Or What I Learned from Kerry Kennedy

I remember receiving the call and hearing the words that “Kerry was gone” and thinking, “Gone where? Where did he go?” Then realizing that his sister wouldn’t be calling me so early in the morning if Kerry had simply gone on a vacation.

I grew up wondering about the sister I never knew. (She was hit by a car at age nine and killed three years before I was born.) My parents didn't talk about her and the few photos they had were kept hidden in a drawer.

I had a weird week where things were "thrown" at me, falling off of shelves for no reason. I don't know if that's related to this, but it was quite clear someone on the other side wanted to get a message to me. 

In my younger days, I kept a journal where I wrote letters addressed to nobody. Sometimes I would address them in the name of a boyfriend. Sometimes I would use the name of a stuffed animal of mine (Aldanr). This section of my blog is like those letters.

I wanted to write about all I've been doing in my life since breast cancer. Marketing geniuses tell us that when we blog, we should stick to one topic. The problem is my life is full of randomness and nothing is consistent other than daily hygiene, eating, and sleeping. (And eating and sleeping aren't all that consistent either.) 

Here's what I know for sure.

(I found this buried in my archives and thought I would share it.)

I came to the realization at age 40 that most of the older women I knew were angry, particularly at men, but maybe at life in general. I didn't really understand why.

I came to the realization at 50, that after 25+ years of marriage, most of the men in my life, even the really considerate ones, had no clue what it was like to be a woman, what our responsibilities really were, or why we periodically became irritated at them.

At 53, I began to understand the hot flashes I was having. They were anger. I couldn't help but remember the words of a writer friend of mine, Isabella Quimby, who likened hot flashes to volcanos. "I'm an erupting volcano!" she would say each time a hot flash erupted within her - and they were frequent. I suspected that Isabella, who had gone through a nasty divorce, knew a little bit about the anger women repress (well usually) and the ever-building incidents women endure due to the lack of understanding of men.