Musing

Hi there. It's been an interesting year/years of tremendous ups and downs and I feel like maybe, just maybe, I'm getting to the point of it all. Me - of course -- what else is there to find? Don't remember when we last talked, but I've recently been to Oregon to visit my youngest son and Cincinnati to take care of my Mom. Fortunately my life is more than one family therapy visit after another! It's a glorious spring in Fort Collins, morning-coffee-in-my-jammies-on-the-front-porch kind of weather. Sunny, cloudless, but wonderfully green and cool, with lots of dog walks and house projects. I've been doing yard work and painting rooms, mostly in preparation for leaving - TOMORROW! -- for the summer at the cabin. There I will do more yard work and painting, dog walks and coffee in my jammies, in the woods in the mountains. And woods that have brush that needs clearing and trees downed, cut and stacked and so on. But hiking season officially opens for me this weekend, as does the silly social season of Steamboat. . . . we somehow combine hard work with massive quantities of fun. (Oh, and I also have a research project coming up that I have to fit in somewhere. Bother.) But, luckily, the biggest part of my life is getting to learn about who I am. It seems that my life is filled with the awareness of grace now. I'm sure it's always been there, but I didn't see it. These days, I can't help but find it around every corner, even in the muck. I've also been touched by several of your recent musings. Yes, we all do bump into the same stuff and yes, it is all about choice. I think so much of my life I didn't realize either. Now I see it all over the place. Every day is my time, my attitude, my choice - period. The whole issue of having our childhood events/traumas/experiences continue to make our decisions and choices is so important to get over. And, I suspect, so hard to achieve. I'm lucky that I have the support and grace to take that path, and two incredible young men to take it with me. Like you, I can look back on decisions made and think "What was I thinking?" Yet, I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't jumped in and tried. Even the not-so-healthy choices were me. In passion, in confusion, in knee-jerk reaction, but me. And I am a fully textured person who didn't pass much by. And I can understand with compassion those who make their own choices, for whatever reason. But I like life even better now. I can look around and see, but not have to take every piece of candy from some twisted childhood directive, and in not doing so, enjoy some of the subtler delicious bits of life, PM