Tag Archives: future

Singing the Song for 2017

Posted on by learning to live like water

It’s New Year’s Eve. Time to reflect, to look forward, to enjoy the moment.

Reflecting….. Last year was a year of huge change for me. Never before have I had so many big changes in my life. Losing my mother. Retiring from a lifetime of work. Moving to Florida, to a completely different way of life. Moving my son away from me to Colorado. Ending a love affair that stopped bringing me pleasure a long time ago, and only brought me pain. And even so, it was a struggle to let go. But let go I finally have, completely.

All these changes were good. Every one of them. Even though I miss my son so much. I know he’s doing well, and happy, and making his own way. Thank God for cell phones, we talk every day. There are new people in my life, new friends, the budding of new relationships that bring a smile to my face.

I don’t deal with winter any more. That is such a blessing to me. I so hated being cold from the middle of October until the middle of April. Dressing in 4 or 5 layers, and still being cold. I hated dealing with snow, and the last few years we had mega amounts of snow up there, with only a few exceptional years. I hated driving in it, keeping the driveway clear and the walk ways, and being housebound.

Now…..when it gets cold here, it’s in the 50’s. And so far, for not more than 2 days, til the temperature creeps back up to the 70’s or 80’s. I can walk every day along the beach. I can see the ocean every day. The water here on the Gulf coast is warm, and calm, and soothing. Usually I am dressed in one layer, and more often than not, it’s shorts, or skorts (the skirts with shorts under them).

To be able to spend time with my sister on a regular basis is such a blessing. We are becoming so close. It has eased the pain of losing our mother last year. We joke all the time about how we channel her for each other. She and I have not lived close to one another since we moved out of the house around age 20. I’m going back there today, invited to her neighbor’s New Year’s Eve party which promises to be a blast, and it’s right across the street!. No driving with the drunks….

The future is looking bright. There is a possibility of a budding relationship. It is moving slowly, at a speed which, while sometimes frustrating for me, is a good thing really. I’m sitting back and let the universe drive the train. It’s fun to feel that way again, and actually have it reciprocated.

Financially I feel secure. Avalon, my home, my place of new beginnings, is coming along. All the big work is now completed. There are some jobs like tree-trimming, putting up a shed, landscaping that need to be done, but they will be done over the next few months.

Mostly, I have given up worry over things I cannot control. I have come to believe that the Universe has a grand design, which we cannot possibly understand in human terms, and that all will work out for the highest good of all. It’s not so much Pollyanna, it’s just that I agree with Marianne Williamson that the universe is self-organizing and self-correcting. It has been the way it’s worked for me, over and over again. I know that many people won’t agree with me, in fact, maybe most. It’s just the way it is from the perspective of my life. Not asking anyone else to believe it.

This year, I think I will try to do more giving back. There are a few things I’ve discovered here which I can get involved with that might make a difference in someone else’s life. I mean, I have such a happy life here. So free of drama and pain, so full of joy. I want to spread that around as much as I can.

Life is for living, for singing a joyful song. I’ve always known that, even though I’ve had a hard time singing so often. Through an abusive marriage, a failed love affair, a long period of terrible financial insecurity, I still always believed I could one day sing the song again.

I’m singing it now. It’s in my head, lol, I still don’t sing in front of people. But those close to me can hear the song. I guess this is why I trust that the universe is on it, organizing and correcting for the higher benefit of all. Because it’s taken me from terrible darkness, to the sunlight of Florida.

Love and light, everyone. Have a Happy New Year!

Life IS Surely Calling Me

Posted on by learning to live like water

I was so tired when I got home last night. I wrote, because I wanted, as always, to try to record it while it was still fresh. This morning I remembered a couple other things that were kinda cool yesterday, and actually just coincidental, but then there aren’t any coincidences, so think what you will….

On the way to work I take the back roads through the town I live in, because they’re paving the main road and the pavement is a mess. But going this way, which is a road around the lake in town, there is a spot where they have closed the road down to one lane for construction. They have a stop sign at either end and the one lane section is about 50′ with jersey barriers on either side. Generally you stop and take turns with the cars lined up on the other side. Yesterday however, they had a cop there directing the flow of traffic and he was waving the whole line through. He was a big guy, and I’m gonna guess in his 50’s. At least, from a quick glance obviously not a kid. As he waved me through, making that “come on” motion with his hand, I looked at him. He changed his hand motion to an actual wave, with a big smile. The kind of smile that made me giggle, lol. I thought what a nice way to start the day, having some random man kind of flirt with me, lol! At my age you take it where you can get it, lol.

