What’s Goin’ On?

I feel blessed today.  Maybe because it’s pay-day, but I have to think it’s more than that.

I survived.  Survived one of the toughest years of my life.  It’s easy to drown in it all.  It’s harder to rise above it and move forward.  You have to make the choice at some point.  Drown or swim.

I’m in a new home.  Not a house, a home.  For the first time in over seventeen years, I am by myself again.  I have my son about half the time.  The times when I don’t have him… that’s been an adjustment.  For the first couple of weeks it was great.  The newness of it all.  But then reality sinks in.  And that’s okay.  Life has to take its own course.  You have to go through both the highs and lows to appreciate it all.

I don’t miss what I had.  I miss the thought of what I thought I had.  It’s difficult to explain and I could probably never find a way to sufficiently write those words.  But it is what it is.  And I’m okay with that.

I can say a few things being on your own again.  Online dating sites really kind of suck.  They are flash and grab.  “Look, someone new joined!  Send them a message!”  “Upgrade your account today!”  And the countless notifications that come up on your phone where you think someone saw you and wants to meet.  Nope.  Another upgrade reminder.

I bought a puzzle the other day.  I got the edges done last night.  I spent half an hour dividing up the pieces from edge and non-edge.  Got the whole framework going only to find I didn’t sort out three of the edge pieces.  And one piece I put in wrong.  Just a slight change made all the difference.  While I was working on that I did some laundry and listened to music.  The simple things.  That puzzle is a metaphor of my life these days.  I’m building something new.

One lesson I’ve learned: what you think you want isn’t the same thing as what you need.  I guess they call that growth.

Blogging has been far away from me lately.  Not sure why that is.  I think someone was trying to tell me to slow it down and live a bit more.  Hang out with a friend by a fire pit.  Go to the beach and walk around.  Work on a puzzle.  Take your son out to the movies.  Try cooking more and eating out less.  Watch the sunrise.  Heal.

Today, I feel blessed.  I have everything I need now, and for today, that is enough.  Swim.