In an earlier article, I posted that the Red Sox would win. I was dismissed as being "just a fan".

I beg to differ this time: this team rocked, this Series rocked, and the Boston Red Sox are now a championship team that has earned their way to this spot.

I've been through so many shutdowns, blow-outs and heartbreaks that I can't even remember them all. This Series makes up for them all in spades.

Sometimes I hate being right, but this isn't one of them.

Why does the LW have to apologize? Because her ex-boss feels guilty and he wants to make himself feel better? By making her to be the guilty party and do all the emotional stuff?

No way. Tell your ex-boss to get stuffed and take his problems to a shrink.

You're done with him and his manipulation..and tell him that in the email you should send him telling that you won't apologize for something that's long dead and done.

Also-tell him he should apologize to you and his wife for being such a jerk as to think you'll roll over and play games for him.

You owe nothing to nobody.

I don't have any problem with Cary's answer, for once. We're mostly all silly people, with silly problems that have no solution but to live with them and cope as best as we can with the pain of having lived through them.

We muddle through hoping for the best, and when it doesn't come wrapped in a gold covered box, we cry. Then we get on with life and grow a little.

As the infamous ad for an insurance company tells us:

"Change happens".

Deal with it and move on with your life. There's a job you have to go to, with new people you must deal with. Your neighbor was a momentary anchor in a place where you used to be.

She changed, and you're still stuck where you were-get past it.

You can watch your friends do a slow dive off the cliff, but you can't stop them from taking it.

They entered into adulthood with all this debt, and it is up to them to get out of it.

You're not their Mommy or Daddy, not the bank, and you're not going to be responsible for their life collapsing.

Let them go through the hell that is waiting for them just around the corner by themselves.

Growth is only done personally-when they hit bottom you can only help them sort it all out.

To do more is to take on responsibility that you don't want.

Be ready, though, with phone numbers of a bankruptcy lawyer, credit card counselors, and debt management people. Sounds like they're going to need those very shortly.

I'd bet this is a woman boss. Better than delete all the emails, collect all of them. Gather them in one huge file, and then send them to HR (if you have one), with a message that this is what you're getting daily in your mailbox, and the sender is your supervisor; ask for them to read each and every one of them, and make a judgment call on their appropriateness.

If they're smarter than your dumb, stupid, superstitious boss, they'll fire the boss and you can have your life back-if you want to stick around for the fireworks.

In my job, if we have email privileges (which only managers or senior level people do), we're reminded that our mail is watched for such things, and that abusing the mail privilege will get the account suspended, and the person who abuses it fired. The corporation watches the traffic, and also reads the emails from time to time-it is a "all on the tree" mail server, so everyone gets to read it.

You betcha nobody abuses the mail at my company.

I was never a beauty. Never one to turn men's heads, or to attract the envy of prettier women. I got used to it, and accepted the fact that I was never going to be on the hot list for anyone (except my husband).

I'm getting older. I'm getting used to it. It sucks to get old, lose your looks and then you die.

I suggest this one little observation to the LW:

"Character and intelligence outlast beauty."

Develop those and the beauty part won't be so hard to cope with as you get older.

Sure, it really drags one down to look in the mirror and see what time does to you. But it sure beats the alternative until you encounter it. Then it won't matter anymore.

It's not easy growing up and losing your last surviving parent. It is the big entry into adulthood that everyone has to pass through, and it's tough to realize what has happened.

Grieve while you have to, but also realize that this is your life now, not someone else's, and move on to making it better.

I realized after my father died (I was only 35) that I could do any damned thing I wanted to, and without someone telling me how to do it, and giving advice on where I screwed up. It was a very liberating moment, fraught with peril and anxiety.

I worked with it, but while I was grieving, I took things a little slower than normal to adjust to a life without Daddy.

You have choices for yourself. After taking care of your mother for so long, you will probably be stunned to know that you're only responsible for yourself, nobody else.

Don't jump into the water too fast, but look at it, and then make decisions. Grief does wondrous things to your mind, and rational decisions are often not available.

That being said, follow what you want to do, and take care. There's a whole 'nother world out there, just waiting to be discovered.

Take care in your journey.