Happy Thanksgiving?

Everyone keeps asking me what I am doing for Thanksgiving. With a blank stare and downward turned face, I answer, “Eating at home,” as if someone had just called me fat. It hurts like an insult would. In the last week I made the enormous decision to put my beloved dog down. I didn’t anguish over the decision for hours, I saw her weight loss, her inability to keep anything down, her blindness and her struggle to walk and I instantly made one of the largest decisions of my life. I am however anguishing about how I am supposed to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for just two people. I have no idea how to live the life I have been handed. It makes me feel odd, as if people looking at me know instinctively there is something wrong with me. I haven’t felt that way in a really long time. In 1998 I felt this awkward sense of not belonging to my own life. Danny had died the year before and so help me, I didn’t know how to live without him. I had to teach myself to do everything alone. I went out to eat alone, went to movies alone, went to the store alone, and picked out furniture alone. I did everything alone. I suppose in some ways I did this in order to prepare myself for spinsterhood. I had been reassured that I would end up alone because nobody would want to marry a single mom with four darling children. I thought that was crazy at first, but then I dated and realized the odds were not in my favor. Recently I realized I have so much more to learn about the person I am becoming. I had practiced living by myself, and yet since marrying Michael, it is as if I have forgotten how to do anything alone. It is such a weird notion that I have to re-learn the hard lessons I was sure I had conquered. My truth in this is I like being married, not to just anybody, I proved with no uncertainty that I had to be married to a very specific kind of man, but married to Michael, well, it feels right. I like being his wife. I really like the way I am a better person when he is around. I am still me, but with Michael and his voice in my head I am calmer, wiser with our two heads, kinder with my overflowing time and abilities. With Michael I am more spherical, while alone I have pointy edges and a prickly exterior. I am more porcupine alone. The holidays are my favorite time of year. I love the decorations that start for me at Halloween and end at the New Year. This year I went all out for Halloween. I did it to be occupied and hide my quills. But Thanksgiving is different. There are no real decorations for Thanksgiving. It is all about gathering families and having a big meal together. It’s all about cooking for hours to feed the masses and falling down dead tired in front the television to watch and subsequently sleep during the hours of football. But this year I have no family to cook for, no men to insist on keeping score of their favorite teams. There will just be my eldest child and me, and just between us, I think she would rather be somewhere else. I can’t blame her; I understand that I have been just short of Miss Havisham. It’s hard to be around someone who is sad all the time. Feeling somewhere between guilt and hope she will decide to eat Thanksgiving with me, bless her little heart. She has showed up every single time I have needed her. My goal for year’s end is to try and need her less. Tomorrow I will go shopping for food for Thursday. Maybe a Cornish hen would do it. All I know for now, is I will not let this Thanksgiving go by without remembering how lucky I am to be missing everyone on Thanksgiving.

