(no longer a nanny)Kate

top 5's....

several top 5's have been running through my head lately... activities (?) or rather events maybe... whatever, have occurred lately to bring these about. they aren't all bad.
honest.

top five favorite things about dance
5. tap dance, shoes, noise, everything
4. lyrical dances
3. music
2. getting it, and when the kids get it
1. teaching it to little kids

top five favorite things about my college
5. the cwob and the boyz from kenya
4. chappy
3. shaunie baby, who shares so much with me, including a birthday, happy b-day big mister!!
2.my pookie and i met there, without her i'm lost
1. that they never cease to amaze me... we made headlines last week for hosting an islam 101 lecture on 9/11.... umm, isn't this the basics of our country?? freedom? i'm thankful that they still surprise me.

top five worst birthdays
5. my 24th (the year i lost my grandmother)
4. my 17th (the year i lost gary)
3. my 23rd (the year i lost susan)
2. my 25th (just the worst until this year...)
1. this one, my 27th (between yesterday, and my family's plans to be elsewhere, and the fact that my best friend has forgotten my birthday the last three years and just... um... killed me (?) yesterday... tomorrow i think i want to disappear)

top five favorite things about virginia
5. st james/mad camp
4. leo/tim/pete
(these two are ties... but there's no way i can actually compare these people/things .... they are my favorites for different reasons... mostly entertainment purposes :) i'm so kiddding... )
3. the martins
2. syd, clark, and baby addie
1. sage

top five favorite things about maryland
5. the diocese of easton
4. blue crabs & old bay
3. zackie
2. duston
1. camp wright and all that goes with it (kent island being part of it)

top five favorite songs
5. path of thorns, sarah mc.
4. simon, lifehouse
2. tie.... amazing grace & how great thou art (as sung by cpc choir, #4 in the hymnal)
1. (currently) and so it goes, billy joel

top five worst days of my life
4. as it's a tie on this one...losing gary (august 25, 1993) & losing susan (september 3, 1999)
3. july 10th & 11th, 2003. ....losing two jobs in two days and still not knowing why. (it was worse than the previous losses, because it's so bizarre to me, so unknown)
2. losing my grandmother (may 24, 2000)
1. yesterday, september 15, 2003.

top five favorite things about new york (best state in the union i might add)
5. friends, jon-e, the cwob, pj, spencers, fullers, my kids, cpc family
4. my pookie
3. my family
2. being a yankee and the lack of... ... i don't know what it is, but the south's got it and we don't seem to. (i'm sure there are southerners who dislike NY, i'm just the opposite of that)
1. .....i think i've lost my number 1.


so i would imagine i owe an explanation on a few things... like why yesterday was so bad, how come this year's birthday is so bad when it hasn't even happened yet, & what happened to my #1 reason. .... it all comes down to b. how deeply i feel, how deeply he doesn't. how much i have given to this, only to learn yesterday how he... um, doesn't feel anything anymore for anything or anyone in his life. he feels no responsibilty for anything beyond his business (literal business), and how i am somehow the closest to him still (really???) and am the only one being hurt by the person he's become.

i don't want to judge. i am trying hard not to. but i am someone who loves a lot. i love my kids, my family, my friends, my God, ...my b. and i tend to trust people and be honest and hope that others are with me. ...at the same time, i tend to follow my heart. and i wear it on my sleeve. and thus, i ache so much ... and yesterday, it was the worst pain i've ever felt. one of our friends, i guess i should say his friends, and i were talking a while ago. and j. said that i hurt him really badly a couple of years ago. i would now like to point out j. that not only did last summer happen last summer, i let it happen again. and ang, he does use people. he used me. severely.

how can you not feel anything? how can you decide what is how you feel, and then feel it? i suppose it all comes back to when you tell someone (including yourself) something enough times, it becomes truth.

tomorrow i turn 27. i am a bit freaked out about the idea. when i played barbies back in the day, they were always 27. i think that signified being a grown up to me. (kathleen told me i need to embrace being a grown up. i told her to shut up. ... not in so many words). being 27 isn't like last years' 26 issues. ... i think that has gone out of my head in light of all that has happened.

this time it did happen. i have lost my best friend. i don't know him anymore at all. he was the first person i called when i got home. he was the first person i saw. he was the only person i wanted around me when i had to deal with the mess of july 10th. ...he's been the strength i didn't have so many times. and i believed in what we had, i trusted his words & actions, sometimes not together. ...i don't know how to deal with this one. i think silence is the only way i can. alone-ness is the way i tend to grieve. he's always been the one i go to when i need to deal with anything. he's been the first to know everything all along.


how do you say goodbye to your best friend?