The other thing was that last night when I got into my car to drive to the restaurant where we were all meeting, I plugged my phone into the stereo as I always do. I always have all my music on shuffle, so it just plays in random order all the time. But I thought it was so cool, and really, such a message from the universe, that when I put it on, as I drove out of work for the last time, Beth Hart’s song called Life is Calling began to play. How friggin’ perfect is that?

I got to the restaurant in a couple of minutes, it’s very close to work. And sat in the car til the song ended. As it ended and I got out of the car, my dear dear friend who retired in January was walking up to the car, with a gift bag of goodies.

It’s been a long time since I spent a day feeling loved, and loving back. I hope it becomes the norm, because what a lift it gave me.

Just wanted to remember those two things too, about yesterday. I’ve put the song “Life is Calling” up before, but am putting it again, since I feel like it’s absolutely how I feel.

Love and light.

Self Regained, A Poem

Posted on by learning to live like water

whatyouseek

I was at that place today
You know the one.
You’ve been there too.

Daydreams collide
Fiction and fantasy
What was and what wasn’t
What could be and what can’t.
What is, and what isn’t.

Confusion and conflict wove
My head and my heart
Into a chaotic tapestry
Of love and pain, regret and hope.

Things I’d forgotten,
Or, tried to,
Danced rings around my psyche
Spiraling around me
Squeezing the breath out of me.

Days yet to come
Jousted for position
Among the dancers
Painting the pictures with the wind
On the surface of my soul.

I stayed there til it settled.
The spinning stopped,
The dancers grew tired,
The jousting painters dipped their brushes
Tentatively, beginning their work.

And I, in the center,
Of all that commotion
Regained myself.

Moving Onward in 2016

Posted on by learning to live like water

OnwardAndUpward

2016, Finally!

I am so glad to leave the past year behind. I learned so much, I lived such extreme experiences. I can’t say it was a waste of time, I can only say it was really hard. Not what I expected at this age.

This year, I have some plans, really good plans that will propel me closer to the life I want to live. I’ve been off of work, and have been able to do some of the things I need to get done to sell my house. The more I do, the more I want to get done. I am so excited for this move. To be far away from the drama that played out in my life, unbidden. To live within 20 minutes of the beach will be a dream come true, in a climate where I can walk on it and not freeze ever. That sounds like heaven to me. I’ll still come back to New England in the summer, and visit friends, during the hottest part of the summer in Florida. My friends and I figure I can spend a month here, staying with various friends. Who will be visiting me in Florida in the dead of the cold winter. It feels win-win to me.

My mom seems to be doing well. She is slipping into dementia, at 94. Caused mostly by her inability to communicate, or read or write, which were her passions. But she seems pretty healthy, and when I spoke to her yesterday, she could still laugh, and recognize my voice. Which brings me joy. I would love if even for a few months I could go visit her daily.

I went out with a friend last night. We went to a hibachi grill and really enjoyed the show the chef puts on in front of you. Flicking food from the grill into people’s mouths from the grill, shooting saki in to people’s mouths, building volcano fires with rings of onions. The food was good too. We totally enjoyed it.

Then we came back to my house, watched some of the New Year’s Eve shows on TV, and talked talked talked. We both had relationships in which we were totally in love, that ended badly during the last year. But we are both moving on, both doing our best to let them go. We are both selling our homes in the spring. Her kids are thinking of moving away to be close to their father for awhile, he’s lived away from them for a long time now and wants them to move near him. She would never stop them, but is not happy about it. She says if they do, though, when she sells the house she may move to Florida too! If her kids move, she has no family ties here, and is a nurse, she can work anywhere. She has a friend near where I want to be that loves it, and it’s really starting to look like a good idea to her. That would be so much fun. She’s my one single friend here who likes to go out and have fun! She’s younger than me by almost 15 years, but we have been friends for 18 years, we used to boat together when our families were intact. Our kids went to school together. My son and her daughter have been really good friends for most of their lives.

I was talking to her about blogging and showed her some of my work. She read one of my poems while I was out of the room, and it made her cry. I showed her some of the stuff I wrote about Scott, the good stuff. She was like God, what is the matter with him, to have someone who loves him like this and then do what he did? She noted how I wear my heart on my sleeve, especially in my writing. He knew, he always knew how I felt. The fact that he could not honor that is his defect, not mine for loving him.