At Season's End

I received some sad news, again this week, that another beloved aunt passed away. Michael's aunt passed away weeks ago, and my aunt passed away a few days ago. They were a wonderful constant presence for us. His aunt I grew close to from the start. I was twenty the first time we met. She was immediately kind to me, accepting, inclusive. Later, we met again when I was a single mother and Michael and I were dating. She continued her kindness. I felt no judgment from her, which was a sweet relief; because the thing about being a single mother is there is plenty of judgment, even from those who barely know you. I felt only acceptance, only kindness. Aunt Estelle told me about the family. I referred to her often as the history keeper. She held within her memory all the family history. Her benevolence was not shared only with me, but all who she met. She was so smart, so involved in politics and the events of the day. Her activism had me captivated. My own aunt, Aunt Ginny was a very different personality, but just as important. Her influence was of family oriented education. She taught love every moment of her life. Her life was a difficult one, filled with grief and loss, yet she continued to softly, sweetly teach us all about eternal hope. She never gave way into the path of despair, or self pity. She reveled in all of our accomplishments and just wanted to be a part of the family, included in everything we were a part of, as well. These two very diverse women, so loving and kind gave everything of themselves for those they held dear. Both had suffered unthinkable losses and remained unchanged, undaunted in their determination to show empathy and compassion. I know from personal experience when one suffers an unthinkable blow; a “Y” in the road appears, to go left or right. One can decide to be forever altered, and give in to the despair, forever locked into the dance of sadness and grief, or one can decide, making an active choice to move forward, making sure to see those in similar pain, offering assistance and a shoulder when necessary. My daughter and I were discussing how some people come into our lives like seasons, not meaning to ever be permanent, but a temporary distraction in order to teach us something and then move on. It is in our late teens we discover for the first time what that truly feels like. It is disheartening, and clearly uncomfortable to have to let them go when the season ends. I have had many “friends” who were seasonal, becoming very close for a brief time until it became clear it was time for them to move on, either past me or through me, in order to travel their own journey. Some lessons left behind taught me what I wanted out of my life, and others made their distinction by teaching me what I did not want. Either way, they had done their job and it was time to keep traveling forward in my own life as I continued to try to be a much better person because of the roads I have taken rather than get mired in the mud, stuck in time and space, wrapped in guilt and grief. Michael and my aunts were lifers, those wonderfully loving individuals who stuck with us until the bitter end. They were in it for the long haul. We have lived long enough to know that just because someone is listed as family doesn’t mean they have to stick by you. Hard earned experiences have taught us to feel eternally grateful to those who have. These beautiful women gave us their hearts. They shared their minds and forgave us our sins. They remained people we could call in good and bad times and without judgment, without cynicism, they would reel us back into the reality of love. There really are no words for the loss we have suffered. I believe there is a finite group of people who love us for exactly who we are, regardless of our faults. This love, this all encompassing warmth, is one we all take for granted at some point in our lives until we are old enough to understand just how remarkable it is. As my beloved and I age, we are forced to let go of more and more of the finite group of family, whether by blood or choice, who are at an age when their work is done and it is time for them to rest. The world is a little cooler for us now asmwe are laying our loved ones to rest. The work for us continues to carry on their legacy. If we take anything away from these heartbreaks, let us keep in the forefront of our minds that kindness matters. Let us always choose good over easy, compassion over judgment, and warmth over cold indifference. We were taught firsthand how it is done to perfection, and we cannot un-ring that bell. Today, I carry Aunt Estelle and Aunt Ginny with me. Within me there remains capacity for growth, time for compassion, and room for love. I wish them as much love as they have given us all these years as they remain peacefully surrounded in light. When we feel discouraged their voices will be heard in our hearts and minds.

