ALONE-LONELY-ALONE

In my youth, being alone as I would adventure out into the world was fun, exciting and full of promise.  In time, when I met my late husband, being alone now and then meant relieve from the pressure of life and raising the four babies.  After my husband died, being alone meant lonely.  Oh boy, what a difference!  It is all a matter of choice.  I chose to be alone when I was young or wanted to escape from the pressures of life, but being alone after losing a life partner is not a choice.

In the five years that he has been gone, the struggle was to find my way and develop a purpose in living and life.  I have been lucky.  Caring for someone through the dying process can be difficult when it happens over a long period of time.  In a discussion recently with a friend who is also a widow, we talked about the difference between losing someone over a long period of time vs a short or sudden loss.  And we both realized how fortunate we were in our journey.  When you care for someone over a long duration, there is a shared grief that happens between you and the one you love.  A long goodbye but time for words, tears, and a sharing that when death happens fast, does not occur. 

I found relieve at Pat’s passing.  A lifting of burdens.  That is when the loneliness hit me.  No purpose.  No one to care for.  No one to care about what I did, thought, or wanted.  The feeling of being a fish alone in the sea.  

I worked on finding a way to make peace with this period of my life.  I kept doing, and playing, and going places.  More often alone than not.  It was hard at times.  The feeling you could disappear off the side of a cliff wondering if anyone would notice.  Wondering how long I would be gone before anyone would check on me.  Not good thoughts and work had to be done to settle these feelings.

I never expected or counted on the idea that I would be lucky enough to ever find someone again.  I mean, look around.  There are more widows out there than single men to stand by their side. Life’s journey is what it is and we all must make peace where we stand.  And I did.  I kept moving and found I could get through the days.  Always being open to new experiences and meeting new people that opened the door to new adventures.  I love meeting new people and getting to know their story.  There are many heroes out in the world.  Many courageous souls who carry heartaches yet still find ways to enjoy their days.  I looked for them in my journey, always searching for clues on how to get through them myself.  

It took a while for me to be happy where I stood, but I did.  I am okay and began to make plans to find ways to play until the time comes that I can’t anymore.  Determined not to reach the end of my days with “coulda/shoulda’s” in my thinking.  

Loneliness was pushed away by my activities.  Oh, there still were those moments when I left an event where I was genuinely having a good time,  entered my car, closed the door and felt the hammer of my aloneness slam me in the face.  Those continue to be difficult to deal with at times.

Then something happened.  My willingness to continue to take chances, go places and meet new people placed me in the path of someone, who like me, was at peace with doing things alone, yet…there was that one spot missing…that one desire to have some shared experiences with someone.  Me, looking for someone to do some traveling with, share some experiences with and him just looking for someone to meet up with now and then, “A dinner or a movie,” he said. 

There we stood, fumbling with the rules of how to do this in our 70’s…yet each time we got together we discovered over and over again how wonderful to find that special someone to fill our days and share our experiences.  Both afraid to think of anything but the moment at hand, worried that to think anything else would jinx the good thing we have found, we continue to grow and plan and enjoy each time we are together.  

I don’t know where or how this will end.  We both are enjoying the times we are together and find ourselves making plans and wanting to share them with each other.  Being alone now is not so lonely, except for the fact that I miss him and hope always he misses me.  But alone now is not filled with the loneliness that I carried before I met him.  I am one lucky broad!

I LOVE FACEBOOK

I hear some say that Facebook is a waste of time.  They go on about how they don’t bother and don’t want anything to do with it. It’s just a bunch of fake news.  I will say that the politics of our nation has brought forth some crap that I could just as well do without, but I cannot disagree more with the premise that Facebook is a waste of time.  If not for Facebook I wouldn’t be able to keep up on the activities of my nieces, nephews, cousins, grandchildren, or long distance friends and family.  In a world that competes for our time, it is a joy to stay on top of what is going on with those who have played a role in my life.

Along with old high school classmates, long lost coworkers, or old neighbors from neighborhoods that I have long ago left, I occasionally hear from old friends from a childhood I don’t dwell on.  Recently I had another reach out on Facebook that has taken me back down memory lane.

As I have shared in my past blogs, my childhood is not anything I ever want to recall or live over.  Yet, with my adult life being what it is, I can’t help but ponder now and again where the idea of choice came from.  So the recent reach out from a childhood relationship took me down memory lane and reminded me that just because bad things happened to me, it never meant that there were not moments of happiness too.  After years of reflection, I believe it was this kind of moments that allowed me to see there were other ways of living, showing me that there was the choice of how to live that life.  In a child fraught with chaos and hurt, it as a seed that was planted that would show me one day how to do it different…living that is!

