i type using no capital letters as a signature of sorts, a way to let others see my going against the grain- a rebel in my youth has carried over into what i fondly refer to as my afterlife. but i was blessed with a saint that married me when he was 23 and myself 21, and yet there is an empty void in this existence. i feel alone even when surrounded by hundreds of people and my self worth is diminishing more and more as i realize i am getting older and i can not fix everything that is wrong. i can say i am sorry and i am wrong and i was wrong with out any problem in admitting my shortcomings, but that still leaves the problems with me and some days i allow myself to become self destructive. which is where i am now. i am 48 which has no bearing on how i feel because i have felt this way since i was 30--it is not a midlife crisis. i enjoy instrumental easy listening music and country and love to sing along. i am doing this hoping that my thoughts-and the act of putting them down on paper will in someways be an avenue to relief but what i truly desire is to be on the right path to lead me home. this is who i am today....a lonely person with much to correct in my life and little inner strength and willpower to get up and do it. this is in part because i recently gave up a part of myself, a part of my life that was what i refer to as working- my job-that was causing me to be stressed to the point that everyone around me could see the effects yet i did not because i chose to be blind to the situation. now i see with open eyes and yet i miss the children that are no longer a part of my daily routine, i feel an emptiness that can not be filled with another child or books, music or busy work... my world revolves around filling my need to nurture and love an infant, and this gives me a sense of purpose. again i am married to the perfect man, and have 3 grown children which are really good people, i hope this is in part because of what i was able to contribute during their childhood and teen years, but of course by then they knew everything and didn't need or appreciate my input in their lives then or now if i risk offering my opinion or my knowledge from haven lived a harder life then they have: still they are in and out of our house, which again i do not feel is our home, just the house we live in. we moved here into my parents house when they died in 2002, so the house where my children grew up was our first little 2 bedroom palace, is where i left a part of myself. the deaths of my parents and my grandmother figure all in the same year changed me in ways i never expected - it is hard to explain without crying which i do many times-- listening to music and watching movies makes me cry very easily. i do not laugh nearly enough, and i miss my best friend. after graduating from nursing school in 1980 i worked part time and then full time plus too much overtime which took me away from those important things that as i look back on that time in my life, i see i missed so much and the little bit of money brought in has not in any way equaled what i can never get back. this is what i want my children to know about money living loving and time well spent --- these parts of a full life are worth so much more than any amount of money. trey my husband of 27 years has provided for us all and is the most giving understanding perfect man = and i don't deserve him. if my children haven't seen him for who he is and what he is then they are blind