A Little Haunted

"Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) This is the quote from the final episode of the The Rosanne show. There are several quotes from that last show I really like. My favorite quotes came from the monologue at the very end, a show I did not see in it's entirety until tonight. I never knew how the series ended because it ended in 1997, the year Danny died. It is one of my gap years, a year filled with nothing but work, crisis and kids. I have had a few of those gap years, where my memory has some rather remarkable gaps because I had neither the time nor the will to hang onto anything that wasn't absolutely necessary. I did something rather unusual for me today, I took the entire day off. I did not work any of my multiple jobs, I didn't do housework, or laundry or mow the lawn. Instead I opted to sit on my sizable butt and watch the The Rosanne Show marathon. I stayed on my couch and let my brain completely shut off for awhile. You see I am a little haunted right now and my brain being what it is, is working overtime trying to make all the scattered pieces fit in some way. I have remnants of the recent ghosts in my life. September is the month Danny died so I always feel a little haunted, but now with so many others from our family gone, it seems as though the ghosts are everywhere. I have been finding pennies everyday now for weeks. I have even found fifteen dollars in fives in the grocery store parking lot. At first I thought Danny was trying to tell me something. If you have read my book, you know what I mean by that. If you haven't please understand, I cannot tell that story any better than I did in the book. As I picked up coin after coin, I wondered what the significance was. Before, when I would find them, the dates held some significance, but now they seem random, every year of my life represented in copper. My mind then shifted to the idea that maybe he was just trying to help me feel less alone. In that way, I guess he has been successful because every time I find one I think of him and smile and for a second forget how alone I really am. As I watched the very last episode of the show and saw how she tied it all together, and I felt tied to TV Rosanne. When the series first started I was married to Danny and we were a blue collar family. We had no money to speak of and our little family was trying to get by. It was nostalgia that had me glued to the couch today watching a show that represented the eighties for the working middle class. Danny and I had laughed so hard at the ridiculously funny bits, sitting together watching, relaxing in the evening after a hard day's work. I had lost track of most the television shows in the nineties. My time was stretched too thin to watch much of anything but a very few programs I had to schedule in. Rosanne was one the shows that didn't make the cut. Maybe I let it go because it reminded me too much of being with Danny. So, I never knew how thing went for TV Rosanne until today. The ending was fitting where I am right now, in my haunted state. The quote below is brilliant, and in all of Rosanne's shenanigans I think she has been under appreciated for what a brilliant writer she is in real life. I have such an appreciation for the grasp she had on being a middle class wife in a time in history when women were expected to do the impossible with no time and less money. "As a modern wife, I walked a tight rope between tradition and progress, and usually, I failed, by one outsider's standards or another's. But I figured out that neither winning nor losing count for women like they do for men. We women are the one's who transform everything we touch. And nothing on earth is higher than that. My writing's really what got me through the last year after Dan died. I mean at first I felt so betrayed as if he had left me for another women. When you're a blue-collar woman and your husband dies it takes away your whole sense of security." In 1997, when this originally aired it said exactly how I felt. I sort of wish now I had seen it, maybe then I would felt "seen". But in some ways this is better, with hindsight behind me and so much time gone now. My youngest son will be having a birthday in a few days. He turned seven years old in 1997, two days before his father died. Buying Tom cars for his birthday was the last gift Danny ever gave. I believe he willed himself to live to see Tom turn seven. Tom usually doesn't want to celebrate his birthday because, I think, for him it is almost disrespectful to take any attention away from his father. I being his mother, disagree and want to focus on the fact that his father so loved him, ravaged by cancer managed to be there for his son on the day we loved to celebrate. Tom's birth was the easiest, the most relaxed. Dan and I got to breathe deep and enjoy the first few hours of our son's life. He came out on time. He wasn't much of crier, matter of fact he smiled when he was only hours old. It wasn't gas, he looked at us, worked so hard to focus his tiny wandering eyes and then his face would break slowly into a wide smile and stay that way until we smiled back. Yes, nostalgic is what I have been for a little while now. The ghosts remind me so much of the past it is hard not wander back in time and remember what life was like when the kids were tiny and life revolved around "sandwich night". My Michael always gives me room in September to feel anyway I want. This year, he is too far to do anything different, another ghost. We talked tonight in low tones about how I am feeling, how he is feeling and what we need to do to try and fix our current conundrum, realizing of course, the best laid plans and all... I told him I am planning a Halloween party. He will not be able to be here for it. As I tell him of my plans we both sigh. One or the other of us inevitably says, "It is what it is" and we try and let it go. I told Michael since I am feeling haunted anyway, I might as well put it to good use and throw a party. He agreed it is a good idea to allow the ghosts to wander freely rather than to try and chase them. I suppose some may think my day was completely wasted sitting and watching a show that is fifteen years old, but I defend my time spent today. I needed to fall back for awhile and gather strength from my past. Today was not so much about what I have lost as much as it was about what I have learned. I am not the same person I was in 1997, I am so much more now. Back then I didn't know how to take care of myself, but now I do. Back then I didn't have the capacity for love that I have now. Now I can forgive so much easier, too. I realized today exactly how far I have come. I remember dreaming of the day when I would love someone and they would have the utter audacity to openly love me back. I remember dreaming of becoming a writer, and well, here I am. I had dreams, lots and lots of dreams. It was those dreams that got me through the really dark days. It is my dreams that get me through the darkness now. They are the beacon that lights up the shadowy hallways, illuminating my way, past the ghosts. Today was a day of reflection, resolution and more dreaming.

