Brain Exercise.....

I saw this on a friend's Facebook page and zipped right thru it.  Try it out:

THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE TROUBLE SPELLING!! !! TRY THIS:

AOCDRNDICG TO RSCHEEARCH AT CMABRIGDE UINERVTISY , IT DSENO'T MTAETR WAHT OERDR THE LTTERES IN A WROD ARE, THE OLNY IPROAMTNT TIHNG IS TAHT THE FRSIT AND LSAT LTEETR BE IN THE RGHIT PCLAE. TIHS IS BCUSEAE THE HUAMN MNID DEOS NOT RAED ERVEY LTETER BY ISTLEF, BUT THE WROD AS A WLOHE. IF YOU CAN RAED TIHS, PSOT IT ON YUOR WLAL. OLNY 55% OF PLEPOE CAN

 

 

Loneliness is a place that I know well. It's the distance between us and the space inside ourselves. ~ Annie Lennox

We arrived here in Michigan on the 5th of March, I believe it was.  We've been here almost 5 1/2 months now.  I can honestly say I haven't been homesick or lonely yet. 

It's a funny thing how once upon a time I was very shy and unsure of myself.  Self-confidence wasn't something I possessed at any level, to any degree.  I have written many times about my "epiphany" year of 1999 where my whole world imploded on me and I was face-to-face with a person I didn't know at all any more...myself.  Somehow, somewhere, I'd lost the basic essence of me.

That's a very scary place to arrive at in a person's life.  I was 45 years old.  You would have thought I'd have it all together.  But spiritually...emotionally...physically...mentally...I was scraping the bottom of the barrel so hard yet coming up empty.  My doctor had told me if I didn't begin to change a lot of things in life I wouldn't be seeing too many more sunsets.  That drew me up short and zapped me right between the eyes.  I began to look and I began to see.  And I sure wasn't very happy with what I found myself confronted with.  A woman functioning on nothing but fumes.  I had nothing left to give anyone.  Which means I had even less for me.

Thus began a long and arduous climb out of the pits.  I felt like I scraped and slithered back and forth for a while, one foot forward, two feet back.  But I persevered and realized one day I'd made it.  I no longer feel I'm a doormat.  I no longer say 'yes' all the time even when I'm dying to say 'no'.  I no longer despair if the whole world doesn't love me.  Do I love everyone I come across?  No.  So if someone doesn't become my best friend five minutes after I meet them, I can let it go.  I don't sit and worry and fret about what's wrong with me if they're not responding.  Life is too short to be worried about other people's shortcomings.  

Coming to a new part of the country to live, almost 2400 miles from everything I knew, everything familiar and dear to me, as we've settled into our new neighborhood I haven't sat back and waited for people to come to me.  I've approached every single one of them myself.  And I've shook hands and said, "Hi, I'm Kris from Portland, Oregon, and I wanted to say hello and tell you how much I love it here!"  And do you know, I haven't had one negative response from any of them.  If anything, I think they're thankful I've broken the ice.  And nearly all of them have told me how hard it is to get to know the neighbors, tho everyone is basically friendly.  We have one couple who live next door and everyone has told me how standoffish they are so I've made a special point of talking to the wife.  She was out in the back yard the other day with her little twins and Dylan and Cooper were talking her ear off over the fence.  I went over to them and told her, "I hope they're not bothering you!"  and she said no, she loved it!  She said after living there 6 years she'd never had anyone to talk with over the fence before and it was wonderful.  So there you go.  She's shy.  Nothing else.

There's a scripture about how, if you want to have friends,  you need to show yourself friendly.  I never understood that before my epiphany year.  It's one of life's most important lessons I've learned.  I don't have to be lonely.  I don't have to be homesick.  All I have to do is be friendly.  And it works just about every time.

A daughter is a little girl who grows up to be a friend. ~ Author Unknown

What a strange concept...waiting for this little girl to come over to my house today. 

Oh.

Wait a minute.

That was her, 31 years ago.

She doesn't look anything like that now.

She moved into her very first alone apartment a couple of weeks ago.  She's been saying it feels like a hotel room still because it's devoid of  'homey' touches.

So what does Mom do?

I went and bought her several houseplants today.  I also told her she can go thru all the boxes and bins down in the storage cupboards in the basement and is welcome to any of the kitschy stuff that's in them.  As well as any art work that hits her fancy.

I might even toss in a box of nails.

They grow up and they go 'away'. 

But they're forever in a mother's heart, no matter what their age.

You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present. ~ Jan Glidewell

Remember how I couldn't find my jewelry box?  It's been found, along with a little wooden box that is a keepsake of my mother's.  My daughter stumbled across them as she was sorting thru a storage bin after moving into her new apartment.  It was labeled "Harry Potter".  I wouldn't touch a "Harry Potter" book with a 10-foot pole.  No wonder I never looked in there.  But it had been stored out in the garage with all my daughter's other storage bins so I'm not surprised they didn't show up until now.

But they did show up...and I'm thankful for that.

I told Dear Hubby yesterday I've never been one to hold on to material things with a tight fist.  I've never been one to hold on to anything -- or any one -- with a tight grip.  Does it come from my upbringing, having parents who grew up and were deeply affected by the Great Depression?  I don't know, but as people and things have come and gone thru my life I've been able to let them go without many regrets.  I don't like regrets.  I don't like guilt feelings and sadness.  So I learned a long time ago to hold on just tight enough.  Tight enough to love with all my heart but loose enough not to strangle or smother.  Just ask my kids.