It made me feel good that she felt what I felt when I wrote it, but it also just made me laugh, because there I was, thinking I’d never get over him, and I’m over him, lol. Even last night, we were talking about what we did last New Years. I said, I was with Scott, it was one of my best New Year’s ever. But it didn’t hurt to say it. Nor did I feel the need to question it, and his motives. We had a good time, then. It got all f’d up months later. But I have to say, it was real back then. It was just the two of us, there were no other people involved. I think his feelings then were as genuine as he can be.

No regrets.

I got a Happy New Year message from Addison. Nothing more, no message, just happy new year. Later, I sent him one back, and said “Happy New Year Addison. I hope you find what you are looking for in 2016. I wish you peace.” I heard nothing else from him, don’t expect to. I’m sure it hit a nerve that I called him Addison, not Addie. I talked to my friend about him. How he met this woman on a Friday, Saturday he’s talking about coming to see me, and how I have broken his heart so many times, and Sunday night he’s living in this woman’s house for a week, “to see how we do after we’re together for a week.” Talk about dying to fall in love, and doing it with the first woman that smiled his way. Too needy for me. Needy is near the top of the list of things I can’t stand in a man.

On Christmas, I sent him a Merry Christmas text. I said I hoped he was well. He answered me, “Merry Christmas. Tobi and I just finished breakfast.” Which was just, weird! This is a man who called me his best friend, who sent me kisses and hugs and hearts with every message. Until the Sunday night (two days after he met her) that he had decided to stay with her for a week. He said, “She knows about you.” Scott also told me that about Betty.

And I want to say to both of them, “What does she know?” I knew for a fact that Betty didn’t know the truth at all. But she does now. To Addie, “does she know how much you were in love with me? How you sent me pictures of yourself lying in bed every morning and night, (not naked pictures, just like, good morning and good night, with a smile on his face.) and wanted to come see me for 2 ½ weeks at Christmas? That if I’d agreed, she would not be in the picture?” I doubt that she knows that.

The fact that he had to change the way he communicated with me, immediately, spoke volumes about her being uncomfortable with his relationship with me. Which is fine, but he should have said that to me. “She’s not comfortable with the way we communicated, so I’m going to honor that for the time being….I still love you, as my friend.” Whatever. He never could have the hard conversations. And if you can’t, you probably won’t be my friend for long.

It’s amazing how these two men tried to rewrite history when they were with another woman. I couldn’t do that for a minute. I was clear with Addie, that I was still grieving Scott, when he wanted to come here. I made sure he knew how I loved Scott. I’m not going to let someone make up a story in their head about what was or wasn’t going on.

But I wish him the best. And Scott.

This morning, the first day of 2016, I feel my life is richer, fuller, that I have a greater wealth of experience for having lived through the trials of 2015. My perspective has broadened, my understanding of what I want, and what it will take to get it, is deeper. I always knew I could get through the heartbreak, the trauma. I always said I was strong. Scott disagreed with me, because he could make me cry so easily. I bet he sees me differently now.

It’s a good way to start the year. Positive, looking forward, happy.

As Liz Gilbert says, “ONWARD!” For 2016, let us all move ONWARD!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Livin’ The Dream

Posted on by learning to live like water

Yesterday was one of those days where I slipped backward, by my own hand.  I didn’t have to continue that conversation.  I chose to.  There is a momentary comfort in speaking to him as we used to.  And then there is the utter sadness again as I have to face the fact that we’re just pretending.

Today I look forward.  It’s cold here this morning.  Around freezing.  I hear my furnace go on, burning that fuel oil.  It could be worse.  It’s snowing in Denver, crazy snowing.  Soon enough it will be snowing here.  It will be my last winter.  Next winter, I hope to be walking on the beach, not wrapping up in blankets.  Hoping coconuts don’t fall on my car and dent it.  Hanging out with my sister and my mother and my friends.  Making new friends.  Maybe I’ll have found a new love by then, someone who actually can want me the way I want him.  I’ll wake up and sit outside, with my coffee, and my blog.  Smelling bouganvilla and hibiscus.  I can almost feel the balmy air on my neck.

I won’t be snow-blowing, or raking leaves, or crying about a relationship that would never work.   Maybe by then I’ll just think of him fondly for a moment, and then, smiling, run to the arms of the man who wants me.  For a long time, I thought I’d share it with him, but now, I know, I’ll share it with someone else, who knows what he wants and knows what he wants is me.  I believe it can happen.  I’m excited at the prospect.

I am grateful this morning, for my life.  For my home, for my peeps, for my breath, for my health.  For my dreams….oh this morning mostly for my dreams, which lift me out of the dark doldrums, and living in the past and point me to a future, full of love and light.