Leaderboard

I sorta hate to have this end on some morose sad place. This last week, for me, has been one of great loss and great understanding and great reckoning; none of it fun, none of it holding the humor that I usually search for and cherish. In five short and fast paced days, a family member has acted in such a way as to make us understand cruel and sick, I've lost a dear and loved person, I heard both my daughters say things to me that no mama wants to hear but has to if she's worth a shi+ as their mother. I've journed on into territories that are scarey and exciting and containing a whole bunch of 'oh crap what am I doing'. I am house hunting, I am starting my business finally, I have let go of some heavy duty crap and I've come to a renewed understanding of friendship and never want to take that for granted again. Tomorrow.....we'll see. Alot of the time I even get it right. I sometimes forget to breath out. In so doing the last couple of days I have had to admit things to myself that I've avoided, I've looked in the reflective thing and finally saw that I'm not one of the shiny happy people that I think is required of me. The point is that it doesn't matter what others require of me; I get it again. What matters is what I require of me and whether or not I deliver. At the end of the day when I put head to pillow, can I say I did my best, can I feel like my kids are proud of their mama, can I say my actions today were honorable, just? If either of those is a 'no' answer, then I pray for tomorrow to try again, to ask for forgiveness, to accept my faults as simply that, nothing bigger or worse. I have forgiven myself and that's a very welcoming, comforting place of the best acceptance and willingness to learn and grow and listen and hear and follow and keep understanding. It is well.

Thank you and yes, I think I will.

And today I'm struck more than in a very long time with how very alone it is to parent after a spouse has died. I have decisions to make regarding my child, very important ones that will shape her future, maybe, and I have to do them without the bounce of the other person. Pay the bills. Alone Mess up the plumbing by thinking it can be done without a professional. Alone Decide what car to buy, is it the best buy. Alone Deal with teachers, school boards, bully's. Alone Take on major decisions that might very well alter our lives. Alone Death of loved ones. No one but me. Our oldest child's high school graduation. Yup, just me Our youngest's first day of school. Ditto Our oldest's drug problem. Solo Our youngest's current health issue. I'm it our oldest's recent hospitalization, almost bleeding to death and then her surgery after. uhhuh you guessed it. Life Alone

Gee, I dunno EP; kinda wish I had been a part of 'der Vey' that you claim. But I wasn't. (I'd been assigned to way international hq, like. . . forever; -because vp thought that "hq needed my heart"- and I am quoting his very own words to me there.) 'der Vay' that I knew didn't rely so much on Jesus. Jesus was mostly the 'name' that we did stuff in. Or the name that we would use to command stuff to happen in (especially when that god inspired thought faced some uncooperative reality that we'd have to command to go away "in the name of..."). It's been a while for me, so forgive that this description may be a little rusty, but I'll try to recall it. . . Wasn't it more like this? '. . . God was in Christ in me, and now IIIIIIIIII gotta do all of this god stuff, -because after all he has no hands but my hands- (and I better get it done, and get it done right, or some someone's gonna have a helluva reproof spree on me). . . and wasn't there some doctrine about the absent christ? that effectively meant I'd better work much harder to believe to bring stuff to pass? and wasn't it all on the believer to make it happen? and wasn't thanking God essentially telling god what it was we were gonna believe for? and wasn't Jesus part in the process "in the name of", seeing that he was absent? Jesus had simply been put on a shelf. In some respects, Jesus was like a magic wand, to use the power in his name as needed to complete that will of god thing. Or maybe like a 'get out of jail free card' (you ever play the monoply game?) to use his name to maybe stop some bad thing from happening. Long after I'd left 'der Vey'; there came a moment one fine morning, when it eventually got through my thick head that I did not even know Jesus in 'der Vey'. No, 'der Vey' that I was part of abused Jesus as much, if not more, as it abused anybody and everybody else.