Author: worrylessjourney

life lessons

by worrylessjourney, posted in life changes, loss, wisdom

This morning I was thinking about what a difference there is when you lose a spouse. I can only see it from my own perspective but having been married for so long it has made me feel lost. For the first time in my life I feel completely alone.

This does not mean that I am alone. My family is wonderful and I have friends from my longtime home and caring friends and neighbors here. However, there is the sensation that I am totally alone for the first time in my life.

I have lost people in my life: parents, relatives, friends. I miss them and feel the lost connection but I never felt lost myself. With this loss there comes the severing of years of closeness. There is now no one who knows me as well as my husband. The years of memories have lost the person who held them too. No one else can relive those with me. Just the ability to say “remember when” and be understood is gone.

My grandmother, at one hundred, said there was no one who she could talk to about her past and share those memories. Now I understand.

We do grow with each experience in life. Some of the most painful produce the most change and the most empathy. Life is always teaching us. We just have to use that wisdom to reach out to others.

Helping bassets to adjust

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, dogs, empathy
Dogs calm for now

This is the first time I have written in a long time. I don’t know why. I just couldn’t think. I guess that all that has happened in the last year has caught up with me. I am in a strange place. Life, after all, is a strange space. Sometimes we just need to back up and take a breath.

The two basset hounds have not adjusted at all and it makes me feel so sad to leave them even for a little while. I am working with my vet to find a solution for this but just beginning. She has suggested training and I realize that part of what is being done is to get them to trust me. I know they do on some level but real training has never been done with them and they need to see me as someone who can assure them that is is fine for them to be left in the apartment.

This type of training will be long term and I don’t expect a result over night but I am hopeful. Crash is fairly amenable but Tillie is another matter since she failed training once before but I will hope.

I just want to make their lives bearable.

Connections matter

by worrylessjourney, posted in connections, patterns, perspective

I posted this on my other site but realized that I wanted to share it here also.

I have long been a believer in the “butterfly effect.” The idea that somehow we are all connected. I see this in so many ways. There is a wonderful children’s book called “The Invisible String” that tells us that love is one of the ways we are connected and it is the “invisible string” that never goes away even with death.

Sometimes we have a strong feeling of connection to someone we have never physically met. I feel that way about some people I connect with on this blog. I hear their voice through their words. I have a sense of who they are and feel connected. Because I don’t know them otherwise I could be wrong but there is still something there. Kindness and compassion are clearly felt.

We are connected to the people we see in our everyday lives. It could be seeing the same grocery clerk every week or someone we meet for lunch. People touch us in our work. Obviously some of these links can be good or bad but there is still a connection. Each of us has an impact on those around us.

We are connected to those who have gone before us. We may not know about them or we may have heard stories about their lives. They are present in our DNA. We often find that there are personality traits that have been passed on. People say that I look like my great grandmother. Pictures do show a strong connection.

In the church where I worked for years there is a sense in the building of the lives that have gone before. It is something I feel when I sit in silence in the sanctuary. It is as if the “communion of saints” is physically present.

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Don’t doubt that we are all connected. The things that I do each day affects others. Science tells us that nothing is lost…just changed. What I do matters. What you do matters.

Connections matter

by worrylessjourney, posted in Uncategorized

Poste this on my other site but realized I wanted to share here.

worrylessjourney's avatarHear God in Other Voices

I have long been a believer in the “butterfly effect.” The idea that somehow we are all connected. I see this in so many ways. There is a wonderful children’s book called “The Invisible String” that tells us that love is one of the ways we are connected and it is the “invisible string” that never goes away even with death.

Sometimes we have a strong feeling of connection to someone we have never physically met. I feel that way about some people I connect with on this blog. I hear their voice through their words. I have a sense of who they are and feel connected. Because I don’t know them otherwise I could be wrong but there is still something there. Kindness and compassion are clearly felt.

We are connected to the people we see in our everyday lives. It could be seeing the same grocery clerk every…

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The wave

by worrylessjourney, posted in fear, grief, love, memories

I love C.S. Lewis. His books have inspired me for many years. Today I came across this quote from his book “A Grief Observed.”

