Arriving in Yourself

I often had the feeling that I didn’t fit into this world. The feeling that the people I was surrounded by were somehow different from me, that they had completely different lifestyles, values, or views than I did, and that I did not SEE myself in any of them.

Senses

“Standing at the edge of my fears
And contemplating them
Is a healthy exercise.
The extent of the boundaries
Of who I believe myself to be.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

“Respect has to be earned,” one of the many wrong statements I made when I was younger, and which I now would like to retract. I didn’t know it better, had been blinded by the vanity and confidence of my youth. Now, years later, getting older has given me a different outlook, perhaps even a sprinkle of wisdom.

Snow! Winter & Omnicron

You feel like you’re not making any progress like you’re moving on brittle ice.

Step by step. Week after week.

Scar or Wound?

How we look at our scars is entirely up to us. We get hurt, and when we heal, what’s left is a mark -inside or outside. As many of you know, my husband had open-heart surgery just two years ago. Whenever I look at his naked chest I shudder and wish somehow I could have prevented it, but it only lasts for a few seconds, then I am grateful. He looks at his scar with joy. He was spared a heart attack and considers himself the luckiest man alive.

So long 2021, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye!

It’s us and our expectations who make all the fuzz, time itself passes quietly, from day to night, day in day out. Weeks and months depart, then the old year tries to leave at midnight when we are supposed to sleep, but we don’t let it. We stay up, watch it leave, kick it in the rare, tell it to go away and never come back. Another bad year, like so many before. We expected more, we deserve better. “Go away old year, I will forget you.”

Forever Out Of Reach

“Disappointment

Can do a couple things.
It can drop you into a giant
sucking sinkhole of

depression,

Was God Punishing us?

“Maybe God is punishing us,” my husband said and once again I envied him a bit.

Twenty years earlier I had followed him in the bedroom a few minutes after he had just gone to bed. I had an idea and needed to tell him right away. I opened our bedroom door and shared the result of my brainstorm with him. I didn’t get an answer. I whispered his name, wanted to make sure he was still awake. Again, no answer. He completely ignored me, or he had fallen asleep in under two minutes. Then, right when I tried to close the door quietly, willing to wait until the next morning to share whatever I had thought couldn’t wait, I heard him say. “I was praying.”

My Love, My Strengths, My Everything

My husband had taken a serious beating. His business, his pride, and his joy for so many years, no longer existed. We owed money, we had lost our home, we soon would lose the car, and he could no longer provide for us. I knew what it did to him, maybe that’s the reason why I could be so strong back then but it didn’t last. One morning I got up, and I could not find the energy to go to the bathroom. What day was it? My friend was still at home. Was it Saturday or already Sunday?

What I Learned From a 2-Year Old

I often babysit the neighbor’s kids or they babysit me -however you want to look at it- and there is a lot I learned from watching babies, toddlers and yes, even teenagers. I wondered if I am the only one who looks at it that way. Does not being a parent make me more of a pushover or perhaps more observant?