Forgiveness

There are five things that you cannot recover in life:

The Stone ....after it's thrown.

The Word....after it's said.

The Occasion....after it's missed.

The Time....after it's gone.

A Person....after they die.

(Author unknown)


All you can do once you have matured enough to acknowledge mistakes you made is forgive yourself and move on.

As you get older (and hopefully wiser) there seems to be a lot of acknowledging and forgiving to do.

My inner journey took me back to where I was at personally when I started going with my first husband; and the negative feelings that fueled our relationship.

In hindsight, I realize he expressed my anger; and I fed his guilt.

Now I regret how I disrespected him; and I regret how I disrespected myself.

I vow it will not happen again now that I am more fully aware.

I will never again treat a person with disrespect. I don't have to like them. I don't have to agree with them.

But I can treat them with respect - even in my thoughts.

Reclaiming My Life

I notice that lately every action I take is aimed at reclaiming my life.

Strange, I didn't notice that I had lost it.

Freedom

While going through some papers today, I came across a quote I had saved from Craig Phillip's blog www.secondchancetolive.wordpress.com

"I no longer need to be perfect, just willing to keep my side of the street clean."

After a lifetime of trying to be perfect and failing miserably......

After a lifetime of being disappointed because nobody else seemed any better at it than me.....

After a lifetime of imposing unrealistic expectations on myself and everybody I cared about.....

I can finally take joy in being true to Craig's statement.

This has been the most freeing achievement of my life.

In The Shadows

This soulmaking business is not a one time thing.

I'm realizing now that you have to enter the darkness again and again and again....

It's always worth it when you reach the light at the end of the tunnel.

But once I'm in that light; boy I hate to leave again.

Lovingkindness

The teacher asked the pupils to tell the meaning of lovingkindness.

A little boy jumped up and said, "Well, if I was hungry and someone gave me a piece of bread, that would be kindness.

But if they put a little jelly on it, that would be lovingkindness.

( from God's Little Devotional Book For Women)

SURRENDER

It's happened again.

I have fallen into that lifelong pattern of "a human doing" rather than "a human being".

I realized this some months back but, for some reason, felt compelled to follow that road to the very end.

Why? What did I hope to gain? I have no idea.

All I know is that I had to keep pushing myself until there was absolutely no push left in me.

And now that I have completely exhausted myself, I feel that I can give myself permission to claim the space I need to just "BE".

I surrender. Thank God, I surrender.

A Little Rambling

Has it really been that long since I posted on my favorite blog. Where did those months go?

I'm sitting here trying to retrace my steps. September...........

I finished up at the Farmer's Market and then sold most of my pickles at the Fall Fair, Of all the food and craft sales we have, the Fall Fair is my favorite. Pumpkins, scarecrows, apples, orange colors, harvest, people, life...............

I took in as many of the craft sales as I possibly could until I got sick in November. Barely recuperated in time to go to Toronto to spend Christmas with my son and his wife. My sister and I took the train which was nice. It has been years since I travelled by train; and I enjoyed it immensely.

I hope to never have to fly again. I hate it.

I don't SAY that I am never going to fly again though, because I know if I did, the universe would put something in my path that would leave me no other alternative. So I content myself with saying I hope to never have to do it again.

I arrived back home early in January with full-blown pneumonia which took all month to shake. The worst part of that though is that it left me no chance to catch up to myself. All the piles of paperwork - all the half-finished crafts - all the getting ready for Christmas mess - just sitting there - overwhelmingly!

So here it is - Spring! It came upon me before I even had a chance to hibernate. And I feel it.

Life is FULL. Fuller than it has been since my husband died. And I am loving it. There is nothing I wish to give up to claim more space for myself.

So I take life One Day At A Time focusing on "What's the next most important thing to do?" at the same time checking in with myself to be sure this is something I really wish to do.

And that brings me to today. Thanks to my friend down yonder for jiggling my chain and reminding me to sit myself down at my computer and let my thoughts begin to flow.

An unexamined life...............