One Minute and This Today is Over....

One minute and this Today is over...Midnight.

Anonymous wrote:

The Tears Happen
Endure, grieve and move on.
The only person who is with us
our entire life is ourselves.
Be ALIVE while you are alive.

Can I agree with that sentiment?  Yes, on one level, a purely physical one, it's true.  From birth to death, the only presence constantly with us is ourselves. (Excluding God, if you believe in God, who is with us before birth, and will be after earthly death.)

However, when you have a significant other, that person has a presence in your life, too.  When the person is no longer physically with you, whether due to divorce or death,  the person is retained as a presence in your brain, your mental life, sometimes your dream life.  That presence never disappears.  It may recede for awhile, only to reappear at unexpected moments.  When it's from divorce, there is always, like it or not, a chance of seeing one another, or even being together, again.  When death is the cleaver separating the physical presence, all opportunities of ever having it on this earth, again, is over.  That's it.  Final.

When this realization truly is accepted, is that when one either decides to LIVE or to die?

For me, I believe the decision to LIVE came when I realized I might be desirable to another man.  No, I don't mean sexually desirable, though that might be part of a healthy relationship. It seems sad and a bit quaint, that my existence might be based upon being needed by another person.

I couldn't see how I was needed or even wanted by anyone else, so thought there was no point in my continued existence.  No one in the family needs me since they all have their own significant others who make them feel needed.  Not being particularly good or talented in any special way, there didn't seem to be a reason for me to remain.

What came to me was that there might be another out there who felt the same, so actually needs me as I need him...to help him feel alive and wanted as he would me.  This is how I decided to take up an idea of actually looking for that person.  Just looking had been suggested by a friend who felt there was nothing wrong with starting to think there could be another person who is honest, kind and gentle with loneliness and needs like my own.

For someone who doesn't drink, or go to clubs or belong to social groups and attends small churches, the opportunities to meet someone are limited.  Since my friend, after being widowed, had met her significant other through a service focused on seniors, she suggested I might try it to see if I liked the concept.

The online service I chose had an incremental method of introducing people and I wrote a profile about myself.  That is one difficult thing to do!  After I wrote mine, and saw the profiles of others on the site, I realized I had been about as straight-forward and honest as I could.  Yet, many hardly give any information and you just have to guess...or ignore them.  What's the point of putting a smidgeon of info on such a site if you want others to know about you enough to decide there's a potential interest?

Of course, my innocence of years of marriage made me open to the schemes of scammers, and I quickly learned a lesson the hard way.  However, there is a core of honest men and women out there who truly do want a person with whom to start a friendship, or develop a friendship into a sincere relationship, even with the potential for marriage.

Deciding if this whole idea was something I wanted to pursue took about a month.  Because interaction is limited with the free version, I paid for a month of being able to interact with others on the site.  From that month, I was able to make contact and start a friendship with two gentlemanly individuals.  Even though our introduction was accidental, one has taken a definite, active interest through emails, and now, phone calls.  Perhaps we shall meet one of these days if I continue to feel secure in his sincerity, and he in mine.

The other person might have been appropriate, but he has not made strengthening our friendship a priority.  That's OK.  Each of us has an individual life of family, friends, work and other related obligations.  Especially, if the person's loss has been in the more distant past, the person has worked out coping mechanisms in his or her own society or community.  Making time to form a completely new relationship is not a simple matter.

The decision to try this method of meeting potential friends, and I use the term "friend" as it should be, not euphemistically as a sexual partner, has been difficult.  At first I was concerned that it might be seen as somehow disloyal to my husband or his memory.  My commitment to him was complete and total.  Perhaps that's why his loss has been so incredibly devastating.  His photo sits beside my computer and is on its screen saver.  I love seeing his whimsical smile reflected there.  That forever presence of my closest connection to anyone will never disappear.  It is no longer in the very forefront of my mind at every moment of every day as it was.  If he were here to discuss this, I hope that he would see my love is no less for him.  No matter where/when, in the future, he will be my best earthly friend, never forgotten.

So, now, though I know many more tears will be shed for that man of my life who defies a complete definition as to who he was to me, it's time for me to think of Today, each and every day that comes for me, no matter how many or how few, to LIVE, again, with purpose and meaning.  He would have wanted me to live that kind of life.

Now it is 1:00 a.m. of a new Today!