April 21, 2014
Okay! Okay! I Hear You!
If I don't get something committed to the page soon, my daughter is going to be apoplectic.
It's not that I haven't wanted to write - it's that I haven't been able to organize my thoughts into something comprehensible. But here goes...
It's spring again, after the longest, greyest, most dismal winter I can remember. I never made it back to Florida, primarily because Key West was totally booked for the winter. (Unless I wanted a 6-bedroom rental for $5,000 a week!)
So I sat, and watched snowfall after snowfall after snowfall - and commiserated with friends who were feeling exactly the same way I was. And I sort of "suffered" with two friends who lost their husbands, and a cousin who lost a husband, and another cousin who lost a son. And that was pretty much the tenor of the entire winter - one sad event after another. The pall was lifted periodically by song - our chorale performed two of the most glorious Christmas concerts I've ever been part of.
And there were visits, weather permitting, with the twins, now 17 months old, who are energy personified, and learning to talk. (And my daughter's tales of their daily "adventures" are enough to have me rolling on the floor with laughter.)
The daffodils are phasing out now, and we're on the vanguard of summer. And sad to say, it all has rather a hollow ring to it. I can't shake this feeling of empty purposelessness. Oh, sure, the intellectual side of me can reason through the void - but the emotional side of me has yet to heal. I've done some more on-line dating, to absolutely no avail - I've volunteered for various things that amount to "busy work" - and I'm more determined than ever to get back to Florida for the winter to come - BUT - my heart still aches, and the worries and fears that come hand-in-hand with widowhood and advancing age refuse to abate.
And I am SO reluctant to sound like "Mrs. Gloom-and-Doom." Sounds too much like self-pity, and I have no patience with self-pity in myself or others. So I will try to keep forging ahead, one day at a time - and hope that my spirits will lift along with the temperatures.