My jewelry box doesn't have anything much in it.  A thief would open it up and ask himself, "Why on earth did this lady hold on to that thing?" with scorn.  He'd probably dump it all in the trash, fling it across the room with disgust.  It holds our wedding rings.  I don't think we paid $200 for both of them back in 1974.  My great-grandmother's diamond ring might be something a thief would pocket, but even it isn't very ostentatious.  I have a brass lapel pin of my mother's of a jaunty sailor boy, the shine long gone.  A little charm bracelet a beloved family friend gave to me when I was a very young girl...it fit a 4-year-old wrist of mine once upon a time.  There are a few other items.  Nothing worth mentioning, really.  But this old, cheap battered jewelry box once belonged to my paternal grandmother.  Someone who died so early in my lifetime that I have no conscious memory of her.  Every time I think of her and look at that box, I feel warm and loved.  Therein lies its worth for me.  It's priceless.  Same thing with the little wooden box of my mother's.

When we left Portland, as we searched thru and purged and packed up 28 years of life lived in our old house there, we gave away and tossed away a lot of stuff.  Things I'd held on to forever, like a cradle and a doll bed and chest my grandfathers had made for me.  My mother's old hope chest that had grown so musty being stored in the basement for years, scratched and battered when it had been stored in the attic at her old house.  Things I knew I'd never have any use for or room to store here in our new house.  One lesson I have learned in life is it isn't the object that holds the memories...it's me who stores the memory in my heart.  I could have lugged all these old things 2400 miles across the country with me.  But I'd rather just think about them and the memories that come back to me.  I'm learning, especially as we went thru our possessions in Oregon, that much of what I'd held on to wasn't anything my children wanted anyway.  They were happy with a few cherished Christmas ornaments.  Why is it we women think we know what everyone wants?  Sometimes it's a shock to find how little we really do know.

And here I am.  In a home devoid of clutter and junk.  What we do have is neatly packed up and put away in cupboards, in storage bins and boxes.  Only our most loved 'treasures' are scattered about the house.  I have found places for my jewelry and keepsake boxes, out where I can see them.  Where I can reach out and touch them as I pass by during the day.  And be reminded of two women in my life who loved me...one who is lost in the vapors of time, the other who, with the passage of time, is a hazy memory tucked away in the corners of my heart.

Change always comes bearing gifts. ~ Price Pritchett

Sometimes a person just needs to take a moment and reflect on how good Life is.  Even in stormy times there are blessings found in the silver linings.  I'm having one of those moments this morning, thinking of how fast changes can come into a person's life and how far I've come in the past 5 months.  My children and husband are blessed with good jobs.  I have a new home I love more and more each day.  I have two beautiful little grandsons who seem to be thriving in their new 'world' here.  I have neighbors who are kind and so welcoming, making this strange city feel like home so quickly.

A person can dwell on the past and think of what they left behind.  You can get bogged down by thinking of what you've given up.  Or you can wake up each morning and embrace a new life, a new start, a new day.  You can focus on each day being a new adventure.

It's a pat phrase but I like it:

"Yesterday is the past.  Tomorrow is the future.  Today is the present...and it's a gift."

Our genes make us immortal. ~ The Secret of Life, PBS

So far I've spent my morning doing my grocery shopping a little after 6.  Then doing some little chores that I never seem to find the time for during the week.  Like taking a broom and zeroing in on a bothersome cricket who's been chirp chirp chirping in the grass near my neighbor Donna's fence.  How can a cricket chirp 24 hours a day?  I 'swept the grass'  --  gently  --  and it stopped.  Then I stood there and listened for a few moments and all was quiet.  I've been waking up in the middle of the nite and, even with the fan in the bedroom going and the hum of the AC unit outside, little Mr./Ms. Cricket has been cranking away.  Dear Hubby thought it was the fan beginning to make noise but I told him no...it's the cricket.

My daughter-in-law is coming by around 11 am and the two of us are going over to my daughter's apartment to spend the afternoon helping her get settled.  We all pitched in last weekend and actually got her moved but with working full time she hasn't had much time to get organized yet.  I spent some time filling up the back of my pick up truck this morning with the boxes and bins that didn't fit into the U-Haul truck last week.  I can not believe someone who hasn't been out on her own for years can have so much STUFF.  But she does.  And she purged 23 big garbage bags and numerous boxes of books before we moved here from Portland.  I'm bringing along a box of big garbage bags today, too.  Maybe we can help her purge some more.  Her apartment has two bedrooms and a nice storage area off the kitchen...but even with that we're going to be hard-pressed to find room for everything that she has. 

Am I suffering from Empty Nest Syndrome?  Not at all.  The first couple of days she was gone felt kind of strange, but mostly I'm thrilled for her to be able to be on her own.  She'd had one disastrous experience moving in with a friend several years ago.  Came back home to get herself squared away.  Then couldn't afford to rent an apartment in Portland on her own.  She's lived with us ever since.  But here in Michigan she's found her apartment for $635 per month and with the income tax here several percentage points lower than the income tax in Oregon, she should be able to make it just fine.  It's been 35 years since Dear Hubby and I have had our house to ourselves.  It feels good. 

It feels wonderful.

It's good to know both of our children are on their own and I can finally let the apron strings go completely.  As I told her, I never have been one to hold on to those strings tightly anyway.  When my son got married I told my daughter-in-law, "He's yours now".  And I meant it.  And now our daughter's on her own.  We'll be here for them if they need us, but Dear Hubby and I are more than ready for whatever time we have left to be just the two of us. 

Alone.