Dreaming

I dreamed this morning that Tinker came back.  A little dirty and skinnier but alive and wiggly and happy to see me.  I was so overcome with relief that I lay down on the ground and just hugged and hugged her.  Then I woke up.

Oh how I miss you Tinky….

Mornings with Mom

In a conversation with mom this morning while I was having coffee with her, she asked if I had a fire at my house what would I save.  I didn’t have to think long, the most precious things I have at my house are my pets.  As long as they’re safe I’m good.

Now that I think back on that, I find it pretty remarkable.  Is this an indication of the simplicity of the life I have created for myself?  There are plenty of things in my house that I am fond of and would probably miss but in the event of a catastrophe I would leave them with never a backward glance.

Fortunately, because of my work circumstances, most of my photographic history is there in files, on the computer and on a flash drive which I keep in my purse.  Now because of Facebook there is also a medium for saving photos.  So I think I can put that particular worry to bed.  I might take a little more care to make sure I’ve copied the most recent stuff to my flash drive though.

I love these mornings with mom when we can talk about our plans for the day, world events, what is going on with family members, etc.  I know in the future I will look back on this time as one of the particular treasures of my life.  Life is so short and unpredictable, I have been so blessed to have this time.

Stillness

On November 11, 2013 I began my meditation journey.   At the time I had high blood pressure, smoked, drank every day and was seventy pounds overweight.  Living in mom’s house while working on mine, I was dealing with a lack of privacy and solitude and baths!  The bath thing was especially difficult since I have, all of my adult life, loved to take a hot bath before I go to bed at night.  I was living in mom’s basement which only had a shower….and I hate showers!  Having just moved to Kentucky and started a new business and not having a place of my own, I was really stressed out.

I started with Deepak Chopra and Oprah’s 21 Day Meditation Series just thinking I would do the 21 days and see if it made me feel any better.  Four years later I own almost every one of their 21 day challenges and I meditate every day.  This has become such an integral part of my life that I cannot imagine going without it.  Has it made a difference in my life?  Absolutely!

The most immediate difference I saw was a feeling of being able to find a place of stillness every day.  One of the ways that I have evolved over the past ten years is that I love solitude and I really struggle when I have none.  Meditation gave me that small amount of solitude I could reside in each morning.  Where I could be alone and still and quiet.  What a blessing in a chaotic existence!

By March I was ready to quit smoking (again) and I set a date of March 24th which is dad’s birthday.  I was absolutely committed and there was no question of failure.  I meditated in the morning as well as when I came home from work in the evening. Evenings were when I most enjoyed smoking.  It worked, I quit cold turkey and I was irritable and miserable enough during that first month to promise myself that I would never pick up another cigarette.  To date, 3 1/2 years later I am nicotine free and will be for the rest of my life.

There have been so many benefits over this period of time.  I eat healthy, get plenty of sleep and I am working on quitting drinking and losing weight.  I feel more in touch with myself, I am happier, I am less likely to take any crap from anyone because I believe in myself and what I am worth.  I know I deserve the best that life has to give and I take the time to be present in the here and now which is the only way to truly live.  I am me….I am enough….I am worth it!  Namaste

Snapshots

Time is a funny thing….as I was on the way to work this morning I had this picture in my mind of Becky and me folding clothes.  It’s funny, I think that only happened one time when John and I had returned from Colorado and were staying with Becky and Vernon until we could move into the house we had just bought.  I had a basket of clean clothes to fold and Becky was helping me.  Now that she is gone, one of the times I always think of her is when I am folding clothes.  What a precious soul she was….I couldn’t have asked for a better sister-in-law.  I will always miss her.

I guess the reason my mind had wandered back to the past was because we lost Glen Campbell yesterday.  I listened to a couple of his songs and, as always happens when I listen to classic music, I relived moments in time when I was a teenager and hearing these songs for the first time.  I find it amazing how easily and clearly I can recall exactly how I was feeling back then.  These moments that I have lived that are precious to me and so accessible.  It only takes the smallest thing to trigger that rush of feelings and memories that put me back in touch with me at different stages of my life.

That’s reassuring to me as I grow in age and in wisdom (I hope), just knowing that I can revisit those special times in my life with people I miss.  It has also been a comfort to me in my estrangement from my oldest son to be able to remember him through the different stages of his childhood.  For the first four years of his life he was my buddy, my closest companion.  He was the best big brother Adam and Justin could have asked for and I will forever be sorry to have lost his presence in my life.  I have been blessed to be able to be a part of Sterling and Lexy’s and Keegan’s lives, his children and grandson, and treasure any small moments in time I have with them.  Those snapshots in time will forever be with me.

