Living

Connections

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Sunday afternoon was wonderful! My mother’s two sisters and their daughters and I were together visiting.  Recalling shared memories and retelling family lore.  Lots of laughing and talking!   Connecting with the past and making new memories.

I spoke with my daughter this afternoon and heard from my niece the other day. Holiday plans are taking shape!  We will be connecting over the long holiday weekend.

Since there will only be 4 of us for our official family dinner, it will be a challenge for me to cook the meal. I am accustomed to cooking enough for 6 or more with enough leftovers to divide into three parts for another 6 or 8 servings.  I have some ideas forming about how to create traditional dishes in reasonable quantities.  We’ll see how it turns out!

Of course, I will have some company over the long weekend as well. So some things will work to prepare new dishes from leftover dishes.  Maybe I could do a whole turkey after all?  I have a wonderful recipe for turkey salad I got from my mother-in-law’s step mother.  Even recipes connect the generations and memories of the past.

Great food and wonderful company! Two perfect things for which to be very thankful!  Now to just figure out how to connect the Skype to get through to Maui……………..

Fall in Southeast Texas has it’s share of beautiful color……….connecting the long hot summer to the cold wet winter.

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Waiting

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I spent a lot of time waiting Saturday. I was waiting for a deer to walk out.  I sat on the stand almost all day with no real movement of wildlife at all.  The birds and squirrels were even remarkably quiet.

I spend a lot of time waiting every day, I think. Waiting for something to happen.  What do I think is going to happen?  I can’t even answer that question.  I just feel as if something is about to happen.  Something for which I need to wait.

Perhaps nothing is going to happen. What if I am just waiting?  What if I just sit waiting until my time has run out and the days of my life have gone?

I am not blindly waiting. I am expectantly waiting.  Waiting for whatever it is.  I believe I will know when it happens.

Meanwhile, I try to stay busy. Going to work, trying to keep up with the house, cooking.  I go with him when I can.  Hunting, fishing, riding in the buggy.  Whatever he does and wants me along.  (Which is anyplace except his recliner.)

I also spend time thinking. Mentally preparing for the something that might happen.  I think it might even be something no one else will see.  Maybe it will simply be a shift of my perception.  A change in my belief system.  Not even all my beliefs.  Just one or two.  Enough to make my entire world change.  The world I inhabit in my mind.

Sometimes I feel as if a big reveal is just about to happen. The curtain in my mind will fall away and I will see whatever it is I am supposed to know.  Maybe just the seeking is the happening.  It all feels strange and difficult to explain or examine.

What do I want? Peace of mind, contentment, purpose, a reason to spring out of bed every morning ready to start the day.  I want to know that it is good and well for me to want to be happy.  I want to know that it is good and well for me to want to love and be loved.  I want to know that it is good and well to be alive and well.

I struggle with a type of survivor’s guilt and with a sense of abandonment. I depend on him so much to provide emotional support.  I feel like an emotional vacuum at times.  I try to not cling to him overmuch.  Much of the time I want to curl up in his lap in that recliner and stay there.

One of the best things I have learned is that my feelings are not me. I was born terribly sensitive.  So much so, my grandmother called me “Squall-bags” for a nickname.  She always offered me a sugar tit.  After spending most of my life held hostage by my emotions, I am finally getting free of them.  Peace of mind is sure to come.  Eventually, purpose will emerge with contentment to follow.

 

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