I feel like I am waiting for something.  I am not sure what.  Things have changed so much for me in the last 2 years.  I have gone from living in a family home with my son and his girlfriend to a granny unit over a garage at a house where I am a stranger.  I have gone from caring for my son, our dogs and my mother to caring only for myself. My mom is gone now, my dad also. My sister and I used to live around the block from each other, now we are separate, but still in the same town. I often feel lost, I often feel alone

.  Yes on the surface it looks good.  I have a good job, a sister who is my best friend, a son who loves me, beautiful close friends that I spend time with, safe housing in a well maintained environment among friendly people who welcome me, a church I resonate with and that gives me acceptance and guidance and the security of living in a community where I have grown, and raised a family.  I cannot walk into a place and not feel familiar with someone. So what is my problem?

This is another transition and I am getting older and running out of time.  I never really feel this is it, I am at the place I belong.  I didn’t feel it in my marriage.  I knew someday I would lose my home. We all know someday our parents will pass.  When I lived with my son and my heart daughter I knew it was temporary. Each job has been a stop along the way.  Even friends change with time.  Almost always I keep my friends but circumstances and rhythms of our lives change. I have never,  in any romantic relationship, known that forever kind of feeling. Maybe when I was starry eyed 18 and a bride, but that changed and at some point i knew that we were not destined for forever.

All of those situations have brought me to today, and I have mostly loved and appreciated the moments.  There have been very hard times, painful times that have taken my breath and left me on my knees.  Even those times have a tragic beauty that have shown me new doors.  There is a saying “With each loss comes freedom.”.  Man, is that true for me.  I have never been so free, so unencumbered, so open for life to come in.  For the first time, I think in my life, it is just me.  My last vestiges of responsibility were stripped from me last year when I lost my home and walked away from all I had known and built.   So now what?  I feel alone, sometimes it is very freeing and almost exciting.  But I am getting older and I feel like time is slipping away.  I want to find my place and I want that forever kind of love. Are those things not for me in this lifetime? Is that one of my lessons?  I don’t know, I keep trying, I keep my mind and my heart open but the days pass and then the weeks and then the months.

This is not to say I sit around sad and lonely, that is not the case.  Each day is full and the hours fly.  I sleep good and my only true concern is financial, and don’t most of us feel that.  I am a happy person with a joyful spirit.  But there a darkness to each of us. To deny that is to bury it.  It will come for me one way or another.  I would rather sit in the darkness for a minute knowing it is my friend and here to teach me.  That way I can step into the light cleanly not afraid, just acknowledging there are many sides to myself. I love them all.

So now I set out on my day. It happens to be Sunday, there is church, a birthday, a meet up with my son, good food, good love, good friends.  My goodness surrounds me.  And during this transition I will celebrate, enjoy and await my next adventure, hoping to find my place and my forever love.