HEALED!

This house doesn’t seem to want to swallow me up as it did 5 years ago at the start of my empty nester living. 

I no longer hide in the master suite which seemed like a sailboat far away from shore. Which surrounded me with fog making it impossible to see the lighthouse. 

Soon prayer became a book I started to read but could never finish. I could start a prayer but soon the words left me and the tears found me.  I’ve learned since that tears are a language God only hears! I realizes I didn’t need the words for God to hear my heart. And oh how grateful I am that he understood those tears!

This time alone was a struggle for me! Soon it became my time of reflecting on the past!  The childhood memories, teenage years, rebellious twenties, early marriage years, and the secrets I kept for just about everyone in my life growing up.  It drowned me!  It choked me!  It haunted me!  It almost destroyed me!  It made me angry, a lot!  Was it possible that being a busy wife and mom kept me from facing the hidden demons I had packed away so long ago? Yes!

My empty nest soon played my past I never wanted to think about but thought about a lot! Scene after scene it played out ever childhood hurt, dug up ever teenage regret, wild twenties, early marriage mistakes, and repeated everyone’s secrets over and over in my head until I had no excuse but to scream out for help. So I did.

I plan to write it down here and to keep sharing with you how I healed and now how I live healed!

This empty nest that I thought would kill me actually rescued me. There was nothing left to distract me, keep me busy, or to mask my every emotion.  It forced me to seek God’s help like never before. I desperately needed him to heal my soul, repair my heart, to teach me to forgive and to let go. He certainly did!  I certainly healed, forgave, let go, and I continue too everyday!

The fog is gone and I know how to find my way back to the shore if I ever get lost again!

I enjoy my alone time now and appreciate the planned visits with my adult children.

I’m so thankful for the past five years and all that it has taught me and all that it has taken away from me! 

Stick around and live my over 50 living with me!

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Growth Spurt(s)

A growth spurt is an occurrence of growing quickly and suddenly in a short period of time.

This is not about physical growth spurts but about emotional ones.

We all have had emotional growth spurts. The end of high school into college into the working world, from being single into a romance, from single into marriage, and from marriage back into being single.

I haven’t met one person that at an early age planned it all out and had it all go as they planned into adulthood. (If you’re out there, find me because I need to ask a ton of questions!) When it doesn’t go as planned, you’re expected to deal with it, move on, “grow” from it, and for the sake of those around you, don’t take too long doing it. Yep, growth spurts.

Well, guess what! Emotional growth spurts can be painful! Those painful ones need a healing period to adjust and then “grow” forward. If not, then you “grow” forward and unpack it on others.

So give yourself all the time you need in between these growth spurts! You will be a better person for it and you spare a lot of relationships in the end. But more importantly, you save yourself from stumping your own emotional growth.

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Please Don’t say, they’re in a better place or Heaven needed them more.

In honor of my dad’s birthday in July…

My dad was such a great man! He was funny, talented, creative, and passionate about his faith. He could take a tossed out piece of wood and turn it into a treasure just to turn around and give it away. The kindest man you would ever meet. Five minutes with him was a lifetime with him! He was a friend to all! We called each other often and visited with each other often. We sang gospel music together in a family group. We sat together in church and prayed together…he was present in my life. By far, this was my greatest loss.

During his funeral, so many people said, “he’s in a better place”. Those words just smothered me and really made me feel worse because it just emphasized the fact that he was no longer here with me. Please stop saying this to people at funerals. It does not make the death easier!

I sure wish I could take back all the times I said it to anyone! If I could do it all over, I would had said what I really needed to hear myself, “If I could wake you up from this nightmare, I would”.

And for God’s sake, stop saying Heaven needed them. Heaven has all things amazing already. It doesn’t need us to make it great, Jesus already makes it great.

I know it was his time and Heaven is the place to go but it was the last thing I wanted or needed to hear at least not on the day that I wanted him back the most. Say it days before because to be honest (anyone who has lost a love one will agree), we aren’t listening to anyone during the days leading up to the funeral or during it for that matter. We’re just hurting and hurting bad.

What we are thinking about are all the times we should have said more, done more, shared more, loved more, visit more, and appreciated them more while they were alive. And we are thinking, how in God’s name are we going to live without them now!

Somehow, I’ve learned to live without my dad. Yes, it’s been a process. Even though there were those days after and long after that whenI had force myself to get up and well sometimes I didn’t get up, a lot of days I didn’t get up! But, here I am still learning to get up every single day. The hurt never went away “in time” which is another thing that we should stop saying, I only learned to live without him.

I’ve learned that to live without my dad only means to live without him “present”. His voice is still with me in the music he sang. (He went as far as to leave us a CD singing 12 of his favorite gospel songs)

I have all those memories of being in church with him, riding next to him on waterslides at family vacations (while in his late 60’s), and camping at our hunting lease in very cold Texas winters.

And I have some of those gifts made out of tossed out wood.

Sure, he may not be present physically but some how he managed to stay present in my life even after his death.

Happy birthday daddy!

I sure miss you! Thank you for all that you instilled in me. Somehow, I’ve managed to live more and to live more each single day! Remember to save me a place at the table! I’ll be seeing you but not any time soon. You see, I’ve learned how to live again! I love you!

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Where Have the last 5 years Gone!

I can not believe 5 years have gone by since my last blog! Wow! The saying, “time flies” is my reality! Where have I been? What have I been doing? How have I been doing? Why has it taken me this long to start writing again? So just jump on board and take this journey with me as I rediscover who I am in my empty nest. I plan to travel, hike mountains, completely go silver, eat and cook foods I never would have before, divorce some weight, light a fire under my 29 years of marriage and overflow it with romance!

I hope to get to know you as you get to know me! Let’s learn from each other and inspire each other to LIVE more!

http://over50living.com

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