Still Struggling

I have a lot of free time. I could spend more time cleaning house and doing yard work. I feel I should do so. I want to get to a place of contemplation and quiet.
I want to learn to do yoga and to paint. I want to learn to meditate. But I fear meditation because I am afraid of what it will bring up. I must decide whether to forget about meditation or to forget about my fear. I know I can paint. I just have to figure out how to manage the material. The acrylic and the brush and the canvas. Just need practice.
I do not want to be sad and grieving anymore. I want to not feel lonely anymore.
I don’t know what I want to do each day. I feel as if there is something missing. Something I should be doing. Something that would make me feel less mournful and more anchored. Do I want to feel anchored? Or do I just want to feel safe floating and drifting?
I am not afraid, am I? I despise fear. I fight to overcome anything I fear. I am still working on fear of heights. I feel as if I am going to be flung off into the abyss. I have a couple of unspeakable fears. I tried to write them but could not. I will never overcome them. They are acceptable fears. Natural to a mother and a wife.
Only love can heal. Only love can overcome fear. Not time, not conditioning, not anything can truly change the heart aside from love.
I keep struggling for answers and I don’t really know the questions.
What does my life look like on the other side?
I don’t want to feel compelled to do anything remarkable. Is it enough to simply live? To get up each day and enjoy getting dressed and preparing food to eat and playing. Whether the playing be on the computer or writing or creating a pretty bauble.
I spent so many years taking care of others who were either growing up or fading away. Now, with time to do what I always thought I would do if I had time, I don’t seem to be able to commit. I always thought my lack of commitment to creative development was due to fear of interruption. I didn’t want to be in the middle of something and be called away to hospital or school or some family need.
Part of my dilemma is not having a place to work. A place to set up arts and craft supplies and spread out projects and leave them there to work on when I have time. It has to be a place I can close off from site. Remember that I cannot abide messes. I am constantly rearranging my nest to reduce clutter and mess. I bring in things and arrange them only to pack them up and store them out of site but never out of mind. Worrying about the space taken up in the attic or back closet or on the carport. A part of my insanity. Each of us has something to some degree or other.
So, I am struggling still. When I was on Oahu, I would sit on the beach and try to get my mind still to think. I could barely put a thought together. I could barely write. I am feeling that way some now. My mind scattered and tired. My heart achy and sore. This will, of course, pass shortly.
Tomorrow, I will be soaking in sunshine and later this week snuggling with little people. Can anything feel better than a child’s love? My mind may still flutter away unable to focus a thought, but my heart will be soothed and comforted.

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What chased my mind all over the island?

What churned my soul like the waves breaking over the reef?

What simmered beneath the surface of my heart like the sunlight in the lagoon depths?

Dare I chase away the fear?

Dare I overcome the feeling of fear and climb the heights?

Dare I be flung into the abyss of the unknown adventure?

Time will tell if Love will overpower fear in this struggle.

An Old Place

I like old places.  Old houses, old barns.  Places with memories.  I had occasion to spend time at an old place this weekend.  He and I made some new friends and had a grand time.

It spun me off into my own memories.  I had an old house one time.  Tall ceilings, tall windows, wood floors, separate rooms, each leading off to another and back around again.  I still wake up at night from dreams of that old house.  It still stands, but was relocated and is no longer mine except in my heart and memory and dreams.

My father’s parents had an old house, too.  I loved it very much.  So many places to hide and to sit and to day dream.  My mother’s mother had a garden.  Roses, cannas, bananas, elephant ears, and caladiums beside a houdash pond.  My mother sewed and quilted and cooked and baked and laughed and talked in this very house where we now live.

See how the memories tumble and spin.  One leads to another and I drift along.  I do not allow this type of drift very often.  The ache gets uncovered in my heart and my eyes sting and blur.  It is the very reason my photos sit in piles in boxes.  Every so often over the past fifteen years, I have tried to sort through them and get them all organized in albums or something.  But, the ache comes and my eyes sting and blur and I have to stop.

I still love old houses and flowers and houdash ponds and quilts and photos and memories.

 

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Light and dark.

Sunlight and shadow.

Hope and memory.

Life and love.