Kaitlyn calls me her best J ever. I always point out that I am her only J ever so far. I also like to point out that I made her and without me she would not exist, at least not as we know her.

I was thinking this morning while we were cuddling, just before she and Sue left for Shalom's house, that Gina and I used to cuddle on the couch while watching TV. I was thinking that it's hard to cuddle on the couch watching TV with K because there are no good family shows on TV anymore. There's no Eight is Enough or The Waltons or Little House on the Prairie anymore.

There's no ALF, Square Pegs, Hill Street Blues, no Cagney and Lacey or Famliy Ties, no Cheers or Miami Vice or Facts of Life. No Golden Girls or Who's the Boss. I won't go on, most if not all of these end up in rerun hell on Nick at Night now or somewhere on some obscure channel lost in the myriad of channels available out there in the ether. It's just not the same as back in the day when you had maybe 10 or 12 channels (if you lived in the big city), 3 of which aired that network fare in primetime.

As Gina grew up, she got too big to really lay in my lap and watch TV anymore. So basically she just laid her head in my lap and I stroked her hair while we watched TV in primetime. All the way up until the day I left that house forever. We would watch a bit of TV together when she came to visit at my apartment, but it was never quite the same. When she finally moved in to that soroiety house a few months later, it never happened again. She was 17, all growed up and moved away from home.

Kaitlyn lays on the couch and puts her head in my lap to watch TV too. But it's not the same. I seldom watch TV. In fact, I despise TV now. I will watch 3 things, American Idol, ER and Medium. Everything else sucks in my eyes. It keeps me from sitting there petting my child's head and bonding. I just don't give a rat's ass about TV. It annoys me most of the time. I do everything I can to block the noise out and when I can't, I go in my room to attempt to block it out.

I like those bumper stickers that say Kill Your Television. I would like to kill my television, but my family would wither away and die without it I think. <heavy sigh> Sad eh?

So I have special moments with Kaitlyn in my room where there is no television, or screaming noises. Just serenity and calm, as is the bedroom of any Taurus seeking solitude. In my world there is no chaos, just peace, calming serenity, quite, a place to meditate, to contemplate, regenerate. That is where I take her, in to my room and on to that bed with all those millions of pillows and there we sit and talk or cuddle, sometimes just being.

I am not a lot of fun with kids. I don't have the energy to have physical and even mental fun much. Lately, in the last few years, it's like the joy has gone out of life for me. I know why. I know pretty much exactly why and frankly, there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I have attempted in my own way to rectify this situation, to bring joy back into my life, but it is always short lived and then I am back to where I was before. Listlessly moving through each day in my heart. Wounded and healing from the wounds of attempting to find joy once again.

It takes a lot of energy to heal from heart wounds. Sucks the life right out of you.

I wish there was 80's television still on in primetime. Sitting there mindlessly wasting time being entertained while stroking your child's hair has a healing effect on the human heart. I made it through the 80's with hope in my heart that I could have the life I envisioned. Even though in it's own way you could say my personal culmination of the 80's was the most horrific experience anyone could ever want to experience. Despite the insanity of my world, I still had the gentle sweet spirit of a child needing her head stroked every night whiel watching TV. In all the dysfunction of my mid through late 20's and half of my 30's, I had the touch stone of a child's unconditional love through it all.

I am a much different being now. Much older, much wiser, much sadder. I look at the world my child will inherit and I weep because I cannot protect her from it all. I can't stop the powers that be from doing what the are doing/have done to take away people's individuality and uniqueness. All I can do is love my child unconditionally. And I cannot take the sorrow in my heart away. I can only do what I can to center myself, take responsibility for my own actions and let everyone and everything else go.

And just go on, because the alternative is not an option I want to explore at the moment. I keep thinking there is a great secret around the corner that I am goign to experience or learn. I am not ready to take the alternative route just yet.

And love my family, give them all I have to give, as best I can. Take care of me so that I have something to give, to them and to me.

Such is life as I know it now.....