In His hands

Yesterday I took my longing to be part of a couple and put it in God's hands.  I literally visualized this transfer, tucking God's fingers around my desire.  I know He will tenderly keep it.  I no longer have to concern myself with it.

It's been weighing me down.  Yes, I am single, and would love a man to delight in me and have my back.  Yes, I would love to delight in him and have his back.  But God can use me to love whether there's a man in the picture or not.  NO MAN DOES NOT MEAN NO EMBRACE.   Nothing and no one can keep me from embracing LIFE.   That, at least, is under my control.

In the last two and a half years I've tried my best to connect with new love.  Boy, getting back into the singles market has been quite an education!  I have no regrets.

I turned myself from a widow, defined by my past, into a single woman alive to my future.  I became more fit, attractive, and adaptable to new and entirely different men.  No one's going to be like my dear husband, and I'm not going to ask them to.  Since I don't meet men around every corner, and I want a man to judge me by content as well as cover, I went online.  Ah, the importance of the Profile.  Good thing I love to write.  I learned a lot.  Different bait, different catch. But much more importantly, I learned to describe myself in a positive light.   I began to see myself in a positive light.

Now I've become pretty comfortable with the meet and greet part of courtship.  I've become pretty comfortable with the attention that comes after.  Most gratefully, I've learned of my value through a couple of very special mens' eyes.  I've learned to make decisions based on my best interests, which are to remain loving and open.

The lesson I most want to learn in life is how to be more loving.   I can do no better than by putting myself in God's hands.  My profile's still on one site, and I'm not holding my breath.

You Reap what you Sow

I found out yesterday that my stepdaughter has a new baby girl, whom she adopted a week ago when she was born.  Congratulations!  Mom and baby daughter are together at her Mom's.  I'm happy for them and sad for myself.  My stepdaughter and her real Mom are close since her father (my husband) died.  I backed out of her life gradually after he died and she got married.   

I hadn't realized how far.  I found out about her new baby through her Facebook entry.  I've known her and her brother since they were teenagers, twenty five years ago.  They lived with their father and me briefly.  They've grown up to be wonderful adults with families of their own.  I love and admire them from a distance. 

I can only hope they admire and love me from a distance.

I contacted my stepdaughter via Facebook, congratulating her.   I've sent baby Julia a wonderful gift and will call her Mom when she's settled in.

Happy Valentine's Day

This isn't a pep talk for all us lonely widows. 

It's not a philosophical talk about the bearable lightness of single life.

It's not a wistful surrender to the past.

This is simply to say that love comes in many forms, and to say no to whatever form it is appearing in today is to slap love in its face.

And that is utterly stupid.

Happy Valentine's Day, friends and family.  I am blessed to know you.  I love you.

Is it happening again?

Shoot.  I don't want to do care giving again.  I got a call last night from my oldest sister.  She and her husband took my 98 year old father to the ER.  He requires some degree of medical intervention and some degree of care in his home afterward.  How much?  When?  Now?  My brother's lined up to be Dad's caregiver.  Will he be there when Dad gets out of the hospital?  Do I have to live with Dad?

Flashback to 2002 through 2005.  Three years of 24/7 care for my dying husband.  On my own with the exception of six weeks' help from his daughter and six days' help from my sister.  God bless them both!  Three years of pills, injections, chemo infusions, stem cell apheresis, plasma transfusions, operations, therapy, clinical trials, weight loss, temporary blindness, chemo brain, steroid personality, no immune system, sterile house, cooked food only, pneumonia, ER, thousands of miles on the car. 

Doctors warned me. If I got sick, he could die.  With no immune system, my husband couldn't even fight off the smallest cold!   Well, I didn't get sick but once, and my husband survived.

I phoned my sisters.  They helped calm me down. My father's situation is entirely different.

It's not happening again. 

Tears

I didn't cry at his funeral.  I didn't cry for a very very long time.  The learning curve for my new life required not falling apart. I trusted my grieving process.  God was in charge.  The SSRI's I took clipped the highs and the lows I probably would have felt, but I needed them to stay on an even keel.

I kept the house (our house), and now, after nearly seven years, I can handle its maintenance for the most part.  I'm blessed to have a house, and I don't complain.  I've learned so much!  Now I can diagnose and repair a sump pump if I need to - had to once during a flood in my basement.  I can haul buckets of water from the flooded basement for 32 hours straight - had to during an extended power outage.  I can install electrical switches, wireless networking, and surround sound systems.  I can start and use my new gas lawnmower, leaf blower and snow blower (I still need help starting my generator).  I can redecorate rooms with simple carpentry (moulding, mostly), wallpaper,  and paint.  I can use a power paint spray machine and fix it when it clogs.  I can install and maintain an electric fence around my property (for four footed garden interlopers).   I can haul 50 lb bags of rocks, and cut down small trees.  Right now my roof is leaking. The whole darn roof needs to be replaced. That I can't do.  My carpenter is pulling shingles and plywood off over my head and the Insurance Adjuster is coming tomorrow.

I was managing pretty well five years into widowhood.  I stopped the SSRI medication.  I was OK.  Odd. No tears.

I fell in love.  My heart came back to big beautiful life.  We parted after two months.

It was my time to cry.

It will sort itself out

Seductive words, aren't these?  I could be ill, or worse, dead if I wait for life to sort itself out. Time will sort me right out of existence!  I'd rather take a more active role in my fate, with eyes wide open, a deep centering breath, willingness, keeping an open heart and mind, faith, taking action.  I like the 'forge ahead' way to sort my life out.

I only get so far into my unknown future before I run back to the comfort of the familiar.  It's time to do an inventory of the ingredients of my existence and bring them to the table.  Sort them out.  Perhaps my course will become apparent.  Joy and purpose will return to my life.

Inventory

Not very clever, but smart enough.  Creative, relying on my Creator.  Socially insecure among people I don't know.  Ambitious.  Sensory and sensual.  Stubborn and strong.  Optimistic and trusting.  Lonely, in large ways and small.  Loving, with a heart that can burst.  Honest.  Healthy.  Selective.  Focused.  Receptive.  Financially secure, a biggie. 

Ah!  I see it right there.  The piece that's out of joint.  Ambitious.  I want to lay the groundwork of my present and future in such a way that I matter and delight others.  I am ambitious not only to be relevant, but to impress others.  I want my ego stroked!  Darn!  This is tripping me up.

If I don't have to pander to my ego, a lot of possibilities emerge.  Here goes.  Eyes wide open, deep breath, less ego, open heart, open mind, faith, action.

Continue sorting. Only keep what's useful for God, the author of love, to use.