Life.Simple.Perspective

As I sipped my morning coffee today, I reflected on the bittersweet of 2018. It’s hard to believe that an entire month in a brand new year has almost passed by.  

The first thing I thought about was the long-term friendship that ended over a misunderstanding,  anger and hurt feelings. Someone once told me that if a relationship wasn’t so fragile, it wouldn’t have broken so easily. I believe there’s some truth to that now.

I lost my brother, my neighbor and my guardian angel of sorts. He died unexpectedly on February 5^th.

Semi-retired, that’s me. I finally escaped the 9 to 5 daily grind, and I’m discovering time freedom and a stress free life that I never knew existed.

In celebration of my mom’s 80^th birthday, I experienced a place where I had always wanted to go, The Hope & Glory Inn in Irvington, VA.

I’ve been writing for almost four years now, and I finally took that writing class that I wanted to take. I discovered that clichés are for “lazy” writers who won’t take the time to figure out better ways to express themselves. I also learned that excessive use of exclamation marks and dots (or periods) are no-nos. While I appreciate this newfound knowledge, I probably won’t alter my writing style very much. After all, it is my style.

Regarding social media, I can officially say “stick a fork in me, I’m pretty much done”.  Over the last few months, with all of the political posts, comments and over-sharing in general, it has been suffocating to say the least. Contrary to what a lot of folks believe, Facebook is not life and we’d be better served to get one.

On the love relationship front, I’ve been able to find peace and put a couple of past painful relationships into right perspective. Thanks to the ability to “stalk” people on social media, I can now look at them and say “Yeah, I made the right decision or what in the heck was I thinking?”

Someone near and dear to me was sexually assaulted years ago. I’m finally accepting that I can’t change that or fix her. Only she can do the hard work with God’s help. I can’t. He can. I think I’ll let Him.

The bond between a mother and son is very special, especially if you’ve raised him as a single mom. I’ve finally accepted the fact that even though he loves me very much, he has a new life now…one that includes a spouse, a demanding career and lots of grown-up responsibilities. I respect that and don’t want to be the mom that guilts him into making time for me. Besides, I didn’t lose a son, I gained a great son-in-law.

I’ve made progress in conquering some of my anxieties and fears, especially the one about driving in distracted, speeding traffic. Now everyday before I pull out of the driveway, I take a deep breath, pop a couple of Sunny Moods and say “Jesus, take the wheel”.

Exhale.2019.Bring It!