“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are”
Anais Nin (again)
Monthly Archives: September 2011
really?
I called a friend going through a very new separation the other night on the phone. We talked for a long time.
I could feel her grief and shock.
It was important to her to let me know how different her split was from mine. This is what we do. We fear getting catalogued under the big fat dirty communal heading of failure.
I remembered some of my own darkness and sadness, although so remote now as though I had parked it on a distant planet.
I found I could give some decent advice although the scenarios are so very different.
Her voice was shaking when she said “I never planned on growing old alone. How are you adjusting to that, Nancy?”
I said “I don’t have any plans to grow old alone. ”
She now spoke loudly
“Really?”
I can’t help it. I have to think this way.
Let me know if you think it is dangerous to be so filled with faith.
of all the things not to love about aging one of the best parts is being authentic. My dad used to say ‘I am just getting better at being myself’ and I get what he meant even though sometimes it was as explanation for some of his less attractive qualities. Click here for Being Me- I think you will agree about being you too
better and worse
These past few weeks many close friends who have said goodbye to their children as they have left for University, are devastated by the loss. Intellectually they know that it is a natural progression, that it is very good if not spectacular and that they would not want it any other way. But if you love the noise, the confusion, the excitement and the challenge of it and you have known it for 18 years – it takes some real getting used to.
I was speaking to a good friend who has a grade 12 like me and she and I were agreeing that this is going to be tough for us next year.
Lately, I have been trying to say what is hard for me to say, rather than avoid the difficult thing. So I said it-
“I wonder sometimes if our other married friends say – this is going to be hard for us- imagine what it will be like for Nance”
She did not miss a beat.
“Nance, I think many of them envy your happiness, and some of them would rather be alone than be left with whatshername or whathisname beside them and no kids in between.”
Ok, so this made me feel better and worse.
I want to believe in marriage and its long and winding road.