Betty The Builder

Moving on....

I have decided to leave this blog.  I had a burst of inspiration today and realized that this blog no longer serves me well.  It really hasn't for a while as you can probably tell by the lack of posting.  So I will be deleting this blog soon.  

You can find me at my new home starting today.  Yes, I already started a new blog and am so excited to start posting there.

Hope you come visit me soon.

Patience

The past year has been a lesson in patience. 

I thought I had learned this lesson but then my patience ran out and I couldn't wait any longer.  I figured I still had so much to learn.

Then I spent the last two days in a hospital room.  With a father who is a terrible patient, who had a bad reaction to pain meds and almost had to be restrained, who thought he was having surgery on Sunday, then Monday and now on Tuesday is hoping for Wednesday.  With a stepmother who has had the patience of a saint but who reached her breaking point today and had to be pulled back.  With two brothers who have so much energy and a hospital does not have much outlet for that.  With nurses, techs and doctors coming in and out all day.

I thought by now I would be crawling out of my skin.  Of course I am not the one lying in the bed with an IV in one arm, bruises from all the blood work in the other, with a catheter that is painful when I shift ever so slightly, who hasn't eaten solid food in 3 days and has to rely on other people for pretty much everything.  I am just one of the people who has had to deal with the grumpiness and belligerence and the insults and the impatience.  

Maybe it helps that just 2 days ago I was in an audience who was able to hear the Dalai Lama speak about compassion and having a compassionate heart.  

 

All I know is that I have so much more patience then I thought possible.  I hope I can help others learn to be more patient, but I have a feeling that may take longer than I think...but if I'm patient enough it will happen.

Dear April

 

Dear April,

You came in with such promise.  I looked forward to enjoying every day you wanted to share with me.  But something happened in the first week that changed how I felt about you.  I wanted to crawl into bed and wait for May to show up because then maybe things would be better.  Instead I faced you head on although it wasn't easy.   I shed more tears than I have in years.  I looked at my life and realized that what happened that first week needed to happen.  Once I realized that, I was then able to enjoy most of your days (although not all).  It was such a roller coaster ride that as your days dwindled, I was ready to get off the ride.    

May has arrived and I am looking forward to several trips this month and a birthday.  May is a clean slate with lots of possibilities.  

I can't say that I'll miss you April but I have learned a lot from you that I will take into May.  I just hope that I can avoid the roller coaster this time around.

Love,

M

Right now

Little Miss Allie is actually in my lap purring away while I rub her head.  And all is right for the moment.

 

Flowers

Since the Farmer's Market started for the season, the Saturday's that I can get there, I buy myself flowers.  They brighten up the room and no matter how I feel, I can look at them and feel a little better.

 

I have to laugh...

Here is my horoscope for today and I just have to laugh at this because this is so far from where I am right now.

Gemini

You are feeling especially grounded and stable right now -- much more so than usual -- and you are unwilling to take any guff from anyone. Your self-confidence is the result of something you did recently that proved to others and, more importantly, to yourself, that you're a serious force to be reckoned with at work or in the community. When you set your mind to something, anything is possible.

Wishing....

taken in Costa Rica, April 2009

I was somewhere else right about now.

Its the little things

I know its been many months since I've written here and then I just dump about heartache.  I probably should have eased my way back into blogging instead I did a cannon ball back in.  I decided I need to start writing again and that post was keeping me up at night so...there you have it.

So today, I am posting a photo of Allie in the sheets before they head to the washer.  She cracks me up all the time.  

 

Hill of Beans

I just finished watching the "Hurt Locker".  I've had it here for several weeks because I wasn't sure I could actually watch it.  Tonight I finally decided to give it a shot...if I couldn't watch, I could always turn it off.  It is a very intense film and at times it was difficult to watch.

The drama of seeking out and dismantling the IED's makes for a good film, but the hardest part, for me, about this movie, is that it is all based on true events.  Maybe not the stories of these particular guys but events that happen all the time in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I was struck by how these guys go out every day and save the lives of people they don't know (and their fellow soldiers) in another country.  Fighting for something they may or may not believe is right but they do it.  They put their lives on the line every day and then come home to the US and are expected to put what they saw/did behind them and move forward. 

Watching this movie made me realize that my problems, my heartbreak...really don't amount to a hill of beans.

Heartbreak

The last time I experienced true heartbreak was 21 years ago, when my brother John died.  After that I closed off a bit of my heart so I would never have to feel that kind of pain again.  

I've been married and divorced, been in another long term relationship that ended but I didn't feel that heartbreak because really my heart was never fully open in these relationships.  

Now I am experiencing that heartbreak.  The feeling that my heart is literally breaking inside my chest.  Those tears that come at times when I'm not ready for them.  Those sobbing tears that make me wonder how many more tears can possibly be shed.  I had forgotten these feelings.  I had forgotten what it was like and now I remember why I shut down all those years ago because it hurts...a lot!

The thing that is different all these years later is that I am not willing to go back to that girl who shut down her feelings.  I know that this pain will pass and my heart will heal again...and maybe it will get broken again.  But if I don't experience the pain, how can I possibly feel the joy?  So I choose to feel the pain because eventually I will feel the joy...and once again the pain will be forgotten.