I see my little buddy looking back at me through those eyes…….

 

Muffin and Me

These last two months have been a period of loss for me.  On June 1st Tinker disappeared on the farm and to this date (August 8th) we have found no trace of her.  I feel such a void in my life which I know is only going to deepen once mom and pop go back to Colorado and I have more solitude.  That is when it will really set in that my little buddy is truly gone.  Muffin has seemed a little confused to be the only dog in the family now and she asks for a lot more attention.

I know that right after it happened I went into my past coping mode of drinking every night.  All my resolutions out the window as I drank and cried and stayed up later at night only to surrender to restless sleep.  Sometimes the minute I would open my eyes in the dark that little face would flash before me and I would cry myself back to sleep.

The sun is peeping around the clouds now….I have pulled myself back together and gotten back on track.  It is still difficult and I still miss Tinker yet my optimistic nature won’t allow me to wallow in my grief too long.  I am on my eighth day of no alcohol once again and feeling good even though I shed some occasional tears.  It may be some time before I find another little one to give my heart to…I’m open but not actively looking.  I feel something will tell me when the time is right.  For now it’s just Muffin and Me……and the cats!

Love you Tinkerbug!

 

On A Whim

I’ve been struggling of late with my writing…I can’t seem to get myself to journal consistently.  That was an easy thing for me back during the days of my relationships because I stayed so angry all the time.  Writing was a way to analyze my feelings and discover strengths I never knew that I had.  Now that my life is so free of stress I find it difficult to pick up the pen.  I do have those fleeting moments though when I see inspiration in something and I want to document it…I guess, in a sense, I will always want to memorialize those flashes of clarity that help life to fit together like pieces of a puzzle.  I am hoping that blogging will be an easier way to direct the erratic flow of my feelings and inspirations into a cohesive form.  Anyway, here I am, ready to try something new!

I have been in Kentucky since January 2, 2013.  Thinking back upon it now, what a leap of faith that was to uproot myself from a job and a city that I had spent eight years of my life in.  Have I always been this way?  Considering that I married at seventeen and moved from Colorado, family and friends to Virginia at such a tender young age, I suspect so.  I have never been afraid to start over.  There is almost something mystical about going to a place where no one knows you and you can create fresh, new impressions in the people you meet.  It can be scary and life affirming all at the same time.

This has been an interesting time for me, starting a new store, moving and remodeling a house, spending all summer with mom and pop and the various family members and friends who visit the farm.  If I were to ask myself what was the primary reason I agreed to do all this it would have to be to spend time with mom.  All my adult life (40 + years) I only had brief moments in time to see mom.  That separation being a by-product of me living my own life in Virginia.

It seems strange when I look back on that time to realize that during my marriage to John I sometimes went  three years or more without seeing anyone in my family.  I can only attribute that to having married at such a young age and never having developed the confidence and self esteem that would allow me to make demands of John that meant spending money on something that made me happy.  That’s water under the bridge at this point, I make all my own decisions now.  I think, though, that this is why I kept a yearning in my heart to spend time with mom beyond the week vacation I had been doing for the past fifteen years or so.

Of course there is also that fabulous opportunity to start a new business in a new town, be my own boss again, make wonderful new friends.  I was not sorry to leave Blue Ridge Paint and Decorating/Builders Supply.  I was sorry to leave the people there whom I had grown to love and admire.  I was not sorry to get away from the back-stabbing and the unethical and immoral behavior of a few that seemed to have a direct affect upon my job.  I was quickly moving past the stage where I would be able to market myself to a new company if it came to a point where I couldn’t work for Blue Ridge anymore. Freedom from that stress played a huge part in my decision as well.

All in all, there were many factors that brought me to Kentucky and I have found a particular kind of peace and serenity in the Bluegrass State.

 

 

My Space

Finding my space, my place to breathe

In living my life I refuse to bleed

To claim sorrow’s tears and the memories of pain

To shackle my soul and tamp down the flame

This life is too short to let roses wither

Before they can reach for the sun

And the morning of tomorrows to come

Where life’s precious gift is the moment I’ve spun.

I let sorrows linger in the shadows behind

While I open my heart and my soul and my mind