Loving and Being Loved

Life had been crazy for awhile but when it happens slowly, you don't realize how much crazier it is than the average crazy.

Our family started down the out of control crazy path many years ago. Who knew? We were the frog in the proverbial frying pan, slowly heating up. Guess what? I jumped out. It took a lot, but I did it.

Can I go back? Back to when we were wonderful life partners. I read an excerpt from a lovely letter written by Richard Feynman to his dead wife. He wrote, "but I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you. I never thought until just now that we can do that. What should we do. We started to learn to make clothes together — or learn Chinese — or getting a movie projector. Can’t I do something now? No. I am alone without you."  I can so relate to these thoughts. My Secret Keeper and I had much in common. Now there is nobody that wants to spend 5 hours in the garden with me in companionable quiet or drive around and look at Christmas lights or watch a foreign film, a last minute walk at the beach or talk about our daily struggles. That's not entirely true but there isn't the one special person. I must adapt and learn to share things with those who love me. That's a tough one but I am learning.

At times I feel so ridiculous. Many people live without a partner. Some happily or contentedly and some resentfully and lonely. It's my choice which one I pick. It's my choice how I choose to share my joys and sorrows with the ones I love and love me. I will still give myself time to grieve but I will keep a check on it to make sure that it is not developing into resentments that cut me off from JOY.

Doing my 4th step in Al-Anon.  I'll let you know how it goes.  

Meanwhile, kindness helps me reach out to others and keep the walls from building.

Comments

Post a Comment

What do you have to say about that?

Popular posts from this blog

A Journey To Home

Image
My tender hearted girl decided she wanted to foster an old lady. Selkie is 14, is nearly deaf and nearly blind, has a hard time walking and uses her bark to get her needs met.  She got her home, took her for a bath and then basically loved this old girl for three weeks until the property manager decided that it wasn’t a good match (barking too much AND because she is a pit bull).  My girl knew it was probably temporary but she gave that dog a comfortable loving home, away from the chaos of the shelter, for a short time.  Ideally, she would have walked her home but that’s not how it worked this time.  Last night she stood and ugly cried on a strangers shoulder after giving her back.  I love that girl and her sweet heart.  I wish Selkie a new final home full of love. 
Read more

Private Eye

Image
We pass by the house frequently since it sits on a busy thoroughfare. We know to look every time we pass and guess what will we see. Will it be the two Dalmatians, sitting on the couch that backs up to the giant panel window, waiting for their human to come home? Or will it be their human, sitting slightly to the right of middle (allowing for a better view of the giant mounted tv across the room) of the said couch. They are never there at the same time. It’s one or the other. One sleepless night, when my body was willing but my brain was not, I did a little sleuthing. It’s amazing what you can find out about a complete stranger.   His name is Gary and, from what I can tell, he’s never been married. He has worked his way up in a air duct company. He’s now the senior VP but it’s a small company and he still goes out on jobs, judging from  the reviews on Yelp. I know he has two siblings and that their father passed away in 2018. His memorial was held in a Buddhist temple and Gary...
Read more

Go!

Image
 Vai. E, se der medo, vai con medo mesmo. When one is raised in an angry family, it’s not enough to say I don’t want to be angry. You must learn how to do it differently. That’s no easy task. If judgment and self hatred became a way of life, a new way to live has to be taught. There are many ways to do it. Reading, writing, sharing, practicing all help the change. Counseling, psychoanalysis, religion, meditation, gratitude, have the ability to transform but I needed to see it in action, it needed to be more tangible, visual, accessible. I needed to understand the possibilities. There is a YouTube channel that I watch over and over again in order to absorb how to live more fully, more open and from the heart. One of the first episodes that I stumbled on is this…. The channel is Reflections of Life and through it we get to meet people who are doing life a little differently, often more soul based. People who are living life, healing wounds and finding what is truly important.  I...
Read more