Glow

I’m sitting in bed, a half dozen candles lit in the room, a reading lamp beside me, classical music playing soft and low... Yo Yo Ma.

Last night I got ten hours sleep!  Ten!

I went to bed at 12:30... awoke at 6:00... and I decided to try to sleep more.  When I woke the clock read 10:15.  That is more sleep in one night than I have had in a decade!

Zion Memorial Cemetery was filled with flowers and flags today, bright colors beneath a bright sky.  Fresh flowers on Willy’s grave.  

Isaac wanted to go to the mall, so we did.   The mall crawl.  Not my sort of thing, but he enjoyed it, and I did too.

I’ve painted a wall in Jeremiah’s old room, fresh white, and I’m planning a prayer painting for that space, cover art for a fund raiser CD.

I tossed the 20 year old comforter from the bed and bought fresh sheets, new pillow cases, a new comforter (all a part of a set... what sort of pillow goes into a sham?!).

People at work, at church, in the stores, tell me I am looking good.

My hands are dry, a little flaky, but the skin is thicker, the splitting has stopped.  The cessation of pain feels wonderful.

Can you see my smile between the lines of this post?

I don’t regret trying so hard to save my marriage.  It was an awful, a painful experience, but it was what I had to do because it was the “me thing to do”.

We think of being young as the Spring of our lives... but we all know that Spring comes around every year.  It makes sense our lives have more than one Spring.  It is Spring time.

I am happier now than I have been in so very long.  At least since Willy died in ’92.  Probably much earlier than that.

I’m 53 and I am getting to know who I am in ways that weren’t possible from within my marriage.

I’m freer now, more creative.  

Brenda is free to be who she wants to be and that is good.  I am free to be who I want to be, and that is great!

She and I are very different people.  I hope she is happy in her new life.  

I’m glad she isn’t beside me.  I am still unused to sleeping alone, but an empty bed is a better place to rest than one with a toxic love.

The candles give off a lovely glow.  They remind me of the way I am feeling.