Too much rain

Julia ♦ May 1, 2024 ♦ 8 Comments

An unknown artist left this painting for us to appreciate.
Public doman, from Düsseldorfer Auktionshaus via Wikimedia Commons

If anyone asks you how I am
Just say I’m doin’ fine.
If you will do that for me,
I’ll do the same for you sometime.

And if anyone asks you where I’ve gone
Just say I’m down the line.
I don’t want my friends to see me like this.
Maybe some other time.

Too much rain fallin’.
Too much rain fallin’.
There’s just been too much rain, down on me.

One day I’m gonna understand
The way that my heart works,
And then I’m gonna work it out,
So that I won’t get hurt.

But if anyone asks you where I’ve gone,
Oh, don’t say where I am,
Just say you saw me and I’m doin’ fine,
‘Cause I’m doin’ the best I can.

Too much rain fallin’.
Too much rain fallin’.
There’s just been too much rain fallin’, down on me.   — Carole King

Hello friends,

For some time now, I’ve wondered what to do about this blog. Since Jeff died, it has been very difficult to keep it going. I have never really been able to rest enough to recover from the grief, and the exhaustion of endless tedious paperwork, hard decisions, and bad news that seems never to stop coming. From where I sit now, watching how things have unfolded the past seven months, I can see no reason to think that anything is going to get easier anytime soon. Caring for a disabled adult son with Jeff’s steady and reliable help was difficult enough. All by myself, at age 60, and after 32 years of the continual, relentless pressure of being on call 24/7, it’s often more than I can manage.

Yet I live my everyday life in nearly total isolation, mainly seeing or talking only to people with whom I must stay in touch for managing Matt’s medical care and ongoing life issues. The comments on this blog are often the closest thing to conversation I have during the day. Sad, isn’t it? But I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit that. I say it only to let you all know how much your presence here has meant to me.

Some of you who stay in touch with me outside this blog know about the sorrow and grief that seems to just keep piling up, though it’s likely that no one person knows about all of it. That is as it should be, for only Jeff was in a position to understand all of it, and talking about it only makes it worse.

So now, for the first time in four and a half years, I must step aside from posting until I can replenish the wells of optimism and faith and hope and courage that are rapidly running dry. I will post here whenever I can, but I cannot say when or how often that will be. Please continue to pray for me, and know that I will read and respond to any comments you send.

One neglected pleasure I hope to make time for during this sabbatical is visiting the blogs many of you publish online. I am well aware of how much time, effort and sharing goes into blogging. There is so much inspiring, uplifting, candid, funny or thought-provoking richness out in the blogosphere. Of course, as I write this, I hear that nagging voice in my head saying “Ah, but that was what you intended to do when you dropped from blogging daily to blogging only twice per week– and didn’t that end up the way most of your good intentions do?” Guilty as charged. However, I won’t let past failures deter me from trying again.

It has been an amazing journey so far. Together we have compiled an archive of over 980 posts and countless online conversations, and if I’m unable to post very often, please remember there is a handy search feature which you can use to seek out posts on any topic you may want to read about. Comments remain open on every single post, so feel free to share your thoughts with me on any post you read, or re-read, no matter how old it may be.

Given the enormous life challenges so many of us have faced during the past five years, the abundance of thoughts, ideas, smiles, laughter, prayers and tears we have shared here (with each other and with all the world) represent no small accomplishment. Thanks for being part of it. I hope someday to get to that 1000-post milestone! Until then, know that you have been, and still are, an essential part of my personal and ongoing efforts to defeat despair.

This post was first published seven years ago. The rest, as they say, is history. I did manage to continue the blog, although missing the regular schedule here and there. And I’m still here, re-posting the more than 1100 posts I wrote over the years. But this month (and maybe next?) there’s not much to draw on. I’m going to TRY to fill in with some new posts here and there, even if only a quote and a photograph. Meanwhile, I appreciate your continued presence here, and your patience (especially with my tardy responses to your comments) now, as I have from the beginning.

The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.