So Much Change

So much has happened in the last several weeks...again. Every time I am on my own, change comes sweeping in and altering my universe. An acquaintance said to me, "Change is inevitable, Kellie." Oh thank God your here to clear that up. Here I was thinking that everything I have ever known would be exactly the same year after year. Whew! I can finally put that existentialist question to bed. Look, I know I am being incredibly sarcastic, but really not as sarcastic as that useless comment. I know change happens, as does shit, and stuff. What has been happening to me, yes, I wrote to me, is more than the inevitable change. It's breath taking, not view type breath taking, more of the 'Oh dear God who did I piss off', kind of breath taking. Back in 1998, the year we were recovering from Danny's passing from cancer, I became acute aware of things I know for fact I never thought twice about. I began to notice people's expressions more, my surroundings, things that were done and said and things that were ignored. I had begun noticing everything around me whether it was a bug, or a human. I noticed how the wind blew, in what direction, whether or not it made the leaves swirl or merely fall off the tree. I noticed how not everyone was kind, or compassionate. See, up until then I had never been at the brunt of a true tragedy, so I had no life experience with how people acted or reacted. 1998 was the year I learned who I could count on and who I should let go. I had growing pains that year. In some ways I truly suffered, but in others the experience was priceless. I am living in a year right now that is as close to 1998 as I have had since my year of growing pains. I have pains again this year. I am being stretched to my very end, and some days I feel as though I may very well snap. Each day I get up and think, "Just let me get through it." I haven't thought that way since my 1998 'let's see how far we can push Kellie' year. This year I am once again being pushed, stretched, pulled in several directions at once to see if I will eventually snap. So far so good, and I remain intact. I am bruised, certainly battered and physically weaker due to a weird heart thing that began happening. I am under a doctors care about my heart. She has tested, talked counseled and directed me in the way I can take care of me, so the weird heart thing goes away. There is a condition called "broken heart syndrome", a condition that happens usually after a death of loved one or some extreme stress. The heart goes into cardiomyopathy, and feels much like a heart attack. When I woke up in a cold sweat on a Sunday night, sat bolt upright clutching my chest, my first sight was 'The Kardashions', evidently they had sneaked up on the screen after I fell asleep. My first thought was, "Oh, no one should have to die like this!" I waited until morning and went to see my doctor. We had a long conversation about my insomnia, a long standing problem that had recently gotten worse leaving me awake for 22 of the 24 hour period in a day. I usually clocked in at least 4 hours, but recently I had dropped down to 2 hours a night. I was exhausted, stressed out and becoming hopeless. You see I believe my heart is broken. I believe that psychology becomes pathology when left untreated. I cannot tell you if I had broken heart syndrome. I know my heart was not functioning, which left me with uncharacteristically large ankles, or kankles as some may know them. I know I would feel as though someone was bouncing around a basketball in my chest when I should have been fast asleep. I know that this summer has left me feeling battered, beaten and very very tired. And a little hopeless at times. I did all my necessary health stuff and found out my thyroid has decided to give up. Poor thing has been fighting a long hard battle without the necessary hormones for support, so I guess it was inevitable, you know, like change. I decided for me, for Mike and my sanity that limbo is not my forte. I forced a conversation and we made a decision. That decision has freed me up to start feeling like a human again. That one very large, life altering decision has made it possible for me to start thinking about moving on through all the changes instead of just enduring them. Michael came home and I was holding him so tight in my arms. I was breathing him, tasting his lips, inhaling his smell, touching his face. I was taking in all of him so I could carry him with me as we go through another set of very large changes. I heard my heart beat in tandem with his. The two seemed to instantly recognize the other and fall in sync. I can't say I will never be brokenhearted again. I can't say I will handle the new changes with grace and poise, I mean let's be real, it's still me we are talking about. But I can say, that whatever change is on it's way, there will be two hearts to take it on.

