Month: March 2021

Muddling through

by worrylessjourney, posted in confusion, hope, Uncategorized, worry

Today was a different day. I dropped off one of my dogs early this am to have her teeth cleaned and a cyst removed from her back. I expected to pick her up about four this afternoon. It is now 7:15 and I am still waiting to get her. They had emergencies and didn’t do her stuff until 6 pm. Not what I had planned. Now I will have a dog just out of surgery and not herself to care for tonight. I love her and that is ok but this didn’t work out well. Hopefully things will work better later. New vets….just have to learn if this is the one for my pups.

Yesterday I got to visit the place that I hope to move to. Once there I will never have to move again. After all, at 80, I’ll be blessed to get to 100 with all my faculties. There is so much there. The place is connected to thee University of Texas at Austin and professors come to teach classes. Residents have set up many activities for themselves and they travel and enjoy life. I hope to never stop learning so this sounds perfect for me.

I will also be glad when we can all get back to church. I know that following all that has happened and may still be a problem life will be different but I hope that we will be able to be with other people more than we can now. (wow…long sentence…maybe needs editing)

Today

by worrylessjourney, posted in comfort, nature, sadness

This has been a good day. I got to spend most of it with my daughter. The only sad spot was picking up my husband’s ashes. Doing it with my daughter made it meaningful. We will be able to do a memorial service in the fall at the church my husband built. He loved it so. We want people to be able to come and I want a military presence since that was such a part of his life.

We spent lots of time in a garden nursery center that was amazing. Just being outside with lot of plants and flowers brightens the soul.

I was a able to get a few plants to put outside and two indoor ones to make my apartment home. I love plants. However, I can’t say I miss the huge yard we moved from. It was truly overwhelming. I never could reach done….not even for a day. It was just constant. Probably one of the few things I don’t miss after moving.

All in all a comforting sort of day.

The journey of grief

by worrylessjourney, posted in anxiety, comfort, connections, coping, grief

Grief is a funny thing. Some people think it follows the pattern of acceptance by Kubler-Ross. That pattern was actually developed about acceptance of a coming death. In my mind grief is different. Having run two years of grief support group and feeling my own grief I think it is much more erratic. It comes and goes like the waves of the ocean. I am certainly feeling that. I can go along just fine and then suddenly something will trigger tears.

We can’t run away from grief. Instead we have to go through it. We have to experience it. Hiding from it or trying to deny it doesn’t work. It can take a long time. Sometimes people have no idea what to say to us when we have a loss. Some comments can be upsetting but we just have to understand that most are well meaning.

It has been and will continue to be particularly hard due to the circumstances we all find ourselves in. Covid doesn’t allow us to do normal things that help us accept a death. Funerals are done with few people or put off until later.

In my case there is also moving to another city away from longtime friends. Being with family has helped but I am not in my long-term home and things are not as usual. I reach out by phone and electronics but it is not the same. I am lonely and missing my place in things. It will get better when we can be with people but for now it is hard.

My faith helps and I find myself leaning on God for support more than usual. I guess loss makes us reach out and understand what is important to us. God is my rock that I stand on.

We all grieve in our own way and I will move through this and find new friends and people to do things with. Being able to go to church will help. Life does go on.

Time goes by

by worrylessjourney, posted in aging, change, memories

Today memories have taken over my thinking. I have taken myself back to my childhood and remembered lying on the floor in front of the fire at night and listening to the radio. You heard me right. There was no television. The radio was our entertainment and I can tell you scary programs and worse when it is your own mind conjuring up the villain. There was “The Shadow” and one with a creaking door. Less stressful programs were “Let’s Pretend” “Fibber McGee and Molly” and many others.

Television didn’t come into my life until sometime in the 50’s. My grandfather bought one for his office. He didn’t worry about those of us a home. (he and my grandmother lived with us) I used to go to his office just to see this magical thing.

Later we were able to get one for our home. It was a small oval screen and the picture was black and white. There weren’t a lot of programs and I don’t remember many of them. Strangely enough I remember the radio programs more.

In the late fifties I remember going to a teacher’s home to watch something from Disney in color. That seemed truly amazing.

The world has really changed in my lifetime.

Bind up fear

by worrylessjourney, posted in fear, hope

Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them.

Vincent McNabb

I am one of the worst for worrying about things. I cross every bridge before I get to it. When something is really wrong, fear can rule my world. We shouldn’t expect all our fears to disappear. This is the real world. But by leaning on God’s grace, we can begin to hold fear in check and rely on hope.

Prayer: God, our father and mother, we turn to you as a loving parent. Help us to remember that you love us and want only the best for us. Help us to bind up fear and put it away.

Coming back

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, change, connections, thankful

It has been so long since I have posted that I feel lost. For some reason after my husband’s death I just stopped for a while. It is time to be back. First let me thank everyone for your kind messages of sympathy. They were much appreciated and helped me at a time when I needed help.

Now I hope to get back to my normal writing. I have thought about so many things during this hiatus and will be sharing thoughts and ideas. Life is never boring and always has something to teach us if we are willing to learn. Wisdom does come with age if we choose to learn as we go. I have much to learn still and am still curious about life and the world around me. I hope I never stop learning until I leave this earth.

Glad to be back. Peace, Suzanne