Lost...train of thought, sleep, time, mind, whatever.

Amazing - it's been awhile. Over two months. Not that anyone is really keeping track. That's even longer than my friend at Anytown, USA. I was hoping that wouldn't happen.

A shout out to the former newspaper man from Anytown, happy birthday to you and the daughter, and you guys keep your heads down, hurricane season is back. I hope you fare as well as you did last year!

A lot happens in two months. Ten short, long ass weeks. Loads of crap with a few shining moments thrown in. The boy turned four in June. My parents quietly celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary, my cousins their 11th and we celebrated our sixth. I have four friends whose birthdays I have missed and an aunt who turns 50 this week.

I have been in a place, not so pleasant, where I know that posting would be good for me, but I haven't really been in the mood or even felt like I had the brain capacity to do so. Now I don't even truly know where the beginning is, let alone where to find it.

What do you do when the people you count on are suddenly there, but not really? You can see them, talk to them, touch them, hear them, but you can tell that it really is not them in there. They are just a shadow of themselves. The human condition is a frail, fleeting thing, especially as we age. And really, it isn't pretty at all.

It is terrifying to me to be able to look at my family as they age and see what is in store for me 30 - 35 years down the road. What is worse, having your body fail as your mind stays strong, trapped inside; or having a relatively strong healthy body, with a part time, or increasingly no time mind?

In the last two - five years, I have seen both happen to various members of my family and neither is a good option. It is vaguely like this last election. You want to vote for someone, and you don't like either. So, you try to pick the lesser of the two evils, only to find that both are equally, but differently, insidious and evil. Holy shit, where did that strangeness come from? I can only guess that it is from the 2:11 am staring at me from the info bar at the top of my screen.

I know that I need sleep. The alarm in the morning will remind me how much I should have gotten more sleep and the nap that I will not be able to grab in the afternoon will again, remind me of the same. The thoughts and demons whirling around in my brain won't let me be anything other than wide awake right now, contemplating loved ones' futures and well as the potentially bleak one I look to face.

Why must we always turn out as the worst combination of our parents genetic material rather than the best of both? Why couldn't I have inherited my mother's height and my father's extra thick hair? Instead I got his shortness, allergies and Micronesia and her butt, thighs, stinky feet and more likely than not, her family's predilection toward stroke. Wow can they ever mess with you and in turn, the rest of your family.

As an only child of a tight-knit family, we are all really close, my grandparents, aunt, cousins and parents. When there is something wrong with one of us, we all know about it and rally together to solve the problem. This is one I don't know if can be fixed at all, let alone by any of us.

I'm not old enough to be dealing with this at this stage of my life. My parents aren't old enough to be dealing with this at this stage of their lives. I want my momma back!!!! I am completely out of my element, league, expertise and anything else that I could possibly be out of, including, I am beginning to think, my mind.

How do I keep going on, as if nothing is wrong? How do I keep working, smiling and telling the nice people who ask, "Oh, she'll be okay" and "I'm just fine, thanks for asking," when I feel like my world is spinning out of control and my life and existence is at a stand still, waiting for "things to get better"?

Right now, as almost everyone I know is sleeping, I just want to stand up and scream, before I absolutely explode. I want to shout at everyone, "No, things aren't okay and nothing is improving, stop pretending it is!!!!" Here's the old conundrum, why to bad things happen to good people? Naturally, I'm a bit biased, but I feel like my parents are basically good people. I would say that maybe I'm the not good people and so that is the cause, but it really didn't happen "to me". Guess it rules that one out?

I am so rambling and babbling. You'd think my name was Brooke. ha Good thing I'm not a comic. What's that old joke? At least I'm funny ... looking?

The boy is only four, just turned four at that, yet he is bright enough to know that things aren't right, even though it's not really talked about. When my grandmother died almost a year an a half ago, we explained, hopefully in ways he could grasp, what was going on. She was sick and in the hospital and a care center for six weeks before she died. Even though he was only wasn't yet three, he seemed to understand the hospital, illness and more or less, what was going on.

Now, he just senses that something isn't right and can only react, not talk about it or really even know that there truly is a problem. It has completely and totally disrupted the routine he has know for over three years and I now find him acting out. At school, he has begun hitting, pushing and kicking his friends, at his grandparents, he shows off, is very loud and doesn't "listen" to questions and directions the first time around and at home, he is a smart ass, is defiant and acts afraid of things he was never afraid of before. Don't get me wrong, he hasn't turned into some kind of little demon or horrid brat child.

He doesn't do these kinds of things every day. It is just that we didn't used to have these kinds of problems with him. We just find this to be abnormal behavior for him. I suppose it could just be that it's because he just turned four. Could just be coincidence. I don't really think so though.