beautiful

Today is a beautiful day--the sun is shining, there is a coolness to the air, the birds are chirping. I have my sliding door open, curtains drawn back, bringing light into the house.
This morning I got the kids out of bed to go to the 9 am service (no easy task).

Daughter has been going out, staying out late with her friends. I look at her everyday and think how beautiful she is with her long black hair, groomed eyebrows, dark brown eyes. She is gorgeous, smart, talented and wise beyond her years in many ways. She is going to graduate this week. It's strange but I still remember bringing her home from the hospital, her first bath, ,the first time I rushed her to the doctor, the little face she made when my nursing breast was near.

Always, she seemed older than her years; always she has challenged me with her energy, her ambition, her thirst for knowledge and new things. It always seemed easier to let her rush ahead on her own, trailing after her, sometimes getting sidetracked and distracted.

Distracted. Seems that I have been nothing but for the previous ten years--caught up in my little bubble of grief, stress, sadness, sorrow, putting one step in front of the other. I have been in survival mode, only just recently awakening as if from a dream to find my daughter grown into a beautiful young woman, my life in shambles, my marriage gone.

Thank God, I am awake now. Awake to feel every nuance of my life--sweet, bittersweet, hopeful and scary. I'm racing to recapture my reorganized family, to re-establish my home and my children, for their sake as well as mine. Really, it is nothing new. It's always been the three of us most of the time---the fourth member flitting in and out as work, business, responsibilities allowed. We're back.

OKAY so I promised to find something good about being single every day. Here is today's blessing: I can spend my days without fear---that I will get in trouble, get yelled at, be criticized, be kept up all hours. Now, I don't have anyone in my home to fear but myself.

And I don't bite.
Much.