An Open Letter To My Sons

To my darling boys, loves of my life, breadth of my very soul, you have made me so very proud, so very happy, and so ultimately privileged to have you in my life. For decades now, I have had you in my life every day, seeing you grow, watching your successes, your failures, your heartbreak, and your abounding love. It seems unimaginable to me, that we will be apart. I have tried for days to wrap my brain around letting you go, allowing you to fly as you need to, yet feeling my heart hurt thinking of your absence. I know, cognitively I know, that this must be for now. I have seen how much you need to move on, move through me, to be the men you were born to be. It is my greatest hope that I am never the one who holds you down or back or keeps you from the future you have earned and desire. It is impossible for me to even think I could be happy not seeing you, sharing your world, having long talks on the patio about big life decisions, but even the most impossible at times must become possible in order for you to continue your journey. While it’s true this makes the tears fall down my face, know in your heart that I love you too much to want anything but the very best for you. I want you to be happy; above all else, you deserve to be happy. So not only will I not stand in your way, but I will assist you in your journey any way I can. That is the very description of motherly love, to allow your children to grow to their full potential in order for them to be happy, fulfilled, and loved. You are such good men, kind men, decent human beings. I am proud of how you have chosen those things, on your own. I have tried to teach you all I know, when I think about it, it could fit in a thimble. I tried my level best to show you the love I was always certain you deserved. I tried to be both mother and father after your father was no longer here to show you how to be a man. I married a man who I was certain loved you and would support you in your life. He loves you so much. He too is so very proud of you and this big leap you have decided to take for yourselves. The days you were born were some of the happiest of my life. You were born perfect. You both immediately bonded to each other, so it is no surprise that this journey is one you will make together. And that too makes me happy. This is my best piece of advice for you as you go off on your own: Be kind to yourself. Guard the life I have guarded so long. Forgive your transgressions, and allow yourselves your humanity. You must first own love in order to truly give it to others. Do not accept others negative or hurtful remarks or actions. It means nothing and has nothing at all to do with you or who you are. Let go of any hate mistakenly thrown your way. To hold on to it will only hurt you and use up your future. Do not waste your time on it. Remember, it means nothing. Be kind to those who have less in love, money, or life. It is in our decency to others that we show our true character. Be who you were born to be. Find compassion for those in need. Give to the poor, teach the ignorant, and help the helpless. You were born to be leaders of men; you will accomplish this by showing the world how a real man behaves. Say how you feel, follow your instincts and love deeply, even if it means getting hurt. Regret comes from not participating in your own life. Be fearless in your life; it is the one and nearly the only thing that ever truly belongs to you. Live as if failure were impossible. Speak thoughtfully, listen frequently, and take the time to enjoy the now. Revel in your friendships, laugh out loud in theaters, sing in public and dance in a parking lot under the lights and stars (I promise you, in the winter, you will feel the magic of it to your bones.) Remember where you came from. Those who paved this wonderful road for you did so out of love, hope and the promise of better days ahead. Take time to spend with family, and learn the history of them. Be the sponge in the room and listen closely to the stories. They are stories you will one day pass along to your own children. Respect the sacrifices of your grandparents, parents and yourselves. Make this time in your life count. Create your own future. See it in your mind’s eye and then take the steps to see it through to completion. I believe mind, body and soul that you can accomplish anything you choose. Most importantly, remember that I have loved you every day of your life and will love you for eternity, for love like the one I hold for you have no bounds from time or space or earthly laws. And look for the pennies. They are out there, and if you pay attention they will speak to you. Your father continues to love you from where he is. God speed my darlings, my loves. May God hold you in the palm of His hand until we meet again. Yours now and always, Mama

