Another Day

            My mission for this day is to find equilibrium between the happy and the sad.

My heart hurts. I cried as I read the obituary on Facebook of an old friend from our days in Virginia. Jane died this week from ovarian cancer. She was warmhearted and loving, and enjoyed life to the fullest. She fought the good fight courageously for a year and a half. She and her husband had retired to Florida in 2018, but they had not lived there long when he died suddenly from a heart attack. He, too, was a good friend of ours. Jeff played guitar and sang in the musical church group, New Song, that my late husband, Jerry, and I were a part of.

How do I make sense of this?

This holiday season, on Thanksgiving, I took time to reflect upon my life, as I often do, and I found myself grateful for many things: enough to eat, a comfortable home, good health, friends – but I am not feeling satisfied. What more do I need, and how do I find it? Because I do believe it is all up to me.

            I have always been a moody person, but now it feels like I have less control over my moods. Circumstances in the world, such as the war in Ukraine, are such that I am often on the verge of tears. But not always sad tears; lovingkindness, such as the smile of a child, can also move me.

            I sometimes feel that there is little reason to get out of bed in the morning. I am realizing that it doesn’t matter what I do with my day most of the time. There is no one to interact with, so I talk to my cat incessantly. I have not been sleeping well, but I love my bed, and look forward to climbing under the covers every night. The last couple of hours before I get up, however, I lie awake, unable to quiet my mind enough to go back to sleep. I feel like this is a relatively new phenomenon that began after Jerry died in 2020.

            I did not see my family on Thanksgiving, but I did see dear friends who are like family and have been good to me. I am reading an excellent WWII-era novel, The Huntress, which has held my attention much more than I expected. I will enjoy the discussion with my book club, but I have to get through over 500 pages first: no easy task.

I am fortunate to have so much time on my hands after falling in late September and breaking a bone in my left elbow, now healed. However, I must also deal with a “dropped finger” on my right hand. The finger splint keeps fat-fingering my keyboard. These injuries have kept me from my daily classes at the YMCA, as well as pickleball, and I can tell I am getting out of shape. That can be remedied when I am back to my active lifestyle. I am ready for takeoff!

Writing is an effective way for me to feel better about everything in my life, and it is already having a positive effect on me today. The words appear before me and they are my words, telling my story. This gives me great satisfaction.

            So here’s the thing: I have made it through another day. And I wrote this blog and I have cried all the tears I am going to cry today. I have tempered my sadness with warm memories. So maybe I just do this, every day, just live and get through another day.

          And someday it will be different. There will be a reason to keep going every day. I will feel hope, maybe even joy, lingering in my heart.