Keira Brigit Pauline

This has been a lousy year for the most part. First, 2016 took away many great celebrities: Prince, David Bowie, George Michael, Carrie Fisher, Leonard Cohen, and many others. Some of them were older people who were ready to go, such as Bobby Vee. Yet many of those weren't ready to go yet. Also, the drama of U.S. politics was terrible. I believe that both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were terrible candidates, and I hate that out of the 300 million people living in the USA, that those two had to be picked to be the runners for the presidential race. Also, my sister got married to a complete weirdo, someone my mother and I didn't approve of. My sister and that guy hardly knew each other, were only seeing each other for 9 months, and even then spent most of their relationship in texting each other constantly. They didn't spend much time together in person, even though they lived in the same town. My sister took a temporary job in Maine that kept her away from the area fo...

My sister has been seeing a local guy since last February or March. She has had a relationship mostly based on texting each other a lot. She sees him once in a while at his mother's cafe. Sometimes they'll hang out there for an hour or so. I know they have been to another local cafe a few times together and have walked the local river trail. This man has a social anxiety disorder and mild schizophrenia. He works at his mother's cafe. He usually works out back because he is nervous around customers. His mother set him and my sister up so that he can "get out of his shell". His schizophrenia is supposedly controlled by medication. He gets $800 a month from the government for his mental illness. This guy has no higher education and my sister is a nurse and also holds a bachelor's degree in Art. He went to the prestigious Bancroft School in Massachusetts until high school, but never went to college. He is supposed to be very intelligent then, but it looks like ...

I was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It started out in upstate New York, in the same area and time period when many other fringe groups started out. The Shakers had already made a big presence there for some time. The Latter-Day Saints, Spiritualism, and the Oneida group started up over there. The SDA church started with William Miller, who was a lay preacher, farmer, and veteran of the War of 1812's Battle of Plattsburgh. William Miller studied his Bible and was especially intrigued by the book of Daniel. He felt that the world was going to come to an end in 1843. He spoke at various places around the northeast United States and gained around 50,000 followers. Later they were waiting for Christ to return on October 22, 1844.  When that failed to happen, many members disbanded and went back to their previous churches. Some formed the Advent Christian Church, and some others formed the Seventh-day Adventists. First, William Miller should have never started what he ...

1995 was the best year of my life, except for the death of a friend on November 12. Yesterday made 21 years since her death.  The year 1995 was when I started high school at a public school. I attended my first pep rally. Having attended church schools all my life, I didn't know what a pep rally even was. I remember my ears popping from all the yelling and shouting in the gymnasium.  That year was the year I met Nathan, whom I saw at many Adventist events for many years after that.  I always looked for him. He liked me a lot. He would eventually be killed in a car accident, but that wouldn't happen until December 1999.  That was the year I first went to the SDA camp meeting in Freeport, Maine. I had just met Nathan at the camp meeting in Massachusetts, and his family then went to the one in Maine. We got to spend lots of time together. We went to a water park in Saco. I remember him having deep sunburn and his skin on his fingers peeling badly. He loved to have...

My friend Jo passed away. She had some ongoing health problems for many years. She was told in 2012 that she didn't have a year to live. She kept going for some reason. God wasn't done with her yet. Yet on October 22 she was found with 21 pain patches on her. I am wondering if she was losing her mind and put those on, or if she purposely committed suicide. She had some brain damage from that and died a week later. I still haven't deleted our texts or even her phone number from my phone. I still am fooling myself into believing that I can call her again. I can't. I will miss her. She was a good counselor for me. 

My good friend I met in South Korea is dying, or is maybe dead as I type this. She has been very ill for a few years now. She was supposed to have died 4 years ago. Yet she has held on this long. She has been mostly house-bound. Her aides just found 21 pain patches on her. A neighbor texted me. She said they are doing end of life care because it looks like she has brain damage. It is just as well that she goes. She has been suffering enough. 

For what it's worth...it's never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you're not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again. F. Scott Fitzgerald. 

I have been looking for work. I was working at Kmart until it closed on July 31. I was there for 2 months for their closing sale. I am glad I had that job because I needed the money. I liked the people there, it was a nice group of people. I hated to leave because I liked working there. Yet I was also happy for it to be over because it was hectic over the last few weeks. I did some temporary work for a while. It was OK. I had to stop doing my position due to a college class I am taking 2 afternoons a week. I am hoping to find something else soon.