ummmm - I'd have to say when everything is comfortable. When you
accept each other just as you are for who you are. I have these
conversations with my 24 year old son all the time....try to say we
love each other for who and what we are and sometimes DESPITE who and
what we are. It's good and its bad. Nothing is perfect. My sweetheart
is the best thing that ever happened to me....is it perfect? NO. Does
he drive me crazy sometimes? YES! When my mother says to him "how do
you put up with her???" he replies "Oh its not that bad." We are so
the same yet so different it is mind-boggling.

I think when we are "young" we have different perceptions of what love
is. As we get older and experience more, it morphs as we go along.....
ah, as they say, if only we could live life backwards!''

Today was a day for the warm sun on my face, and robins prancing all
over the yard. I needed that! Happy Spring TC. At our age, we
shouldn't question so much.... :) Deb

Welcome back to the other side of life. Life is worth the living, reach
out and grab all you can. In the last four to five years I started my
own journey of discovery. I just got back from visiting six new islands,
at least to me. I walked through five hundred year old forts, and hiked
the rain forest in Puerto Rico. I've seen extreme affluence and poverty
in St. Maarten. Inner tubed down the mountain rivers of Dominique and
swam at the base of a waterfall. In Grenada I circled the island going
through plantations of bananas, nutmeg, cocoa, cinnamon and cloves. I
saw where the Carib Indians lept to their death to avoid being enslaved
by the French four centuries ago. I've seen rum being made the same way
it has been by the same company and equipment since 1785. In Bon Aires,
here we just walked for several miles trying to find a beach, caught too
much sun. In Aruba I snorkeled around reefs watching starfish, rays, and
species of fish too numerous to count. From there I snorkeled around a
German ship sunk during WWII. Then back to Puerto Rico and then home.

A year and a half ago, it was a trip to Alaska where I kayaked in a lake
from a thawing glacier with too many waterfalls and Eagles to count.
Went out boating next to whales, stood on the 13th deck of a ship and
looked up at the top of a glacier that went inland for miles and miles.

Three years before that it was Mexico and Belize. I climbed to the top
of an Aztec (or Mayan, Inca) pyramid at Chitzinitxa (sp). The pyramid
has since been closed to anyone wanting to limb it. I've swam and
snorkeled in the clear waters of two other ports.

I started taking taking guitar seriously in 2004 while on tx. I have
played with small groups of people and have played in from of more than
one hundred people, I may not have done it well, but I had the courage
to get up and try. I was even telecast live to Great Britain where I
played in front of one of the best performers I know.

In 2002, I took up mountain biking for the first time. I won some
recognition for the number of trails I rode and then competed in two
large tournaments. The last race is where the hep caught up with me and
fatigue hit me near the end of the twentieth mile of the race and I had
to have help with the last five feet of the race.

I have watched two of my three children graduate from high school and
enter college, both maintaining high grades with challenging careers in
front of them.

I'm telling you this because in August of 2000 I got sick and was placed
in the hospital with a fever of just over 105 degrees. The last thing I
remember the infectious disease doctor walking in and telling me that he
"hoped I had everything in order, you won't be walking out of here
alive. You're my fourth patient in you condition I've seen and they have
all died." I looked up at my wife and told her I wasn't going to die she
was just going to have to keep putting up with me. Three weeks late I
was wheeled out of the hospital on my way home. It seems I had a white
blood count of 0 and they had to transfuse me with 5 units of blood.

The moral of the story, after being told that my life was about to end,
I started thinking of the things that I have left to on this Earth. My
bucket list. It keeps growing and so does my zest for life. BTW, The
trip to the Mexican and Belize area were taken while in the middle of a
sixty week tx. I hate tx with a passion and have never even come close
to clearing the virus, but I'm going to keep on going until they have to
 push me struggling and fighting into a coffin, before I will give up
this life.

My advice, don't looking for love, it will find you when you least
expect it. Music or 9 to 5, do both for as long as you can and then
decide. My playing pretty much dictates which for me, but it won't stop
me from trying to get better and torturing (I mean playing) for as many
people as I can.

Two years from now we are looking a a cruise around the Mediterranean
for our 25 anniversary.

There are too many places to go and things to do to die. Sorry for the
ramblings. I'm a bit sore and took something for pain tonight so I'm not
thinking as straight as I should be. Tomorrow I wake and meet my biggest
challenge, teaching high school students.

Dwight (feel like I should name this, but I won't) Moore

Love?
At 58, you're used to life the way it's always been, and change is not easy.
Some of us decide that we really enjoy living alone, living single, and
that's not a bad thing. In fact, some people love it.
At 58, wondering if you should wait for something better, you may have
difficulty making a commitment. Or you may be an uncompromising person who
will forever quest for something better, and that's not a bad thing. For
some, love is the journey, not the destination.
At 58, your hormones are not raging, but sexual attraction is often called
love.
Without the raging hormones, what's left is friendship and companionship,
trust and respect, loyalty and laughter. Is that love?
At 58, most have children/grandchildren, maybe a mortgage and intertwined
financial situations, and a life that evolved into something very difficult
to extract oneself from. Is acceptance love?
Or, perhaps love is an illusion, a combination of qualities that are so
individual and subjective that no one can define it.
Get back to us when you figure it out, because I suspect that no one knows
for sure ;-)

On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:46:30 -0700 (PDT), topcat <hopin@live.com>, in
message ID
<44a279ae-f6ee-43ab-a49d-a320bb90e818@b6g2000pre.googlegroups.com>, in
the newsgroup alt.support.hepatitis-c wrote:

I don't know how long ago you finished tx but I think it should come
with another health warning.
I viewed it the same way as when I was in early recovery from longterm
drug addiction
i.e.  When starting to recover, don't make any major, irrevocable
decisions for a year (or two).  Wait for things to settle down a bit.

I know it's not so much fun but there's more chance of making the
right choices if you wait until you're thinking clearer.  Not saying
that you aren't but it sounds like you're having your "honeymoon
period".

Just looked at what I've written.  Not sure that anyone would want a
period while on honeymoon  :-)