I got cut off yesterday, or should I say interrupted. That's why the abrupt end. I believe I was waxing philosophical about something or other. Some kind of heartache. Something. I'm mired in all the trials and tribulations of my family, my kids, their kids, their loves, until I think I have disappeared in the depth of it all. Who am I anyway? Am I more than the reflection of them? I don't know anymore.

But it's 163 days today till retirement. Seriously, in all honesty, I do not know if I can make it. Taking a look at the numbers, including today, that's 109 work days, 54 days off. It's 23 and a half more weeks. It's one more Christmas, one more Thanksgiving, one more Remembrance Day, one more back-to-school season, one more New Years. It's one more paid week of holidays this year, and the four weeks next year. Will I make it?

Doctors appointment tomorrow, seeing Dr. Black again. Will I make it? Maybe he can say...

I think maybe heartache can kill you. My girl Asia is having the summer of a lifetime. She's living with a close girlfriend, her long lost love has come back from across the water, she's got her first job, she's staying out late with friends and sleeping half the day away and just having a great old time. But she is leaving heartache and pain and depression and sadness and a devastated grandmother in her wake. At 16, a girl needs to be at home. She needs to WANT to be at home. She needs to WANT to be with her sisters, and to kid around with her Dad, to fight with her mother and play with her dog. She has to keep a messy bedroom, spend hours on the phone, fight over whose turn it is to do dishes, and to find creative ways to get out of doing homework. A 16-year-old girl should have a paycheque from her first job, and it should go toward a bit of savings, absolutely, but mostly it should be spent on movies and funky jewelry and designer jeans and uncomfortable shoes. It should not have to be spent on rent, or her own school fees, on her own sanitary supplies and shampoo. If this 16-year-old girl knew what was good for her, she'd go home. She'd stay at home. But she's breaking my heart.