I Can Hear the Wings But I Can't See the Hummingbird

I recently put out my hummingbird feeders. I have several that I used to diligently put out at my old house. Since we moved a couple of years ago, I have been rather lazy about putting out food for any other animals than the ones who currently reside inside the house. This year I felt the need to try and entice my hummers to visit. My feeders would draw the hummingbirds, several at a time, doing their tactical maneuvers, wooshing past me and the lazy dogs sleeping in the sun. I would spend hours just watching them, amazed at their tiny frames doing what I was certain were physically impossible stunts. I love hummingbirds, their rather gruff chirping for such delicate creatures and their incessant need to guard the foodstuff, although as I wrote earlier, was plentiful. I do not own single piece of hummingbird paraphernalia. You will not see one hummingbird gooby in my house. I love the real ones, the ones who fly in to our area in the spring and disappear after September. I do not have a good or bad reason for not hanging my feeders here at this house until now. Maybe it is my lack of motivation to commit, or my need to keep things very simple while I am on my own. Maybe I wanted to wallow in my solitude, until now. Maybe my age had allowed me to forget I even had feeders until I recently went through some unattended boxes. Whatever reason I had, either consciously or subconsciously, it no longer matters, because the feeders out and the hummers are here. Now is what matters, right? We planted fruiting trees, blooming shrubs and vines that crawl the length of our fence. This foliage, while providing us shade and cooler air, also provide the environment for butterflies, geckos and now hummingbirds. All these delectable plants that are growing, blooming, sprouting off shoots are changing our yard into a haven for the tiny wildlife I so adore. Inside the arboretum that is our back yard, I have witnessed the largest butterflies I have ever seen. These mammoth winged beauties float around our yard. The day I buried my beloved cat, a long haired black and white lion king, I had put the last shovel of dirt on his grave when floating by me so close as to nearly touch me, a giant black and white butterfly landed on our blooming sweet almond verbena. My tears mixed with awe as I watched it fly around our yard and then disappear over the roof line. A sign, I thought, that Matches could see the love and return it without ever being present as he once was. One day as I sat outside in the humid air, sipping iced coffee, taking in natures sights and sounds, when a group of butterflies, I believe there were about five of them, began flying in a circle inside our gazebo. I sat grinning ear to ear, watching as they gracefully followed the circle as if they were attempting nothing more than to entertain me. It was magical. The only person I wanted to share this with was the one person with whom I have the least amount of time. I could call him, describe the beauty, the magic, the wonder of the moment, but I knew it would not be the same for him as it was for me. I have this toad, my friend, I now refer to as Mr. Toad, yes in reference to his wild ride, comes out of hiding every morning to sit with me while I have coffee. I turn on the outside light and the bugs all come and gather. Mr. Toad hops out to enjoy a hearty breakfast as I watch him gobble one insect after another. When my coffee time is finished and it is time to go back in to get ready for the day, he hops back from where he came. Much like my alarm clock, this early morning meeting has become inevitable. I have this tie to the nature that has come to our garden. I am respectfully staying a safe distance in order to allow them their confidence, while they entertain me for hours with what I think may be their mundane tasks. I sat one morning thinking of what it would be like if some creature were far above me watching my mundane tasks. would that creature find me as entertaining, as awe inspiring? Would vacuuming be equally as impressive to someone of a much larger intellect? Probably not, but the thought amused me, and if nothing else, being amused is something I need, so I allowed it. The caterpillars that ate my passion vine are now butterflies. The grubs that Bobo so likes to chew on, are now full grown beetles. The baby geckos that once took shelter in our small planters are now mating. They are evolving by leaps and bounds over the last few months, as have I. The hummers are here for another month and then they will migrate further south for the winter. I must take the time to watch them now, before they go and the feeders go back into storage. I wondered where I would be living in the next migratory season. I wondered if the feeders would ever make their way out of the large plastic container to be filled and hung, as lay in wait for the tiny birds to arrive. This weekend while Michael was home, we had to have several large, looming conversations. It was draining, scary, vulnerable, indecisive. These talks were everything I have come to hate about talking. I am not as comfortable at throwing myself bare, as one might think. But much like taking the garbage out, it had to be done. It was a group of kitchen sink talks. We had to discuss everything including the kitchen sink. Today it is about Dan and his birthday, making cookies, cooking a favorite meal. We stop for a few moments, and he takes my hand. He looks at me full in the face, and I see every word, every feeling, every fear, anxiety, hope and dream. There will be more conversations, more talking, and I will be better prepared. I promised him and me that this period of time will not be wasted, will not be misused, but rather respected for the changes it will inevitably bring. I will not be able to transform into a butterfly, and one would think that would be a fair outcome of all this growth. I will however take a lesson from them and remember it is up to me whether or not I can fly.

