Our Own Path

A lot has happened since my last post, a lot of exhausting things.  I’ve learned something.  Just because something is exhausting, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a bad thing.  When friends ask about my new job, one of the first things that comes up is the “Stress Level.”  Is this position less stress?  Is it easier?  Do I enjoy it more?  No, No, and Yes.

Precipice

***Below is another draft blog post.  This one was written on November 16, 2011, almost two years ago now.  The event I refer to below is now even further in my past.  

I’m thankful for the gift of time.  Some pain never completely goes away, but time does heal.  Pain changes us in both good and bad ways.  I will never understand why things happened as they did.  I wish that I didn’t have this knowledge and experience with lies, cruelty, and deception.  I have been forever changed in ways that still make me sad.  I mourn my loss of innocence and my loss of the ability to trust.  I still struggle with the fact that I often expect the worst from people instead of seeing their best.  

However, I did learn one lesson that I hope to never forget.  At my darkest hour, I found myself alone, and I blame myself for that fact.  I had cut myself off from the good things in my life.  I had lost my relationship with God; I had emotionally distanced myself from my family and friends.  My emotions, loyalties, energy, and efforts had been misplaced.  I was lost, and it was my own fault.  I poured my emotions into blogging.  I talked to a therapist seeking answers.  Neither of those things worked.  The blog helped sometimes, but in the end, I was still alone.  The therapist helped even less.  I was seeking answers, reaching out like a person in the dark.  I was grasping and lost.

Life IS better now.  I am beginning to find my way.  I know who I am and where I am.  I’m beginning to soften and to carefully trust again…very carefully.

As I drove to work this morning, my thoughts were full of where I was in my life on THIS DAY exactly one year ago.  November 16, 2010 was the date of the biggest betrayal of my life.  I remembered phone conversations from that terrible day.  I remembered what I wore, gold skirt and a black sweater.  I remembered sitting on my therapist’s couch, and I was shaking with fear.  I was worried, yet hopeful.

Let’s Go Home

T came to visit us early last weekend.  He had to be in Milwaukee for a second interview on Friday, so he came to my house to stay the evening before to cut down on travel time and the need to get up ridiculously early.  He had never been here for a visit on a “regular” work/school day, and he asked a lot of questions.  “Is this what you guys usually do?”  “Do you want me to do that for you?”  (As we all prepared our own dinners and did the evening household chores.)  He seemed like an observer in his own “home” as the girls and I went about our regular routines.  He observed it all with a smile.  The three women in his life may not be doing things the way he would do them, but we had somehow managed to come up with a routine that worked for us.  Four months apart, four months in separate homes, has changed all of us.  We have all grown, and we have all found the strength to face a multitude of changes.  With all of the growth and strength, we have also discovered something else.  Even with all of this new-found independence sprouting up all over the place, we have learned (the hard way!) how very much we all need each other – not to do things for each other or because we can’t live without each other.  We have found that our lives are BETTER when we are together.

Three Months Out

I’ve been thinking about this blog a lot lately.  I have intended to write an update for weeks.  The truth is, I have been too busy, too overwhelmed, and often too tired.  So much has happened during these past months.  I don’t know where to begin.  I’ll start with the basics.

I have moved, and I’m beginning to feel somewhat settled.  I’ve begun to feel a sense of “new normal” beginning to emerge over the past few weeks.  I am renting a nice house in a lovely neighborhood.  The girls live with me and are adjusting nicely.  T is still living in our home two hours away.  Both our home and my parents’ home remain on the market.   We have had three different offers on the homes fall through.  An offer is pending now on my parents’ home, but I’m taking wagers on when this most recent offer will hit the proverbial brick wall.  T visits us on the weekends.  He has a potential job offer in the works, but I’m trying not to think too much about anything that isn’t final.  I’ve begun to learn that until the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted, ANYTHING can happen.  (I’ve had to learn that lesson the hard way!)

Optimism

I’ve spent the past few years plodding along, but not really going anywhere.  Certainly, the past few years have been filled with loss and change.  Life changes our plans, and sometimes our plans change our lives.  Sometimes we can control the changes in our lives.  Other times, the changes take control and pull us along with or without our consent.  I have learned something important, though.  Most days are there for the taking.  Most days at least have the potential to be a GOOD DAY.   What happens, though? Well, I certainly can’t speak for anyone else, but I know what my problem has been.  Instead of treating each day as a gift full of potential, I have continued pedaling along on a course that goes nowhere.  Too often, I have looked back at days that are in the past, agonized over things beyond my control,  and wasted the potential of each fresh, new day.  It’s time to get off of the hamster wheel.

Less Than Four Hours

It’s on its way.  NOVEMBER.  God, how I hate November!  I have a calendar hanging in my office.  It has prints of art deco Parisian fashion plates, and I have loved seeing each new picture as I turn the page on another month.  However, in October, each time I have looked up at my calendar, I have felt dread.  Tomorrow,  I turn will turn the page to November.  For the next month, memories will haunt me.  So many bad memories crammed into a short span in the calendar year.  I should be grateful that the other months of the calendar are free from memories of loss, death, and confusion.  I won’t breathe freely until mid-December.  I’ll just be waiting for yet another tragedy to add to the tally.

Too Many Goodbyes

I called my son Andrew last night, and I told him, “I hate this whole f’ing growing up thing!”  He said, “Whoa, Mom!”  He knew what I meant.  We had been talking about his brother’s visit home last week.  While Andrew wanted to hear all about it, he hated the fact that he had not been able to come home, too.  He said, “I wish that I could be part of the antics, Mom.”

“You and Your Damn Cornfields”

When I take the train, I generally sit in the lounge car.  The best thing about train travel for an ADD person like myself is the ability to move around.  I am up and out of my seat as soon as the conductor takes my ticket.