Category: Life in general

I miss writing.  It’s funny that something that came so naturally for me, for the majority of my life, now feels so foreign.  I’ve been trying to write here and there, but I always end up abandoning it for some reason or another.  My goal is to write one post a month, just to get myself used to stringing words together.  Here we go…

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One of the hardest, but most important, lessons I learned in those years when Blythe was ill, and our family was falling apart, was to live in the here and now.  It can sometimes be an annoyingly overused phrase in parenting circles, but it is so very true: Happiness exists in living in the moment.

I wasn’t able to do that, before.  Things needed to be planned, structured and organized at all times.  And when, inevitably, things didn’t turn out as I’d hoped, I went through feelings of stress, anxiety and sometimes, if my expectations were high enough, I’d find myself grieving the loss of something that never existed anywhere but in my mind.

Let’s say expectations, hopes and dreams are differently sized helium balloons, and in my former life there were so very many that I couldn’t ever find solid ground.  I clung to them, and they lifted me ever higher so that I had to focus all of my attention on what was ahead, making sure nothing escaped my grasp.  I had this perception that holding on to them was what put me in control of my life, but in reality, my thoughts and emotions were ruled by the wind and its whims.

Years ago, I struggled to hold on even as those balloons slipped from my fingers, each more rapidly than the last, because I felt as though letting go would cause me to crash to the Earth and be shattered and broken.  But then, as the future I planned disappeared into the clouds, I realized how good it felt to have my feet on the ground for the first time in years.  Sure, I was a little battered and bruised, but stronger and wiser.  The few balloons that remained were no longer a burden that needed my constant attention, yanking me this way and that.  They just lightened my steps and gave me something pretty to look at.

If I were an artist, I’d paint hopes as the smallest and most understatedly beautiful balloons, dreams a bit bigger and more dazzling, and expectations as gigantic, garish balloons that are hard to maneuver around.  Seeing them for what they are, I have learned to live without expectations because they’re not worth the trouble.

I am happy in a way I never knew was possible.  With no expectations about how things will turn out, disappointment is impossible.  Each new experience is much like a small child’s delight in a game of peek-a-boo, and as a result I find joy in the smallest of things.  This past summer, I watched clouds create themselves out of tiny little wisps of nothing, gain momentum, and go off to join thunder boomers in the higher mountains.  Have you ever witnessed a cloud being born?  In my whole life I’d never experienced such a thing, and it was truly amazing.  Something I not only wouldn’t have taken the time to do, but probably wouldn’t have appreciated, in my former life.

The goals I’ve set are so much more realistic and rewarding, because I keep them in the form of hopes and work my way toward them, accepting changes as they come.  It’s crazy how opportunities present themselves in the smallest of ways, and when I’m paying attention I can see them for what they are.

I find myself in want of nothing, and in need of little.  I live a simple, modest life in a small home with few possessions, but my life is far richer than it has ever been.  I’m surrounded by beauty in every direction.  I am fascinated by my work and that makes me feel like I’m not even working.  The relationships I have with my daughters are better than I ever could have imagined, and I am so proud of who they are.  We share our little life with a very special man, who values in me the things I value most in myself, and that is a wonderful feeling.  We have the best dog, and three mildly annoying but affectionate cats.  As a family, the little moments we share each day bring us so much joy, and the hopes we have for our future are bright and clear.

My feet are planted firmly on the ground, where they belong, and I am living a life I never would have thought to dream for myself.  Looking back, I can see that letting go was the best thing I’ve ever done.

It was dusk, and shadows from nearby trees stretched across both lanes to land at the feet of the woman walking along the side of the freeway.

In a rush to get home, I was moving too quickly to stop, but slowly enough to notice that she wore nice clothes, carried a small purse, and had beautiful brunette curls that bounced against her shoulders with every step.

When I took the next exit, the girls asked where we were going and I told them that we were turning around so we could offer that woman a ride.  There are no street lights along that stretch of the road, and anyway… she was miles from anywhere decent.  

We pulled up just as she reached the point where two freeways merge into one, and I was relieved to have gotten there before she had to cross two lanes of traffic in semi-darkness.  When I offered her a ride she hesitated, glanced back at the freeway and shivered, delicately, before nodding.

As I drove I snuck a sideways glance at my passenger and saw she was thin, in her early forties and pretty in a quiet way.  She was making her way to the Greyhound bus station.  The local buses had stopped running an hour before, so she had decided to walk.  She hoped she could still catch a bus leaving town.

The woman told me nothing else of herself, not even her name, and I didn’t ask.  She crossed her arms and looked out the window, and I couldn’t help but wonder about the thoughts running through her mind.

The bus station looked deserted as I pulled into the parking lot and I told her I hoped she could still find one tonight.  She sighed, grabbed her purse and a small bag I hadn’t noticed before.  “At least I’m in town now, and not on the freeway.  It was scary out there.” 

For the first time, she looked me full in the face and I saw her bruised right eye, her cut lip.  “Thank you,” she whispered, and opened the door.  At the same moment, we both saw the bloody tissue she had dropped and she snatched it up, quickly. 

“It’s okay,” I said.

And for her, I hope it will be.

I find myself sitting in muted silence.

No white noise, no static, no background music.

For someone who has always found comfort in words, the silence is sometimes deafening.

Have I disappeared from your life?

Most likely so, and I apologize.  I’m still here.  I still observe, listen, read.  But so often, I can’t find the words to join in the conversation.

It’s hard to explain the changes I’ve gone through.  Harder, still, to introduce people to the person I’ve become.  I’m still me, and yet I’m not.

For the most part, I’m somebody better than I was.

There’s this fluff that we carry around with us, over the top of who we are at our very core.  It shields us and gives us a buffer between our most bare, essential selves and the world around us.

I feel like I’ve lost mine.  Or, to be more precise, I’ve torn it off and set it ablaze.

I had a life that I loved, and it turned out that nothing about it was what I thought it was.  My carefully made plans, my hopes and dreams, all had to be released like balloons floating off into the distance.

It’s amazing to discover the person I’ve become, and to create a new life with new dreams, but I feel vulnerable.

I’m starting over as my truest, most authentic self.

And I have nothing to hide behind.