Some days are diamonds

but yesterday was a rock.

I have been leaking predictably from my face these last eight days but staying fairly well under control. But yesterday afternoon I felt so overcome by all the crap I have to do yet and I felt like I was falling into myself and shrinking to munchkin size. The air was too thick to walk through and I didn't care if I moved or not. I had to hie me to a friend's house on the way home to sit and come apart and then reassemble myself. It hurt and it was hard, but I am back together today.

There are so many things "my mother didn't tell me", or anyone else, for that matter, that I am having to wade through and figure out and learn that I feel bogged down by it coming all at once. So while you may not like thinking about this post I am hanging it anyway because someone should have told me these things and I would have had less to deal with all at once.

You can get quotes on funerals. You can pre pay for them. You can own lots for burial or matching containers for remains years ahead of time. You can make sure the music you love is played and that the service is the way you want it to be to suit you. If you only plan ahead.

To get a quote you need to know if you are doing a full burial, if you have a lot, where it is located, if you don't what the cost will be to get one, if a vault is required, what kind of container you want, if cremation then how much is it and what container you want, how many days of visitation and viewing you will have, if any, about how many people you expect, whether the person was a Veteran, how to get in touch with the VA for the honors ceremony, what about a preacher or speaker and their fees, if you want limos for the family and what hall or church you will be using after the funeral, who will set up and provide the food and who will clean up after.

So sit down and start crunching the numbers. I reccomend - oh.... NOW. Make a few calls with your basic idea of what a funeral for you would be like and get pricing. Now you know what you need to provide for your family just to cover expenses for the actual tucking you in part.

Next are the charges for the original death certificates which vary by county, the fees to file for probate of the will or the estate if there is no will, the attorney fees, if you can't do it yourself, the fee to have the morgage changed to the survivor's name alone, cost of running all over the county to do these things and at least some lunch money.

You have to do an inventory of the estate either yourself or paying someone to do it, there is a fee for filing that and a form you have to use and certain things must be included and others don't so you need that information. If you get that far and it goes through ok then there is the final filing of the probate record fee, too. Better plan on at least a grand or two.

Now the taxes weren't done yet. You need another original death certificate, a marriage certificate, the SS#, and a fee for the filer that you will opt for instead of trying to wade through the tax law yourself.

The vehicles have to be retitled to the survivor BEFORE you can sell them. Title fees to transfer the titles of the vehicles. Cost of ads to sell them, too.

And when you are finally through probate, have passed on inheritances, counted up the pennies, and divied up the money and are sitting home, exausted there is no one there to tell you that you did them proud and it was just the way they wanted it, thank you - except yourself.

And that is where this post is going. Your Self. I treat me one way and the mate treated me another. What I am learning is that you have to treat yourself, carry yourself and behave your self as if you were someone's beloved mate.

I am my self trying very hard to make the past partner proud of me but even that is a cop out. If the man I, and so many others, respected chose me out of all the women he knew to love with all his heart he believed I was "worthy" of special treatment. That is still putting the value of my self on his opinion. Another cop out.

I have to treat myself the way I want others to see I expect to be treated. And I expect to be treated as a woman deserving respect.

If I am falling down drunk in a bar and puking on the floor I am treating myself badly. I am disrespecting myself. I ought to at least stay sober enough to make it to the john to lose it in private and walk home alone safely.

I have to present a neat appearance because I don't want to be treated like a bum. I have to have enough money to pay my own way because I don't want to be treated as a panhandler. I have to buy my own flowers now, because I like fresh flowers, not because the mate would have done it. I have to walk tall and proud because I don't want to be seen as a victim or a loser, but a woman who respects herself, her abilities and takes care of herself well.

As sad as it makes me it has to be all about me now I will not be seen as a woman helpless without her man. Nor will I represent myself as a slut, white trash or a loser. I am an adult human capable of taking care of myself and others as well. I have two dogs, several guns and a four wheel drive and a country girl will survive.

As for the rest of you, think about it, which person in the bar do you want to meet? The one caging drinks, in scruffy clothes and a two day beard or the guy with the snappy shirt drinking Bailey's and jamming with the tunes? The woman with her tits showing to her nipples and the "take me, anybody" tude or the one with the black turtle neck and jeans playing the juke box and sitting with friends?

It's all up to you whether you display yourself as a precious stone on silk or a chunk of coal on burlap. Even if you think you are a chunk of coal, you may find that if you display your self as valuable, you will belive it more often yourself.

As long as people still make the mistake of judging on appearances, give yourself an edge and try looking like you want to be seen as, not as you feel you are inside.

I have four new black shirts, two new pair of black slacks, a pair of black jeans and two pair of black shoes. They are black because I am in mourning, but they are new and crisp and attractive.

I cut my hair as a sign of mourning. I had to leave it long enough to pull back under a helmet but my mate would only smile at that. He would be more angry if I didn't ride after all he did to get the bike up. I hate short hair, he knows it, all my friends know it, but I am that sad. A little mousse and it looks ok, like I tried to tame it.

I'm showing the world I lost my best man but I am looking as good as I always tried to look for him doing it - because I am worth it to myself. I will be taking good care of me now because I need taking care of and I am all I have. I wish all my friends would do the same for themselves.

If you are my friend, I SAY you are worth the extra time to dress clean and neat, have your hair trimmed, spend a little on nice clothes and too classy to act like an Eyor "oh dear, Oh my!" loser. Why? Because you took the time to care about me in my pain. You are a caring person and those who care for others are not worthless but spreading a balm of comfort the world has need of. Thank you.