Le Changement

Time changes everything, we change everything, yet the only moment we are in is right now.

On this day, one year ago, I woke up and couldn't stand.  I fell down.  An old injury in my knee had been exacerbated to the point of excruciating pain and I didn't know what to do.  I willed myself to stand, and it's a good thing too.  Later in that day I would find myself riding in an ambulance to Morristown hospital, not for me, but for my Mom.  My life changed after that day, what I knew to be true became a reality.

One year ago...time changes lives.  We lose people.  We gain people.  We change. We grow.  We make choices.

You may be reading this across the ether wondering what I'm writing about, or you may be thinking, yeah I know what she's saying.

Choice, is the beginning of any change small or large.

Such as,

I choose to open my eyes.

I choose to get out of bed.

I choose to be happy.

I choose to eat healthy food.

I choose to eat another donut.

I choose to open my heart.

I choose to spend the rest of my life with this person.

I choose to sell my house.

I choose to be a loving parent.

I choose to be a drunk.

I choose to be sober.

I choose to love myself.

I choose to change myself...

Why is choice so very important? The ability to choose makes us human.  Many times we are influenced by others, but from the first moment our mother takes us in her arms and we cry because we're hungry, we are choosing to live.

Of course choice gets a bit more difficult the older we get.

Some choices require risk.  Maybe the riskier the choice, the more longterm benefit we get in the end.  Or perhaps just the opposite.
Maybe playing it safe is the way to go...
I think it is a personality thing(flaw?) that causes certain folks to make certain choices in their life.  Fear keeps us from doing so much. Damn you fear!
Fear of:
judgement
pain
loss

Anytime I feel something, I try to turn it around and say the opposite to myself.
If I fear judgement, I will tell myself that I love acceptance.
Sometimes this works, but not always.  There are moments when the fear just turns inward and becomes self-sabotage.  Of course I'm a classic self-sabotager...but sometimes I find there has to be some collateral damage in order to achieve certain goals.  Anyone else get what I'm saying?

If there is no risk in action, what's the point of that action?  The fear of loss is what holds folks back the most.

I think Bob Dylan said it best when he said, "When you've got nothin', you've got nothin' to lose."  Thanks Dylan, that sums up pretty much every aspect of my life.  When you're at the bottom, the lowest of the low, the only place you can go is up.  This constant scramble for something more authentic in life.

I took a risk, some call this faith.  I don't think so.  I just know a few secrets about life. Shhhh come in close and I will tell you...

1. Never forget how short life truly is, try to enjoy everyday for good and bad.

2. Love others.  Not for their beauty, or fame, or intelligence or even for what they do for you.  Love them for the innate humanity that lies within each person.  Love them for their flaws, and remember that everything we dislike in another is really just what reminds us of ourselves.

3. Time continues, even when we do not.

4. Money comes and money goes.  It is not everything.

5. We choose how we feel.  If we are miserable that is our choice.  If we are happy that is our choice.  Choose your life, create it, make it what you desire, listen to your inner wisdom.


Okay Peeps, that's all I've got for today.  Sorry if it was kind of abstracted...enjoy your days!

And remember even if you're sad or miserable, those are just feelings and all feelings change in time.

The Sun Is Surely Sinking Down

This old world must still be spinning round...

I've been writing quite a bit.
NOT on this blog.  I've got two projects, going at the same time.  They are very very different.
One is fiction and the other is my chronicle of the year after...
Just when life starts to get better, I find that there is always something to pull it back down.

I however am forging ahead into unchartered waters.  Ironically, I'm watching JAWS.
And today, was one of those days where you know Spring is brewing.  We may get another storm or two, but at least we know it's just a few weeks away.  The time-change is throwing my off a bit though...

but SPRING!!  I can almost taste it.  This snowy, super cold winter has been challenging to me physically(I hate being cold!) but also emotionally.  The dark, cold doesn't seem to bode well for a person who is grieving, however  as I've said before I just want to hold onto hope.

I'm ready for warm weather, I'm ready for good kinds of change, for wonderful things in my glorious future.

But right now I just  fantasize about long vacations where I can sit on a beach and recharge in the sunshine.

I can't sing the blues anymore....

Once A Long Time Ago

One year ago today, I was running around trying to get everything together for a drive out to West Lafayette, Indiana.
How can I explain what has happened in a year?  I thought that maybe I would write about the trip to Indiana, but I am choosing not to dwell on that sadness.

This past weekend, I drove my sister and my nephew Crosby up to Albany to visit my Dad, Erik, Pam and my niece Beatrix.  Both babies are almost seven months old now, I watched them meet each other, now aware of life.  They'd met before but were too little to know it.
My Dad held them, realizing he had two grand-children, and we laughed and watched them sitting next to each other.  Their chubby baby knuckles, big heads and almost toothless grins...I laughed at the simplicity of being a baby.

I tried not to think.  Tried not to think about the person who was not there, could not be there.

I've been told that every great work of literature is about loss or love or both.   I know now that's because everything in life is about loss and or love.  They work in tandem at times, one following the other.  If you put your heart out there, it will eventually experience loss.

The love I feel for my niece and nephew is so great, I never knew I could love two people who are so new, so unknown to me.  Two little souls, who entered my world just as another left.
There is something so tragic in this, I don't quite know how to write or express it at all.  I see people posting things about their Mom's on Facebook, or their grandchildren and it's wonderful.  That love is wonderful, but at times it just reminds me of my own loss...

I think about Crosby and Beatrix, how they will never know this person who brought me  and their parents into this world.  How she will never tell them funny stories about their Mom and Dad as small children.  And I wonder, will they miss someone they've never met?

Maybe I love them more because she is gone. And I wish that I could just wrap them up and keep them in my pocket forever.

I don't want this to be sad, that's not where I am at right now.  There are just little fragments of sadness illuminating my days, because I'm starting to feel better.  Starting to accept things.

Friends, most of you who are my age, you've yet to experience so great a loss.  Some of you have, but someday you will.  Remember that there is no "right" way to grieve, we each have our own way to learn to live without someone.

Maybe that's not right, I am not learning to live without her, maybe I'm just still learning to live.


It's almost Spring again, I'm longing for the warmth and the flowers.  Maybe a soft rainfall, that first smell of Spring...because it's all about rebirth, a respite from this cold.

Hope.  Hope that each day the sun will come up again, that sorrow lessens over time, that there is love to be had in this world again.