Stones of Remembrance: Moving on...

As the Christmas season is upon me, all the past joys of family and friends come flooding back over me. My first Christmas last year as a Grandma. It was wonderful to see her just being her. I won't see that this Christmas, maybe next year. I usually buy the kids jammies and we all put them on to open our gifts together. I'll still send them jammies, but it won't be the same. What about gifts? It is hard to buy someone a gift without hypocrisy if they won't even talk to you. I don't and won't do things from a "guilt" angle, and hate to be manipulated. I guess I will choose to look on it as doing it from the platform of faith. Faith that someday things will be different, that someday I will be forgiven for changing my life and messing with theirs.

I am sitting in my Grandpa Slack's rocking chair in front of the fire, looking at Sam and my first Christmas tree. The tree is small but well shaped and pretty. Kind of like my new life, a small, humble start, but delightful on the inside. I've gone from a beautiful house that I helped fix up to a 2-bedroom apartment that we rent. No vacuum cleaner yet, the television is still in it's bubble wrap from moving, and the kitchen has very little storage.

Don't get me wrong, my old life had plenty of love in it. My children loved me, my family loved me, my friends loved me, even my dog loved me. Well at least I thought they did, time will tell, but my kids do love me. Now, here in my new life, I am surrounded by love, acceptance and contentment. This love of ours has come at a great cost. Every where I turn, I am reminded of the cost. Cost not only us, but those we love. Unfortunately, being sorry doesn't change the reality of the hurt we have placed on others. There is no going back to put things "right". Not only would it be futile, I can't and don't want to. There is a song by Rascal Flatts called "The Day Before You" (press on the title to listen) that has become Sam and my theme song. " I never have to go back to - the day before you..."

So now it's time, time to move on. Mentally I have been clinging to the past; Past hurts, past pain, past joys, past relationships. The past is over, a new life is here. I choose to live in the newness of the life I have been given. I'm hoping my loved ones will accept me in my new life, which includes the love of my life, Sam. If not, I will be sorrowful, shedding many tears for the loss, but I must and will, move on. I will concentrate on those who love me for who I am, not for what I do or have done for them, but because I am their daughter, sister, auntie, mother or friend. Not because I represented something in their life, but because I am me. That is beautiful and I want to emulate that in my relationship with others.
So now I choose to live in the life that I've been given. I choose to feel the joys and the sorrows that new life brings, hopefully, never again to build walls and to stick my head in the sand trying to avoid the pain.
I have been forgiven so I will feel, I will live, I will love.