Making Progress

   Some days are better than others. Today was one of those days. I worked hard, made progress in my personal life and while I still hurt it was not so bad. I am settling in to a better rhythm now. I work every day and think about work when I am not there. I see my children every other weekend, and take them to piano lessons every Tuesday afternoon. I visit my mom and dad as often as possible, maybe too much, maybe sometimes not enough. I still spend most of my evenings alone and that is not too bad. I have to distract myself so I do not wonder what the kids are doing and then start missing them and then start…well you know the drill.

   I have dated a few times and at my age it is certainly more challenging than it was 30 years ago. I am not complaining and any unsuccessful dates were entirely my fault. I probably was not ready and was distracted by what was going on and as usual making it all about me. For that I am sorry, because every woman I have dated since this started was nice and probably more than I deserved. This was just all so unexpected and caught me so unawares that I am still reeling from all the changes that have taken place. As challenging as it is I am adjusting well and moving forward. I think.

   The economic challenges have been tough and added a worry that I have not dealt with before. I will endure those and prevail eventually. There are a lot of things I have to deal with now that I never had to think about before and that is a good thing. You know what they say, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste”, so I am keeping mine occupied. It is my heart, my soul and my spirituality that I worry about the most. I do not want to become cynical about love, jaded in my view of affairs of the heart. I do not want to miss that next chance at a life with someone I love.

  I look at things differently now when comes to deciding who I should cultivate a relationship with; who I should spend what precious little time I have left. Trust me, I am not claiming my number is up, but reality tells me I am looking at 30 more good years at best, probably less. At the same time I am far less quick to judge, less apt to make a snap decision about someone based on first impressions. I know the roads we have all been down and met many of the people that have walked those roads. Hard roads, that fought every step they tried to take and they emerged at their destination, happy content and humble. That is my goal, to reach my destination happy, content, humble and extremely grateful. The road is in front of me and I am moving forward as I start over, over 50.