Specifically, there were two times in my childhood that provided me with the kind of insight that has carried me into my adult life.  One came from the period where my parents made friends with two families, the Reinharts and the Donats, that showed us some happy times surrounded by families who gave love freely.  It was a short period as most of my parent's friendships didn’t last too long, but still provided us a couple of summers that were full of fun and carefree days of joyful gatherings and childhood friendships.   For me, the Donat family has always carried a special place in my heart. First, their son, gave me my first ever kiss.  A girl just never forgets that!  But the family was full of life, love, and generosity.   I still can see Mrs. Donat making her homemade spaghetti sauce.  It was an all day process.  Tasting, testing, adding a pinch of this and a pinch of that.  I was fascinated by the process and recognized even at that age how much love and pride went into her sauce.  And the sauce?  I will tell you I have spent a lifetime searching for the flavor I remember from that time.  I remember the family being close, connected, and generous with each other.  When their friendship parted from my parents, it was a sad time for me.  I missed the fun that we experienced when they were around.

The other time was when I met Paul Leuthe’s family from Milwaukee.  They were a loving Catholic family and although Paul and I “liked” each other, it was his family and the love they displayed for each other that drew me in.  They are the reason I became Catholic.  I can still remember a weekend visit, surrounded by a table full of kids, waiting until midnight so they could order a pizza with sausage…a meatless Friday ritual.  They would invite me to attend church with them on Sunday and I found myself filled with the emotion of the service.  Once I graduated from high school and had a job working for the Navy, I would pass by St. Gilbert’s in Grayslake, Illinois, on my way home. I started attending Sunday Mass and then one day while driving home I pulled in, knocked on the rectory door, and announced to Father Laske that I wanted to convert.

“Getting married?” he asked. 

“No,” I responded.  “I just want to become Catholic.”

Both of these families showed me by their living, that there could be joy in sitting around a table, having discussions, playing games, and sharing.  Both of these families provided a peek into the kind of life I wanted to create for myself when I became an adult.  I got lucky.  I met a man who provided just that for me, so when I left Illinois at age 19, I never looked back.

Facebook has provided me an opportunity to say thank you (at least to one of these families), for showing me the possibility of living a loving life! 

Thank you!

PURLOIN OF THE PRIVY

So when you hang out with two old educators you pick up a different take on life in the Paupack neighborhood.   

When I visit my friend, I am surrounded by bucolic surroundings, with deer, bear, and the sounds of birds permeating my every core!  Who would think that the excitement in the neighborhood would be the purloining of the privy!  

The phone rang.  

“Someone purloined the privy!”  

“What?  The privy?”

“Yes, I saw them load it in the truck.”

“Call the neighbor and see what he knows.”

A few minutes later, after a call to the neighbor the phone rang again.  

“He’s not there so I didn’t find out anything.  We will wait until he gets back then I’ll check.”

So two little old ladies, sitting on the front porch watching the purloining of the privy…not knowing what to do, trying to figure out from a distance what is going on in the neighborhood wait for their friend's return to see if he knows the scoop on the privy.

I could only sit and giggle at the conversation between these two old friends.  

Coming home from a trip to the grocery store we hear the beep of the telephone message machine.  My friend goes to the phone and hears, “Harry is in jail.”  She hangs up.  Audrey calls her old friend and says, “Coffee’s on, pie cut, come down and tell me everything!”

“I’m not wearing my bra,” Tempe says.

“No one cares, just come over the way you are!”

So now we are all hanging out over coffee, pie, and the stories of police, gunshots, and road chases. 

“Things are just not the same as they use to be,” they lament.  

“Remember when the neighbor first moved in and I went to the door with flowers and some home baked goods and a welcome to the neighborhood?” Audrey asked.

“Yes, then we found out he was a thief!”  

Both robustly laughing at the memories of a neighborhood in transition, one gets the sense that these two are the last caretakers in their community.  

As I watch my friend prepare to leave her home and move out with her son in Wisconsin, I can’t help but wonder if she is not going to miss this life in Paupack and the old friends who can still make her feel young!

By the way, the privy was not purloined.  It was being repaired.  It took days to figure out, but it kept the two old friends on the lookout.  

Just keeping the neighborhood safe!

BREATHE, IT IS JUST A BAD DAY, NOT A BAD LIFE

Not a bad life!

When someone asks me how I would describe my life, I always respond it has been great!  

“Great?”, a friend recently asked me.  “How can you say that?  I know your history, and I cannot understand how you can consider it great,” she went on.

