. I'd do them again. in a heart beat...everybody I've ever known near my age who was really good about exercise and what they ate is dead now. that's the truth. before me... who knows why some live and some die. I plan to just hobble my way to my grave - or actually: to my cremation - using and misusing my body willfully. I expect to be nagged about this all the time from now on. I will feel bossed about and nagged about diet and so on. I confess to all my faults in these matters: I will do my deeds as I will. just warning everybody not to get bunched up about it around me. we've already established that I am a selfish and willful and often bad person. not much further down to go. so no use trying to make me feel worse about it all. I'm immune.... ...I believe many people think that it's really important to get married and stay with the other person forever. and not want anybody else. at least not seriously. that people maybe have one or two lapses of judgement and desire other people than their wives or husbands. but that they don't act on that... in my humble and many, many experiences in life: I've got to say: I have rarely really met any people for whom this so-called ideal had been true at all - just maybe a handful of people. I really think most adults desire a lot of other people in life. and that many actually act on those desires: more than 'we' know or than 'they' will ever admit...I have. I've been married and divorced three times. in two long-term-live-in-loved-one/lover relationships; and been widowed once. I'm in another relationship now: live-in, so far...I totally understand that these facts make me a very controversial figure. or maybe just a plainly bad person. but I don't feel bad. I know I should... I'm not amoral. I don't feel immoral. I feel very normal. I've mentioned all the hurting people dismay I have had. I do not enjoy hurting people. I wish I had not. or did not... but I also think it would hurt people more to lie to them about love and loss and need to move on. I believe a great many people are lying about how they feel: to look good. to not make waves. to keep some status quo that isn't really there. I am very unclear about the usefulness of living a lie in order to please another person. I am not sure that's moral. it's expedient. but not moral. that's what I think...if it had been right to stay with any of the people I left than I believe I would have done that. one of them died though. and one left me. because I had feelings for someone else. that I hadn't even acted upon. he somehow has appeared more moral than I in this matter. even though he was making love with an old girlfriend at the time... see what I mean? living life in this culture I live in is very contradictory in this area. the realities are ignored in the face of what 'should be done'. even if 'what should be done' makes much less sense - morally or in reality - than simply being tactlessly honest in the face of the love questions: that question being: do I honestly still love this other person? do I know in reality what love means with this other person? is it wrong to lie to this other person if telling them the truth would hurt them? isn't it so that telling them lies about 'love' is meaner and would hurt them more in the long run? even in the short run?...there are more questions here...it is a puzzle with no end to the blue sky.... I bet I'll even be criticised for talkin'/writin' so much about myself: another sign that I think it's all about memememe! but you know...I am just a whisper about myself in the din of humans trying to explain themselves - out loud - or silently inside - to themselves or to the world around them. just a whisper.... I'm with my very first -real-boyfriend now. we've reunited after forty-five years. we still see the seventeen-eighteen year old kids that we were. so in love. we never even made love back then. too new to life... now we've had so much life without each other: we're making up for lost time. we are still in love. that's the way it goes sometimes. I think we're lucky. we've had a year or so now of telling each other all about all those years. the reflections have meant a lot a lot of writing. a lot of soul revealings. life revealings. it's been good.... I don't care about the criticisms any more. not much anyway. I had a mom who always wanted us to look good. I don't think I look good - even on paper... but I think I've done good...my dad was the one taught me that: that doing good was important. better than worrying about what others thought of what you did and who you were...thinking back: I did plenty - lots of good... I've done bad too. but much less than good. I am so not regretful of anything at all. I do wish I had two lives tho: one that I would have lived with my 'old boyfriend'...and the one I lived. that would have been the ultimate cool. I really would have liked that. short of that: I'm not sorry for one single thing I felt. did for 'love'. sang. loved. cared about. wondered about. fantasized about. had sex with - had sex 'period'. liked. hated. wrote. thought about. dreamed. cried about. laughed about. worked at. tried to do. did well. not well...not one single bit of it. not one. I have simply been one of billions of humans. one life. one human cry... among the many, many, many,