Four words that my son said were my most used exclamations on our five day trek across the country twelve years ago. We were in a small sedan complete with me, my then 28 yr old son and my trusty rescued dog, Gypsy. Oh, and every bit of clothing and memorabilia I could fit in the trunk along with a sewing machine, just in case I needed curtains or something to make my new home quickly homier.

It seemed that my response to anything unexpected was one or a combination of these expressions. I feel as though they accompanied a certain period of my life; one full of the unknown, of changes, both in scenery and in relationships. It was a time of experimentation with the boundaries of the self I had pretty much ignored during the raising of my two boys. There is only so much time available, and mine was already spoken for between their needs and those of making a living. This was not my retirement exactly, but as close to it as I might ever get. It meant still working, but only enough to cover my rent, as social security and Medicare had kicked in, taking with them the huge burden of so many years with no personal health care off of my shoulders. I was able to attend to the repair of my body and doing some needed maintenance that had often been postponed. I started a decades long update on my teeth, as I found my smile was my most treasured attribute and a loss I did not want to accept if there was a choice. And now there was.

I am often reminded how very fortunate I have been to navigate this life time with always enough opportunities to take care of my basic life needs, and I am ever conscious of those who do not have access to them. I am distressed by the constant promotion of dependence on government, rather than the human family and community surrounding them, to comfort and provide incentives to address those needs. God never intended an absentee and faceless, often heartless, entity to do what other humans could do so much more efficiently and kindly, with an accompanying love and appreciation for the soul, not just the body, of the individual… not just the case number.

And so I try to remember what those four words meant as I used them during that time. Perhaps I was only talking to the ‘inside’ me, the one giving herself permission to fail, to stumble, to pause or to grab on to a lifeline as needed, as her rocky life journey evolved. I rarely, if ever, use them anymore, but they were certainly wonderful handrails when I needed them.

When I wrote my last post, Tardy, it was with the complete intention to begin writing again. Here I am six years later just typing back in. Where did all that time go? Really the better part of a decade of my life. Hmmm. We shall see if the upcoming blogs are the result of some wisdom or clarity somehow obtained through osmosis during such a long absence. Was that time put to good use just living or reflecting upon the deeper meanings of my life? There certainly have been many changes, additions and losses during that time, so perhaps they will all get caught up in the tapestry I hope to continue to weave. We shall see. Time will tell…or maybe not. I might have just leapt over those chapters and they may not resurface to be examined by my further down the road brain and emotions. I am willing to take a chance to see them only in the rear view mirror, rather than try and create them from memory the way they might have been at the time. So here we go: forward!

I do have my oldest son to thank for getting all the back end work done to make this available to me again, as servers had changed and so had all the admin stuff (codes and connections to domains) needed to allow me to get back into and use my site. His hours in chats have made this possible and I am very grateful, because the familiar layout is very comforting to me. It fits me better than my old wardrobe, and it’s gypsy-like motif and the happy colors still make me smile.