No Ifs, Ands, or Guts

I have been trying to let go and let God. The "why?" is still looming large, with no answer or logic. Logic is what I have come to depend on in my own decision making, sometimes to my own demise. I listen to my gut when logic is nowhere to be seen, but I fear that may be the wrong approach. I am beginning to understand that logic, my logic, should be reserved for the times when my gut has gone quiet. So much of what my eyes see and my ears take in is illogical, so why I am depending on something that is virtually nonexistent in my tactile world? It's the nurse in me, I suppose, who depends on symptoms, when I think this is the time to depend more on signs. Signs and symptoms are what all nurses depend on in order to make the best possible decision, usually in the most dire circumstances, but I am not seeing all the signs, because I am bogged down with symptoms. Here is what mean, I will see an angry student, hear them insult me, watch their face contort, feel the unpleasantness of their proximity, but I am missing the sign of their actual distress. They are not angry at me, hell, they do not even know me. They are fearful of how they are going to pay their bills. The signs all point to fear and anxiety. While they feel they have no time to take a breath and think things through, the truth is I have all the time in the world to do that in order to help them because I am outside the situation. I am learning this lesson everyday. It's one thing to listen, but to take in what someone is saying, really see them beyond their exterior facade, well, I am learning to do that with my contemporaries like I used to have to do with my old folks. That is the thing about the elderly and children when you work in medicine; they usually are unable to verbally express their concerns, so I used to be dependent on other senses, my gut, for instance, in figuring out the best way to help them. Since I have been retired I have gotten sloppy. I may even have gotten more judgmental, which I find to be unacceptable. Who am I to judge someone for their decisions, barring any great acts of violence, when I am clearly just as human, just as flawed, just as insecure as the next person? So I made the decision to actively be reticent to judge, to shy away from knee jerk responses from myself, as well as others. It takes practice and lots of it. Anger is an easy out. Being a terminal victim is an easy out, an uncomfortable one, but it is the path least resistance, and in the end will stunt personal growth, possibly for a lifetime. It's time for me to not think things through, but to feel my way. I have thought things to death over the last year and have not come up with what I feel to be an acceptable path to follow. So if thinking is off the table then feeling, following my senses, getting out of the way of myself, is the next step to finding out where I am going. It's not my first time at this rodeo. My last one had me falling on my ass more often than not, but I will say, I tried so many things I had been scared of because I let the logical cat out of the bag. Here is the scarier question I have been asking myself, "Have I taught my children to deduce their way, through logical and critical thinking, into a place of fear, instead of joyful leaping? Have I taught them to be so careful, that they no longer see the merit in spontaneity?" I have thought about that a lot since my youngest son moved out. Did I talk at him so long about the possible consequences that I ignored his need for adventure and willingness to accept the risk? And what of the saying, "with great risk comes great reward?" Oh my... You see with all the book learning I have done, with all the constant feeding of my brain, I may have forgotten to feed the rest of me, therefore starving my kids gut feelings as well. So there it is, my next step in learning may very well be not in a book, or classroom, but rather by listening to others, without judgment, and listening to my own body as it attempts to speak up even when I try and drown it out with logic. What Michael and I are experiencing is unpleasant, at best, but what if I am to take this time to focus on things I need in order to feed me? What if he is in this experience to find out where he wants to go in the near future (uh, with me in tow, of course)? What if the lesson is not about his job, or moving, or even if we have been grateful enough, a ridiculous thought for us at this point, but rather to take our individual selves to the next level, meeting once again together on a higher plane, one that does not have a company logo on it? I like it, this idea that I will not have to think so hard, so much about an insurmountable problem I cannot solve. So far today, by following my gut and not getting all anxiety ridden about real estate, job changes and kids, I have gotten more accomplished than I have in weeks. By letting go of my problems, by following instinct rather than thought process, I have gotten to the store, done laundry, walked the dogs, taken the recycling to the center, spent time outside reading a gardening magazine and written this blog. My gut says to go easy on me, my plate is full, so I shall. My gut full of fresh produce, is now wanting to spend time at the pool, soak up some sun, read a book later, clean out the fridge and pack my lunch for work tomorrow. My gut says things will be fine, eventually. My inner instinct tells me I have been through worse, and this time alone should not be wasted crying because it exists. So the next time someone comes at me all crazy, calling me thoughtless, my response will be, "I know, right? Isn't it marvelous?"