How do I explain that for me, life started when I became an adult.  I discount my childhood.  Without going into detail, let’s just say I was not in control of any portion of my life and there were a lot of hurts.  So much so that even as a small child, I was telling myself that when I grow up I was going to be different.  And I am.

Oh, there was still a journey I had to take to release all the baggage, but I worked at it with determination and surrounded by a person who loved me and gave me room to grow.  You see I knew that if I hung on to the garbage that was filling me, I only cheated myself out of a life that was worth living.  And I not only believed I deserved a chance at a better life, I wanted it and was willing to work for it.

Throughout my writings, I speak of attitude a lot.  That is because I have discovered in my own journey that bad things happen to good people.  I would love to think I could take my experience and teach the world a better way, but instead what I found is that I can be a light for someone else traveling through a dark journey.  I can live in such a way that shows you can overcome the worst of humanity and still carve out a happy place for yourself.  You just have to want it and be willing to work for it…and especially find the courage to let go of the pain.  The last part can be the toughest and scariest part for some, but believe me when I say, if you can find the courage to take responsibility for your own actions, life can be sweet. 

No one’s life is perfect.  Everyone has bad days, shed tears, sink in occasional despair, find they have to walk away from situations or people that bring them down, but creating an attitude of self-determination and the willingness to let go of those things that bring harm to our spirit is a gift to yourself.

A friend once said to me, “A negative mind will never give you a positive life.”  I found that to be true.  Thinking that way does not make one delusional.  On the contrary, I find that when I look for the good in everyone, see the sunshine on a cloudy day, make the best of any situation, and keep my expectations for life in check, then I am not only better off, I feel happier too.  

In the end, is that not what we all want out of life?  Carving out that personal corner of the world where we can linger in peace, harmony, not surrounding ourselves with “things” but instead surrounding ourselves with people who bring light to our life and the wisdom to know when to let go of those that don’t.  This for me is what feeds me the joy in living.  This for me is what carries me forward.  

I’ll leave you with two of favorite quotes.  

“Don’t look back.  You are not going that way.” 

and 

“The three “C’s” in life are:

Choice, Chance, Change.

You must make the Choice,

To Take the Chance,

If you want anything in

Life to Change.”

LIFE IS A BEAUTIFUL RIDE

I am 70.  Seven…zero…70!  I use to think that 70 was ancient and one time believed I might not make this age.  But here I am.  Do you ever meet someone your age and find yourself asking, “Do I look that old?”  What is being “old” mean?  Is it how you look…how you feel…a combination of both?  As I have entered this stage of my life I have discovered a lot about aging.  Surviving it is a matter of attitude and good health.

There is a song “Hello In There” more recently made famous by Bette Midler, written by John Prine, a song about the loneliness of aging. (Do yourself a favor and listen to John Prine’s original version of this song.  I personally enjoy it as much as Bette Midler’s version!)  After I was widowed, I felt that loneliness.  Living 45 years as a partner in life but now feeling lost, alone and not part of anything and not wanting to lean to heavily on my children’s lives and disrupt their busy schedules, I became determined to find my way in this stage of my life.  I reached back to that young spirited Marlene who ventured out into adulthood without a worry about anything that might go wrong.

It took awhile for me to find her, but I did. It was important to me, especially as a woman, to find my own way and to find joy in it.  I have watched others walk this walk and have witnessed that the agony of being alone left them wanting and eventually settling in to wait their turn to die.

There was no way I was doing that.  First I have good health and experience to know and recognize that good health is nothing to take for granted, I appreciate what a gift that is.  Second, I had spent a life giving so much to others, that I realized this could be my time to discover and do the things I have always wanted to do but no time to do them.

The journey these last five years has been challenging at times.  But I never gave up.  I traveled alone when I could not find someone interested in going with me.  I kept busy by volunteering at doing things I found fun.  I kept myself open to meeting new people.  I took classes to learn about something I was curious about.  All these things that I did when I was 19 and starting my young adult life.

I have enjoyed my days and made many new friends, challenged myself to try things I have never tried before and found the courage to step outside the “box” and learn and do things not “usual” for my age (at least that is what I have been told!)


Yet, even with this spirit of living life to the fullest, and all the good things that I have discovered, that moment when you close the door to that good time and head home is still a reminder that I still stand alone.  Although it can bring an ache of emptiness I am lucky that it does pass and a new day begins.

Living life as an “aged” person means accepting what life has dealt me, keep moving and being open to new experiences, meeting new people, not being afraid to step up or out, having the wisdom to live in the moment and find joy where I stand, all keeps me going forward and being glad for the opportunity to enjoy another day.