Terry's 3M's
How many of you, every once in a while, go on a self-improvement kick?
I've started another one. I think started is the key word here. I am a great starter. I can start lots of things. Short stories, novels, cleaning the house, relationships, etc. My problem is that I lose momentum and a lot of my projects end up started but not finished.
When I wrote relationships, what I meant was this: if it's true love, a logical finish to one part of the relationship is the confirmation of that relationship in marriage. There is a standard joke about men that basically states that if you want to get rid of a man, the fastest way is to propose marriage. I can't tell you how many times I've been proposed to. But I'm still single.
The first guy that I thought I was going to marry ended our relationship when I refused to get married right after high school graduation. I had been accepted at college and refused to be rushed into marriage. He did meet someone else and the last I knew, he has been happily married for over 25 years now.
The last proposal I turned down was from my son's father. But, it came much too late for us. It also would have been wrong because he just wanted a mother for his daughter from a previous marriage. Whatever magic we had, it had disappeared several years before this.
And in between were Gerry, John, Bob, Sam, Rick and a few others. But the timing was always wrong. To this day, there is only one that I regret not marrying. (After a while, he had decided that he was never going to marry anyone ever again. As of last year--23 years after we broke up--he is still single. But now we're almost 3000 miles apart and strangers.) When Barry Manilow sings Even Now, he is the one that I think of.
I have the start of one short story and a couple of novels written, but, I haven't worked on them in a long time.
I need to adjust my focus and concentrate on finishing projects that I start. I suppose that one of the things that I could do is to remember that there have been projects that I have finished. Even when they took a long time to complete.
I started a cross-stitch project just before Bryan was born. That was in 1986. I finished the project--a Mickey Mouse Santa surrounded by presents--the Christmas before my son was born--December 1989.
I've embroider towels and given them away as gifts. I've cross-stitched Christmas ornaments and given them away.
As much as I loved working on those projects, that's a part of my past. My eyesight has gotten to the point where I can't see to thread the needle, much less see the little holes that the needle is supposed to go through. I tried one of those big magnifying glasses that you wear like a necklace and rest one part on your mid-section while the magnifying lens is over your project. It was a frustrating experience and I ended up pulling just as many stitches as I put in. It was a short term experiment and I never tried it again.
Well, time for me to leave. Faye wants the computer. She is raving about the movie Titanic. She and Delton went to see it last night. She said that it is so good--you don't even realize how long the movie is (unless you've had something to drink and need to visit the ladies room--and you can't leave because you're afraid you'll miss something good. Oh, the joys of videos--so much easier to pause and come back to. I'm sure that as soon as it's out on video, we will get a copy.)
for the border background set.