It's Time to Start Living

Aleathia says:

Today is the first day of 11th grade for my kiddo and for some reason I spent the morning crying like it was the first day of kindergarten. I'm an emotional woman. I have always been. Often it is too my detriment, but more often than not it allows me to read people, to feel for them, to care for them, and to understand with some deep notion the tragedy they go through. I am also an inward thinker. I think about everything in a manner not unlike a chess player. Every move I make changes the direction of my life. New things that come alone by surprise have often derail me and cause me to make catastrophic choices. I like to collect information and make decisions based on this information mixed with my flood of feelings. It's like a balance I have built for myself.

This morning it struck me that soon my kid will leave me. The life she chooses to lead is before her and this is a free flowing, carefree type of kid. We are the opposite in this manner and we have worked hard to see how the same events strike us differently. Mostly, she just laughs at me when I'm wound up like a top over something and this is enough to make me see I've jumped overboard without a life vest again. Today I waited until she left for school and once again I was alone in this big house. One day this alone time won't be broken by end of school stories and snacks, by laughter, by deep conversations or gossip. It will take on loneliness.

Though my last relationship was an utter disaster that I am so happy to be out of, it had given me the sense that I would live out my endgame of life with someone by my side to share adventures with. The ending of that relationship may not have been so much the loss of the person, but the loss of the vision I had created for myself. The vision that I would not die alone. I am given the usual pieces of advise. Get out there and mingle. Add more activities to your day. Open up.  These are all valid and lovely words to live by, but the problem, is me.

I work tirelessly on my personality. I am not trying to be someone I'm not, but I am trying to find the outer limits of myself. I am trying to find that confident woman. I am trying to find the tiny extrovert that lives in this introvert's heart. I am trying to find a way to love again without being afraid.  The problem is whether or not I will find these things before I'm 80....if I make it to 80.

I hope to move forward never taking anything in my life for granted. It is easy to do in this generation of everything is replaceable at a moment's notice. It's easy to look past one thing to another without considering its value and worth. This year has been about survival, about climbing out of holes and seeing the sun for the first time in a long time. Now, it's time to start living.

Thanks for reading.
Aleathia