My sister, Sharon...

Last night we lost my oldest sister, Sharon. She was only 66. Your sisters and your entire family will miss you so much. You were truly, as Heidi said, love incarnate. The beating heart and soul of your family. Everyone who has ever known you will miss you dearly. Say hi to my momma, our mom and dad and your own beloved mom and sister for us all!!! Rest in the glorious peace you so totally deserve.

Cycles, Doors, Keys

Cycles of life...Doors & keys. You walk through a door to where you do not want to be and you stand there, holding the key, longing to go back in.

You start walking, looking back often, the key held to your heart, next to the longing to go back to what you knew and loved.

What's back behind that door shifts and changes, going on without you...as you go on in your live, outwardly moving on, inwardly holding that key, that longing, next to your heart.

Then, one day, a day you knew was coming, a day you braced yourself for happens, forcing you to open your hand to look at the key held there. Forcing you to face the reality that there is nothing that key to that door holds for you anymore and you MUST let it go...

Suspended timelessness...

I live a busy life. I don't know how my life got so busy, but it is what it is. Laundry, dishes, feeding the grandchild, water aerobics, visiting friends and family, I am on the go a LOT of the time...

I have some friends with a boat. They have invited me out on their boat, and I really like it. I went once toward the end of the season last year and then this year I've already been out with them 3 times. I've posted pictures on Facebook that I took of my first time out on Deer Lake and Long Lake.

Today we went back to Long Lake. It was almost picture perfect weather. We'd dropped out of the 100s and 90s and the temperature didn't hit much above 84 degrees. I'd taken a ton of pictures last time we were there so I didn't have my camera even out of my bag. We just skimmed the lake, stopped occasionally, skimmed the lake some more and basically relaxed. And then it happened...

I can't see my phone or my watch because of the glare on the lake so I didn't have my phone out or my watch on. I wasn't time driven, in other words. And I was overtaken by this sense of suspended timelessness. Not knowing what time it was made it feel like we'd been out on the lake all day, and that we would always be on the lake. It was positively blissful to feel that disconnected from the demands of/driving nature of "time" and "things that have to be done". 

For the first time in many weeks I felt totally, 100% relaxed. This is not a state I have achieved much in my lifetime. Floating clouds, blue skies and a rocking boat are an amazing relaxant. Stepping out of my "driven" life was a glorious thing. I am so thankful to have had that experience. A feeling of such oneness with nature, the lake, the sky, the people in the boat. Wow, what a great day. Thank you, my friends, for taking me along and including me in such peace and beauty and bliss.

Wow....

October of 2014 was my last post...about bathtubs...LOL

I am now 30 months past the day my life fell apart and I moved out of the house I loved and left the  man I loved more than sense dictated that I should. I wouldn't relive that first year alone for all the money in the world...so much pain, emoting, crying, smashing things, ripping things, trashing things. Thank God for my cat who would crawl up on my chest and lick the tears off my face and put her paw on my face as she butted my chin with her head. 

Year two was not as angst ridden. Lots of moments where I lost it, where I just wanted to scream and run and punch things, but, for the most part, I was finding my own balance, my own inner equilibrium. I was beginning to move through it all...I could see a light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how far away it looked. 

I am now in year three....Good God where does time go?...and there came a month, I think it was March, when I looked up and realized...the light at the end of the tunnel is here and now. I am no longer shredded by seeing him (we share kids, there is ALWAYS seeing him). I can hear "our song" without falling into a puddle of tears. I can think of our life together and not ache so badly that I want to crawl into a hole. I have a life. It's full and busy and I've even been dating!!!

When I left him, the man I thought of as the love of my life and my soul mate, I did a lot of research into how long it was going to take before I stopped thinking of him and aching for him every single second of every single day and the wisdom said about 1 full month for every year you were together. We were together 23 years...They were pretty close, those wise psychologists whose blogs I read avidly as I fought one of the most emotional battles in my life. 

I am thankful, so utterly thankful, to be here where I am now. To be at a place where I am enjoying my full and rich life full of friends (a special thank you to my BFF, Sheila, who is always there for me) and water aerobics and work and coworkers who ROCK the universe and family who stood by me while I grieved and didn't put me down for it (thank you to my children, Bethany, Amber (yes, even you were pretty gentle with me all things considered), David, Jeremy, Michael and Sean for letting me slog my way through the insanity of grief and pain without letting me fall off the edge of the earth, and a special thank you to my Daughter-in-Law, Tamara, for always asking me how I was, always caring, always letting me fall apart when it got so damn painful), without all of you I would never have made it through year 1. I am so blessed.

Onward into my new life!!!! May you all travel it with me!!!!