I don’t think I had thought about grief in this way but it is so true. I have been washed in fear. Not constantly but over and over. Just when I think it has disappeared it comes again and overwhelms me.

It makes me wonder why fear? What am I afraid of? There is no clear answer. Some things can be seen such as being alone but others are not so obvious. Most of the obvious ones have been dealt with…finances, paperwork, moving, but still the wave comes.

Each time I can feel it tugging at me…wanting to pull me under but then it subsides. Each time it is possible that the pull is less strong but not enough to really feel.

Time will pass. The wave will someday bring memories of love and joy and the fear will recede. I only pray that it continues to lessen with fear and increase with love.

Is proof proof?

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, belief

This is just so true for today’s world. People are actually unable to step outside of their beliefs. No conversation about a different idea with change them. They will always find a reason to step back into their original position.

Today something reminded me of this quote from “The Mysterious Benedict Society” originally a book now a series on Disney Plus. “Proof is useless unless it’s proof of something people already want to believe.?

I think this is partly why those who chose not to be vaccinated are so set in their position. My oldest daughter works in a hospital in Georgia. When I spoke with her recently the hospital had 95 patients in with covid. Of that number 2 were vaccinated. I wish more cities would cite those statistics. However, it is possible that nothing will change many opinions.

Everyone is to blame

by worrylessjourney, posted in accountable, choices, responsible

What is this new world that we are living in? So many people are sick and it is hard to not feel as if it is their fault since so many of them were not vaccinated. It is a terrible world when people are so frightened by words spoken by politicians that they can’t care for their own health and that of others.

How did we get there? How can we make the changes necessary to create another environment. It is so sad. This virus could have had a better and faster outcome if paranoia had not set in. When people are scared anything can happen.

Who is to blame for all of this. To sort of quote the words of Pope Francis ” When no one is to blame then everyone is to blame.”

Moving ahead

by worrylessjourney, posted in moving ahead, perspective, retirement

What is it like to live in a retirement community? I am not sure that I can entirely answer that yet. I haven’t been here long enough. First impressions: there are good things. The food is good…there are three restaurants and many choices, someone cleans my apartment once a week, there are people to talk to when covid doesn’t interfere. My apartment is small but nice. Divesting myself of many things has been freeing.

Other thoughts: It is an adjustment as you see everyone else with grey hair (although this has become quite popular) and understand that living in a place where all of us are aging means that people will die.

Everything we do in life requires change. This is just another in many that make up my journey in life. There are still adventures to have, people to love and new things to experience and I am begging to look forward to that. There has been a real change in my perspective in the last few weeks.

Life goes forward. The question is are we willing to go with it or just rest in the past? I choose to move ahead.

Keeping on

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, anxiety, choices

Everyday is blending into the next. With the rise in covid variant it seems we are back to staying in. It becomes quite depressing. However, there is nothing to do but continue on. There will be some point at which the danger will be outweighed by our need to be with others.

We are human and as such we have a long history of being “tribal.” We need the connection with people. Most of us can only be solitary for so long. Admittedly some extreme introverts can deal with it for quite a while but the rest of us need communion with others.

The incidence of depression and anxiety has risen drastically since this all started. There are discussions of a new, even more virulent covid coming next. We will need to find new ways to live. We may have to limit ourselves to a closed circle of friends. There will still be risk but life has always had risk. We just have to adapt and keep on.

Don’t mess with mother nature

by worrylessjourney, posted in coping, enjoy, frustration

This is the view from my apartment. It is wonderful to look out and see the rolling hills. I have lots of sun and being a SAD person it is important to me. I have morning sun and nice shade in the afternoon to sit out on the balcony. This is really wonderful. I will be spending time outside once I get the balcony organized.

Austin is now at Level V for the new covid and so we are having to be especially cautious. There have been people getting the variant. Most of them are not seriously ill but who wants that. I am not sure we will ever be free of this virus or some other one that shows up.

Mother nature is not happy with us. We have raped the earth and now it is fighting back as it has done several times in the past. If only all those naysayers would begin to realize that this is a crisis that could do away with the human race.

At my age I am sure that I will not be around to see the end result (which I hope good) but I am concerned for the grandchildren and now great grandchildren. They deserve a better world environment.