Is it bad to sit on the deck listening to your neighbors putting up a pool, and thanking God it isn’t you?
You know, there are things I just don’t miss.
When I began this journey alone without my more than handy man husband, I shed a lot of tears over stuff I couldn’t do myself. Truthfully, in my other life, all I had to do was say “we should do this…” or “I’d love that…” and we were well on our way to a creative renovation. More than lucky and spoiled, I know. We made a great team and could have had our own show, possibly, with ratings for language.
I lost my dream guy but I am starting to dream again of sweet spaces for entertaining and relaxing with my girls.
We adjust. We dream. We grow. We find out so many incredible things about ourselves when alone with limited back up.
I have had two people within as many days say to me, “someday you will be happy again”. You must believe me when I say that I know they mean well, but quite frankly, that wish, said with pure support, I’m sure, sucks. I really cannot truly explain to you why it hurts me to hear it, but it does. I think it has to do with the implication that I am not happy now. The subtle suggestion that you may think you are, you poor silly duck, but you are not.
It scares me.
You see, I have this sweet, determined, unique young woman who tells me almost daily, in so many different ways, that she has my back. And my heart. And my love. As I learn to see beyond that blue-eyed Bea-girl, I am finding an empathetic individual who loves her mom, and wants her to know it.
I think it is my job then, as part of a grieving pair, to show her how I am, and I do. I feel her enthusiasm when we talk about new projects for the house. When I laugh my loud laugh, peeps, she laughs too! And when we disagree, we disagree. I never want Bea to feel she has to stay close to me out of fear or duty, but I still know she may because that is exactly how I felt, and who am I to tell another, especially someone as important as my daughter, how to feel?
We make a good team. One that I am proud of, and I believe that wherever we find ourselves in the future, we will always be together in heart and mind, and I know Patrick is happy too, even though we all feel this tragic break in our continuity.
But – I love what is happening in our life right now. I love the confidence I feel taking on new projects. I love our dog, Sally, who brings joy to our life in new and wonderful ways each and every day. I love sitting in the heat on our front porch knitting dish cloths from odd balls of yarn with the idea, come fall, I may have a table at the local farmer’s market and call my little enterprise Odds and Ends, if I so desire. And I love knowing that when I share this idea with Bea she will say, “I love it. I think you should do it. “
I don’t want to wait to be happy. I want some of it right now, while everything feels right, and it’s warm, and soft, and lovely.
I am leaving you in song again. Perhaps it is a strange choice, of the singer’s possible encounter with a prostitute, but I chose it because it happens to be a happy tune you just cannot get out of your head once you hear it. Be prepared.
Bea says it’s one she always recognizes whenever it starts. It suggest closeness then, and I love that too because it makes us happy.
