New Years Day 2012

01-01-2012 The first day of a New Year. Just spent my first New Year's Eve alone--in my entire life. Wondering if this is an End and New Beginning?

It's been only a little less than 5 months, but seems a lifetime and a minute all in one. Einstein WAS/IS correct--time is relative. A moment of pain seems forever--a moment of pleasure even shorter.

Yesterday, a family get-together during the afternoon helped to keep my mind from the inevitable New Year's Eve--the first one alone. Somehow I feel as if that should feel more significant, as if saying it will bring more feelings than it has, like I should be sad or depressed about it. It hasn't been that way at all! A few hours of the evening, I spent shopping around a store, buying only toothpaste and a small package of paper plates, but having the opportunity to return smiles, greetings and comments. I was wearing a flashing lighted necklace given by grandchildren, so received smiles and comments on it. Even accused of having a "glowing personality!"

God has richly blessed me with a naturally happy demeanor. Sadly, and unfortunately, my comments can be misinterpreted as being cynical or sarcastic or critical. Somehow I must correct that. Perhaps my wit is too dry. Then again, maybe my comments are interpreted through the personalities of others, and therefore, not my responsibility as to their interpretation?

But that natural happiness has been an extra blessing through the aftermath of losing Jack. I've been so sad that I wonder how awful--beyond description, as it nearly was for me--it must be for those who normally do not have a happy personality. It's not that I don't see the seriousness of life, it's just that God has gifted me with faith and peace even in my worries and worst times.

Though for a while I despaired of having any kind of bright future after Jack died, there was an underlying foundation of peace that somehow this was all normal and to be expected and that I would come out of it a better, stronger person with greater faith to accept whatever future comes. That doesn't mean there was not pain beyond my imagining...there was...and still is part of each day...but it's getting less difficult to handle.

There is a definite emptiness inside my very core...nothing fills it...but God has shored up the edges so that I can't fall into it. Sometimes I approach it, sometimes I peer over the edge, other times I lean into it, but the walls are growing higher every day...too high to let the emptiness engulf me.

The pain now is blunt, like being hit with something solid, not sharply piercing, and tearing my heart from within me as it once was. Maybe that kind of pain is less difficult to ease or handle than the first weeks of almost unbearably sharp pain. There's a part of me that feels maybe that's why there is an emptiness. My heart was torn asunder, almost literally from my body leaving a monstrous crater behind within me. This is the precipice God has walled so I cannot fall beyond help.

I think there will always be a pit with stone walls within me, but it will eventually be capped as a memorial of beauty and strength and love that only God can give. It won't ooze painful thoughts of regrets unable to be reconciled as He will have forgiven them even though Jack can't give that peace.

Tomorrow...One Day at a Time....